It's the dawn of a new week. Dan Larmor and his good friend Tom Ratliff were in from White Lake, Michigan, for a day of snook fishing, and a day of tarpon fishing. Although the wind was east at 10 knots that morning, there had been storms well offshore that kicked up the surf overnight. In addition to the rough surf, the water was so full of some kind of slimy, stringy green stuff that we couldn't keep our baits clean long enough to entice a fish to eat. It's hard to have a good time when you can't stand up, anyway, so I moved us inside onto flat waters. So much for Plan A!
Plan B was to fish Blind Pass for snook. There were only two problems; the snook either weren't there, or they wouldn't eat, and to complicate matters, my trolling motor battery went dead and the bait pump for the from well burned up! Damn! I moved us to the flats, and positioned the boat on the hole on foot. I'd hoped to find lots of reds here, but they weren't. I'd no more than gotten the boat positioned, and the wind shifted about 45 degrees. This wasn't going to be fun without a trolling motor. So much for Plan C. Plan D was to move to a flat about a mile away and try to chum up the redfish. I moved onto the flat with the big motor and drifted into position on the wind. I started tossing shiners with my bait-bat. It wasn't long before I saw the first pop on a shiner, and I felt sure I had them going. We pitched tail hooked shiners as far as we could, and they were quickly eaten. The bite was on! Dan and Tom caught at least 16 big reds, including one of the largest I've seen caught in the shallows here. It was a whopping 20 plus pounds. I say that because my scale wasn't big enough to accurately measure her weight, but she was huge. They also caught 4 snook. So, in spite of a number of problems, we managed to pull off a great morning of fishing.
Our tarpon endeavor was not so lucky. A stong east wind had the waters where most of the tarpon had been holding very rough, and filthy with the same green slime. As we worked our way north, stopping and looking, we saw no less than nine free jumping tarpon as we went, but never found a school we could fish. We went all the way to the north of Bokelia without finding fish. Dan really wanted to bag a tarpon, and has done several tarpon trips without bringing one to the boat. This would not be the day, either. I think Dan understood and accepted the pros and cons of tarpon fishing.
Tuesday, Russ Hubbard, of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, was back for the first time in a while with his eight year old son David, and Will O'Leary, a friend from Georgia. The plan was, of course, to fish the many snook on the outside, and put Russ and crew on lots of snook. Unfortunately, we had a 15 knot wind out of the southeast, which will come right up the beach and make things real sloppy. It didn't take long before Will was laying down on the rear deck. He said he was OK, just feeling a little queasy, but shortly afterward he was hurling off the port side. Seasickness is the pits. You think you're going to have to die to get better, and you don't even care if you do. I immediately pulled anchor and headed inside for flat water. Amazingly, as soon as we got inside to calm water, Will turned from green back to a healthy pink color. The problem with having to go inside is that all the fish are on the outside, and we had a tough time trying to find and fish that would play. Our weather is still goofy, with windy mornings and absolutely no rain. I think the water on the flats is super-heating and its making fishing in the shallows very tough. Lately, I'm not finding fish anywhere that I'd normally be finding them. So, we wound up the day with 12 or so snook, a 19 inch redfish, and 3 trout; nothing like it could have been if we'd been able to stay outside.
After a couple of scheduled days off to take care of some business and upgrade one of my computers, I met my old friend Tom Ross and his friend Capt. Tom Larkin. We were expecting to be able to out and shoot for a new two angler record of snook caught in a morning, but that was not to be. The wind was still coming out of the southeast, and I knew the beach would be bumpy. I also knew the beach was covered with some kind of slimy green seaweed that was making it almost unfishable. Capt. Mark was doing another large party for me in BarHopp'R II that morning, and was going to attempt to fish the beach. I just couldn't see it happening, and elected to try to find snook inside Blind Pass. That turned out to be a good decision, as we weren't there long when several boats came in from outside tossing dead shiners as they went. Mark finally came in and said he'd lost all but a couple dozen of his baits. I had plenty, so I loaded him back up. We fished our way out of the pass, catching a few fish, and seeing many that wouldn't eat, and worked our way across the Sound. Tom and Tom finished with 2 trout, a jack crevalle, a catfish, and 6 or 7 snook. Mark's crew did about the same with one more angler aboard. Sorry Tom, hopefully things will straighten out soon.
It was a tough week. A high pressure area over the Gulf gave us winds
we shouldn't be seeing this time of year and record heat, bait was nearly
impossible to keep alive in the Gulf, and there was so much junk in the
water you couldn't fish. There doesn't appear to be any change in sight
for the coming week, and we'll have the added element of miserable tides
thrown in just to make it interesting. It will be an even tougher week!