Post by Rockyraccoon on Dec 19, 2008 14:12:06 GMT -5
My season finally wrapped up last week and I was more than ready for some time off. One of the main reasons I was ready for time off was to go fishing. It's funny saying that I wanted time off from fishing to go fishing, but that was the case.
My father lives in Cross City Florida and has now for about 15 years.15 years ago, I moved to Cross City to help him settle in and get his business rolling. That ordeal took 4 yeas and I must say that I was happy to leave Florida in my rearview and head home to the mountains.
After several years I determined that Florida could again be a good place to visit on occasion, especially seeing how Dad loves it so down there. I've made several trips down to see him over the past 10 years or so, and we figured out that calling it a fishing trip always sounded better than family reunion. So the time had come for our "fishing trip".
Mark Scarborough, one of the guides I work with, has accompanied me on the past two trips. It's a nice change for us to fish salt and it's also nice having other friends who have the flexible schedule to just take off for four days. It's also good to have a copilot for the trip. The drive down was close to 9 hours, but we passed the time away by playing "boat". You know, if you see a boat being towed......you call out "boat" and you get credit for it. He ended up on top as we pulled into Cross City. Overall we spotted 26 boats in transit while on our drive from TN to FL. He beat me by 3.........but I was driving.
Anyway, the reunion, um.....fishing trip was great. We were blessed with three wonderful days of weather. Mostly sunny with lows in the upper 50's and highs near 80. The tide schedule really hurt our fishing though. My dad is 68 and can't bear the thought of not working, so he still keeps a job to give him something to do. Unfortunately his job has him out late into the early morning hours. SO our morning start times were not the best.
Low tide fell right in the middle of the day for the first two days, and that is right when we were launching. So the first two days, we played "drag boat" a lot as we tried to work the tidal creeks. It was a pain, but we did manage some fish. Not many, but some.
Day two was much like the first day, except we found a nice flat late in the afternoon as the tide started rolling back in. Mullet were leaping everywhere and as far as the eye could see. We started drifting in with the tide, and as we drifted, we'd spot the occasional redfish. This was my favorite part of the trip. During my 30 minutes on the bow, I spotted 8 redfish, was in range to cast to 5 of them, spooked two of them on the cast, overcasted one, was able to land two cast far enough in front the redfish to not spook them, and both of them took looks at my fly. Neither ate. But d**n it was exciting. I loved it. I only made five cast, and had no success, but it was fun.
When mark got on the bow, he went the opposite direction of me. He tied on a lightweight clouser and made blind casts with it, working it back slowly as the boat drifted. He picked up and landed our best fish of the trip. A 22" Speckled Sea Trout.
Mark with his trout and my dad looking on.
I also got a few nice shots of the sunset from the second day.
This was the best picture of the sunsets.
Day three, our last day of fishing before the long haul home, was our best day on the water. Dad got home a little earlier allowing him a little more sleep and also an earlier start. We got on the water early enough to beat the falling tide, allowing us to get into the creeks before the tide bottomed out.
The fishing was excellent for the day as Mark and I caught a whole lot of keeper sized (15 -20") speckled sea trout. All of our fish were caught with clousers, chartreuse clousers. Dad and Terrell also caught a lot of fish, they used live shrimp though. However, the redfish were much more into the live shrimp as Terrell caught our biggest red of the trip.
just over 21".
Overall, we estimated boating around 50 "specks" and about 10 redfish (all but two were pups and out of the slot) for the day. We enjoyed a few places we could wade around during the day, and it felt nice to wet wade in the cool waters. Here's a morning shot of Mark as he out ran me to the first wading hole.
He beat me to the hole, but he caught no fish there,
One of the highlights of the trip was the dolphins. They were everywhere. We even had a few come along side the boat to check us out. I couldn't get to my camera quick enough to get a shot of them, however, I did get a short video clip of a group of dolphins wearing out the mullet. It was really cool.
Overall, the fishing trip was a lot of fun and spending time with dad was priceless as usual. Last picture is of Mark after we finished up and were motoring home. His camera took a dunking and I've not got any of the pictures he took. Maybe it will heal with drying out.
