I had six guests aboard the pontoon today, and just four hours to fish, with the last two hours of the incoming tide. Good high water. Then that "dead tide"; the quiet time between changes of direction in the current. I've heard that particular time is not as favorable to fishing in general, but not so today! We played a half dozen 17 to 18 inch trout (both speckled and silver). Had two good eating size sharks and one foot long flounder. All of them in about 45 minutes. It was a very active 45 minutes!
The day had started out real slow, had to move twice before the first fish was caught. Looking through my binoculars toward a favorite redfish spot, saw another boat fishing close enough to it that I didn't want to move in and crowd them; we'll go back later. Place has some great redfish habitat with oyster bars and grass and sand. I can usually pick a few out of there on a good day. Seems like a lot of time we have to release them, because they're too big...27" or more. The last three weeks had one at 28 ½ and another at jut over 29 inches.
We end up on the east side of Seahorse Key in about 8 feet of water...2 small trout and a ladyfish. Even my cat doesn't want a ladyfish!
Suddenly Jim up on the front of the bow starts pulling back on his rod, and the reel's screaming out. Lots of tension on the rod and the fisherman, Jim can barely turn it or slow it down. It's such a big critter that I have to weight anchor and follow the thing around and ease the pressure on gear and fisherman. I putt along following Jim's rod tip when the critter came up some, swirling and splashing, flashing a fin or a pale under belly. Jim yells out "it's a huge ray". (I was hoping for a cobia, or maybe wishing is more like it). That beast was 3 ½ or feet across the top with a big, long tail. The painful barb would have to be at least five inches long, and could probably run right through your hand. Just then the ray cut himself off on the bottom of the metal pontoons. Quite an adventure for Jim!
We motored out to Snake Key next and anchored in 10 -12 feet of eater. Grass and sand all around with small depressions and elevations scattered across the otherwise level bottom. This was where that dead tide hit us and we hooked those nice trout.
About 1:30 it was getting pretty hot and we were all satisfied with the day's excursion into the fish-filled waters off Cedar Key. The folks gave me the biggest shark and one of the trout, gonna eat em' both tomorrow. Gonna barbecue that shark.
Let's fish...Cap'n Dan | 