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The weather and slow business combined once again to make for an abbreviated work week. We had a tropical low pressure causing copious amounts of rain over the weekend, Monday and into Tuesday. I took the opportunity to take BarHopp'R II up to Talon so they could begin stripping engine, jackplate, etc., in preparation for the new hull.
Bill Dean and his son Mark, of Marrietta, Georgia, were the first up on Wednesday, after not having been on the water in nearly a week because of the weather. I, as well as the other few guides who were working, didn't know what to expect, I'm sure. Most of the bait had dried up at Picnic Island, and only tiny net pluggers remained, along with thousands of little pinfish. I ran on up to Chino Island, and we found good bait there, although it wasn't thick. I'm sure all the fresh water coming out of the river had affected the bait.
The front had passed bringing behind it a pretty strong easterly wind, but the biggest factor affecting the fishing was the tide. We had a full week of poor tide, just barely crawling in the outgoing direction each morning. For all intents and purposes, there was no tidal current to speak of, and when you have no moving water, you tend to have no eating fish. In this case, they had been eating on the good tide during the night. We fished in the Sanctuary, primarily because I knew that what little bit of water movement we had would be exaggerated some in the creeks and cuts, giving us our best chance at a bite short of fighting the crowds in the passes. We fished hard, and Bill and Mark caught a keeper redfish, 3 trout, a snapper, and had 3 snook to the boat, but not in the boat! We counted 'em since we had 'em about to the leader, and they had to go back, anyway. So, the boys got their Slam, at least.
By comparison, Thursday made Wednesday look like a banner day for my friend Tom Terranova and his gang of brothers and out-laws. We had 5 guys and a gal, and I had commissioned Capt. John Shearer as the second boat. We had three anglers each. The day started on a sour note for John as he had a blowout on his trailer coming in to the ramp, and was delayed a few minutes. I headed straight to Chino Island, expecting to find the nice bait I had caught the day before. Not so! It was nowhere to be found. I chummed several areas, as did John. Not the first shiner. I headed over to the "hump", which is another place where bait should be this time of year, but the result was the same. Nothing but pinfish.
Finally, in frustration, and knowing we were missing most of the moving part of the tide as it first started out, I suggested to Tom that we take our pinfish and try to catch some redfish on the flats while the water was still up. Everyone was in agreement, and we dashed to the nearest flat. It took a while, but we finally got several good redfish pickups, but it had been a year since the boys were here and caught a bunch of reds with me, and they were understandable rusty at our technique of hooksetting. They missed all the hits. We did catch one nice snook on the cut bait.
As the water receded from the flat, we headed to several other areas looking for redfish action, but the only thing we caught were catfish, both hardheads and gafftop. Finally, with the water dead still, I suggested we head to the Waterfront Restaurant to recover with a great meal and swap lies of the fish we almost caught. Everyone was in agreement. We had a great time at the Waterfront talking about the morning's near misses, and about the trip last year. Tom has now seen the fishing good, and seen it about as bad as it can be. I hope next year I can put him on one of those 30 - 40 redfish days.
That was it for the week. A tough one it was. I think it may be time to start running up the river in the morning to catch ladyfish. It's not only fun for everyone and gives them a chance to get familiar with the equipment, but it puts great redfish bait in the boat.
I'll be keeping my readers posted with the progress of the F-16, and will attempt to get some pictures of my boat in various stages of it's construction onto the site. All of you folks who have trips coming up in the fall are in for a treat! Below are some thumbnails you may click to view the full size picture of the new ultra wide ride Talon F-16.
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