Anyone Fishing?

[colonialc19]

I decided to do some fishing this afternoon after I finished all my running around on the coast. Fishing was lousy. No one was catching much, including me. I caught a croaker, a sea robin and this beauty,

That's right, 4 inches. How this little fish bit my hook I don't know, but I think this explains what was stealing my bait.

Nort,
That thing looks like a baby cobia

[nort]

It was a little sail cat. The long fins are a little worse for wear.

[Cracker Larry]

Gaff Topsail catfish Very good cobia bait.

[gk108]

Bay scallops are thick around St. Marks, Fl.

I collected the limit (1 pint of meat) in about 45 minutes.

[TomW]

Your killing me Gary, we can't even collect them in NC the last I knew. ENJOY

Tom

[gk108]

We stayed up the river quite a ways, so my little boat got a nice workout. Here's a Google map with some markers:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... e&t=h&z=12

[Cracker Larry]

I just returned last night from a fishing trip with Richard (Aripeka Angler) that was very enjoyable. We made a 24 hour trip and ran about 70 miles offshore in the Gulf. Richard's 27 Pursuit made for a fast and comfortable ride and we were blessed by 2 days of flat seas. His twin 200 Yamahas are so quiet you could hear the bait pump running over the 2 engines at WOT.

We spent the evening before we left catching bait and collected about 50 nice little bait fish for the trip.

Richard took us to an amazing location to anchor up for the night. It was an underground freshwater spring running out from a large cave in the middle of the gulf in 125 feet of water. Sort of like King Spring in Crystal River, but 50 miles offshore. The sea life around the spring was incredible, water was clear blue with about 100' visability, and there were huge schools of amberjacks, cobias, kings, and sharks, lots and lots of sharks swimming around the boat. The surface was literally boiling with feeding activity, which we added to with a chum bag.

My first bait in the water resulted in a hook up with a smoker kingfish, but sadly I only landed a head, a very large head that weighed about 15 pounds. We managed to salvage 5 lbs of meat from it anyway. Should have taken a picture of that head. Then Richard hooked up with a nice AJ about 30 lbs. and managed to get it to the boat whole. After that, every fish we hooked we had to race the sharks to get it in the boat. They were actually jumping out of the water at boat side to eat our fish, and we averaged about 1 for 3 with successful landings.

We ended up with a limit of snapper in the boat and about 2 limits fed to the sharks. I really wanted to take my morning swim, but discretion kept me from even putting my hands in the water I'll usually swim with the fish, but not here.

Richard tried to set a light tackle record and baited up a 10 lb. bream rod with a live pinfish. Whatever he hooked, he had it on for over an hour before it broke off.

And we had a few minutes of real excitement when a large ship seemed to intentionally try to run us down around midnight. Looked to me like a RORO car carrier which altered course straight for us and got closer at an alarming rate We had to make an emergency anchor haul and get the hell out of the way. You've never seen a big plow anchor with a lot of chain come in a boat so fast. Wow, that was scary

All in all a great trip with great folks. For some reason I never even took a picture

Thanks again Richard

[TomW]

Wow Larry and Richard sounds like a very exciting and eventful trip Glad the weather stayed night for you all.

Tom

[Aripeka Angler]

Larry, I am glad you had a good time. Jim called me today and said he had a blast as well. I guess you could say it was quality sleep deprivation.

The event with the freighter was like a twilight zone experience. You have to wonder how a ship the size of a 50 story building could get that close to a small boat that is nowhere near a shipping lane and 50 miles offshore It was good to have an experienced crew with me to help I am thinking as you said that maybe he was asleep at the wheel. The main thing I am glad of is that we made it out of there safely and didn't have to get in the water with those damn sharks. There must have been thousands of them.


AA

[Cracker Larry]

There must have been thousands of them.

Thousands would be a conservative number. I've never seen any more in any one place in any of my travels. There were a serious amount of sharks. Not only that, but they were continuously worked up and surface feeding in frenzies, not just lazily cruising about. They did put on quite a show.

I'm sure that fishing in that hole would be world class quality in the seasons that the the sharks aren't there.

Yes, that ship was a very erie experience. It appeared from nowhere abeam and running parallel to us about 5 miles off. Then it turned directly at us and grew in size at an alarming rate . We quickly discussed pulling the anchor, then discussed cutting it loose. I think Jim pulled it almost quicker than I could have cut it I don't think 5 minutes passed from the time we first saw the ship until we scrambled, and 10 minutes later it was completely hull down and gone. Very weird. Also glad the fog I slept through waited until after the ship experience

It was good to have an experienced crew with me to help

It was also good to have an experienced Capt. who immediately recognized the gravity of the situation and made the right calls. I'll go on a boat with you anywhere