I already can't wait until next year.
My father lives in Cross City Florida and has now for about 15 years.15 years ago, I moved to Cross City to help him settle in and get his business rolling. That ordeal took 4 yeas and I must say that I was happy to leave Florida in my rearview and head home to the mountains.
After several years I determined that Florida could again be a good place to visit on occasion, especially seeing how Dad loves it so down there. I've made several trips down to see him over the past 10 years or so, and we figured out that calling it a fishing trip always sounded better than family reunion. So the time had come for our "fishing trip".
Mark Scarborough, one of the guides I work with, has accompanied me on the past two trips. It's a nice change for us to fish salt and it's also nice having other friends who have the flexible schedule to just take off for four days. It's also good to have a copilot for the trip. The drive down was close to 9 hours, but we passed the time away by playing "boat". You know, if you see a boat being towed......you call out "boat" and you get credit for it. He ended up on top as we pulled into Cross City. Overall we spotted 26 boats in transit while on our drive from TN to FL. He beat me by 3.........but I was driving.
Anyway, the reunion, um.....fishing trip was great. We were blessed with three wonderful days of weather. Mostly sunny with lows in the upper 50's and highs near 80. The tide schedule really hurt our fishing though. My dad is 68 and can't bear the thought of not working, so he still keeps a job to give him something to do. Unfortunately his job has him out late into the early morning hours. SO our morning start times were not the best.
Low tide fell right in the middle of the day for the first two days, and that is right when we were launching. So the first two days, we played "drag boat" a lot as we tried to work the tidal creeks. It was a pain, but we did manage some fish. Not many, but some.
Day two was much like the first day, except we found a nice flat late in the afternoon as the tide started rolling back in. Mullet were leaping everywhere and as far as the eye could see. We started drifting in with the tide, and as we drifted, we'd spot the occasional redfish. This was my favorite part of the trip. During my 30 minutes on the bow, I spotted 8 redfish, was in range to cast to 5 of them, spooked two of them on the cast, overcasted one, was able to land two cast far enough in front the redfish to not spook them, and both of them took looks at my fly. Neither ate. But d**n it was exciting. I loved it. I only made five cast, and had no success, but it was fun.
When mark got on the bow, he went the opposite direction of me. He tied on a lightweight clouser and made blind casts with it, working it back slowly as the boat drifted. He picked up and landed our best fish of the trip. A 22" Speckled Sea Trout.
Mark with his trout and my dad looking on.
I also got a few nice shots of the sunset from the second day.
This was the best picture of the sunsets.
Day three, our last day of fishing before the long haul home, was our best day on the water. Dad got home a little earlier allowing him a little more sleep and also an earlier start. We got on the water early enough to beat the falling tide, allowing us to get into the creeks before the tide bottomed out.
The fishing was excellent for the day as Mark and I caught a whole lot of keeper sized (15 -20") speckled sea trout. All of our fish were caught with clousers, chartreuse clousers. Dad and Terrell also caught a lot of fish, they used live shrimp though. However, the redfish were much more into the live shrimp as Terrell caught our biggest red of the trip.
just over 21".
Overall, we estimated boating around 50 "specks" and about 10 redfish (all but two were pups and out of the slot) for the day. We enjoyed a few places we could wade around during the day, and it felt nice to wet wade in the cool waters. Here's a morning shot of Mark as he out ran me to the first wading hole.
He beat me to the hole, but he caught no fish there,
One of the highlights of the trip was the dolphins. They were everywhere. We even had a few come along side the boat to check us out. I couldn't get to my camera quick enough to get a shot of them, however, I did get a short video clip of a group of dolphins wearing out the mullet. It was really cool.
Overall, the fishing trip was a lot of fun and spending time with dad was priceless as usual. Last picture is of Mark after we finished up and were motoring home. His camera took a dunking and I've not got any of the pictures he took. Maybe it will heal with drying out.
I already can't wait until next year.