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What began as a fairly busy week quickly degenerated to a week of two trips. In addition, the two days that I did get to work cold fronts had all but shut down even the trout fishing. Of course, tide were also a factor, and for most of the week, especially early in the week, they were poor.
My dear friend Dr. John Hitt was over to his condo for some much needed R & R, and we had Monday and Tuesday on the calendar to do John's favorite thing; chase trout! Our plans were immediately dampened when as we left his marina basin, we ran into a wall of fog over the river that wasn't obvious from his protected dock. It was eight o'clock. We didn't leave the mouth of the channel to his dock until nearly nine thirty. We had missed the best part of a very poor tide.
We headed into the Sound and to my favorite big trout area where we were greeted with tight lips. On numberous ocassions I could see big trout laid up on the edges, and the fact that we got right on top of them and were able to see them told the story. They didn't want to move for anything. Trout are one of the spookiest fish in our waters. Don't believe it? Ever hear of anyone sightfishing trout? Me either.
John and I fished hard, and had the water foaming from all the pounding it with our jigs. John altered from his favorite white curlytail jig to my Exude RT Slugs in various colors, but all we managed were two nice slot fish, and a dozen or so smaller fish that weren't in the slot. It was lockjaw city, and we couldn't find the key to the city.
As the tide flooded the flats we gave up on the trout and turn our collective attentions to redfish. It didn't take long to find nice fish laid up on the flats, but they were in the same mode. It appeared they were just sunning. At the next stop it was the same thing, I saw plenty of fish and plenty of muds, but no takers. They just weren't interested.
We finally headed home with out tails between our legs with our two keepers. Boy, days like that are certainly humbling. After some conversation, John and I agreed to cancel the Tuesday trip, for it was surely more of the same lockjaw. John and I have the rest of our lives to pick better days on which to fish. That's the nice thing about fishing with local friends who aren't locked into a rigid schedule.
During the week I retrieved the Maverick from Fowler Marine. The flat running off idle problem was as I suspected, a gummed up carburettor from too much sitting and not enough playing. The fuel pump was also ruptured and not functioning properly. While she was there, I had Danny install a water pressure gauge. Of course, no matter what you do to a boat motor it turns sour. Danny found no water pressure after installing the gauge and sender unit. He said that the most common cause of that was no thermostat on the bank of cylinders where the pickup to the gauge is. Sure enough, the thermostat was MIA. God only knows who removed it, or why. I doubt John knows, either. The real shock was the price tag that went with this little thermostat about the size of a quarter; $26.00! Oh, well! I'm happy that I now have a pressure gauge on the Maverick that I am so used to having on all my boats for many years. It's just too bad Danny can't make more than $2.60 on the thermostat!
I didn't have a chance to run the Maverick before my Friday trip with Scott Krepp, and his brother-in-law Ken, but I knew it would run fine. Danny Fowler is very thorough, and very good at what he does, and I don't worry about such things. He's also as nice and polite as they come, and if you're not having your boat maintenance and rigging done there, you are missing the boat!
It was cold that morning, in the low 40's. But the forecast was for clearing skies and warming temps. I told Scott that I expected the fishing would be tough, but boy, I had no idea what was to come. I headed to an area where I knew there were plenty of oursized trout so that presence of fish wouldn't be an issue on this cold and blowing day with a poor tide.
We fished and moved, fished and moved, with stopping the Maverick on the Power Pole on the 20 MPH plus wind seeming somewhat precarious. But, the Power Pole always did its job! But, talk about lockjaw! My God! I thought Monday with John had been tough. Scott and Ken caught three trout all morning long! One was a nice keeper, but.....
Once the water was up enough to have the reds well established on the flats we went to a favorite flat of mine and I pulled out my secret weapon; ladyfish! I also had shrimp in the boat. I put out two rigs with steaked ladyfish, and one rig with a nice handpicked shrimp. The only thing we caught was a white pelican wintering here from Canada. It's the first time I ever saw one of the completely wild birds go after a bait on a line. I guess it was really hungry out there.
At this point it was nearing eleven o'clock, and it had been drizzling on us and blowing like crazy all morning long. We were all socked to our souls, and getting pretty miserable. But, good company had made our trials and tribulations fun in spite of the elements. We elected to toss in the towel, and headed home, wiht a detour at the Waterfront Restaurant for a hot cup of coffee to bring up our core temperatures.
Back at the ramp I told Scott and Ken to put their heads together and pay me whatever they thought was fair and made them happy. It seemed only fair. Scott quickly told me that he knew I had worked hard to put them on fish, and that they were paying me the full fair, and even gave me a nice tip. Now, those are great customers. Thank you Scott and Ken.
I've had any number of readers ask me to share a little more information about these Exude RT Slugs, the Stella reels, and St. Croix Legend Tournament rods I use so successfully, most of the time. So, in lieu of pictures of my customers with trout this week, I've posted pictures of the lures, rods, and reels for those who are interested.
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Hopefully, the cold front that passed on Friday is the last one to push this far south this winter, but somehow I doubt it. If we can just get our water temperature back to 70 degrees, things will begin to light up, especially snook fishing. Can't wait.
If you want to be able to continue to fish Florida waters please follow this link, "Manatee Zones: How You Can Help" and please take the time to become involved, even if you don't live in Florida. Let the politicians know WHY you come to Florida on vacation!
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