Trout & Tailers

This weekend was filled with company, broken fences from fallen trees, and a laundry list of other events. BUT, somehow Saturday brought us a short window about midday with no kiddies. Hmmmm, have a couple of choices here.  Time to get down to some hard core fishing! Michelle and I were going to find us some low water reds stuck back in the creek. Only the creeks were now just muddy beaches with a foot of negative low kicked out further with some pretty stiff winds.  Plan B, reds on the edges of bigger water.  We got in close for some sight fishing and saw about 6 good ones, but the wind and dirty water made it tough to get shots until we about ran them over.  Plan C, back off and make long cast in the cleanest stuff we could find.  With the water almost dead still we started getting bit. Only these drum were not red. Specks, and good ones at that. We caught a dozen and the bite quit. Of course Michelle ends up with the bigger ones…again. All fish were between 15 and 20 inches. All caught on 3” white Gulp! shrimp.

Enter Sunday morning after a wonderful evening with my sweetie, friends, good music, and etc. I wake up to the sound of Daniel banging the keyboard in search of that elusive Lego set. Now the light bulb goes off in my head. I grab Daniel and tell him if he will sneak out with me we will have about 30 min of a small flood tide window and then I will run him to Target for that Lego something or other. I was skeptical with westerly’s not letting the tide get up on a borderline a.m. flood anyway. One rod, one weedless weighted hook, one white gulp shrimp. We fly to the marina, crank the Yammy and fly to a flat. We hit the spartina grass running, and see three way off in the back. Walking quickly, the tails disappear. Now the tide is about to back out and here comes one happy red bulldozing thru the grass right in front of us. At this point it’s pretty much just dropping the shrimp in front of him. Sure enough he swims right to it and never stopping sucks it in. Fish on little man Dan! One cast, one fish and back to the hill…I mean Target.

 All fish released for karma!

 

Sharkin and table fare...

Just wanted to share a couple great trips from last week where the mission was to pull on something that pulled back.  David and his sons Jay, Morgan & Matthew had a great day sharking with a mix of bonnetheads, blacktips, atlantic sharpnose and a true 6 ft. monster.  At first I thought the big shark was a bull, but under closer inspection local shark expert Capt. Brooks Good deemed it to be a sandbar shark.  This beast pulled us down the beach for close to a mile, and when we pulled the 7/0 7766D Mustad hook out it looked more like a dart than a hook.  We planned to flounder fish at the end of the trip, but the shark had other plans.  We still managed 15 minutes flattie fishing and the fellas stuck some good ones for dinner.

When Jason and his son Henry showed up at the dock for another shark trip, I knew I was in trouble.  Henry pretty much told me he was the man and was a mission.  This little dude was a fishing machine.  Henry kept score on every fish caught.  I think at the end of the day, it was Henry- 14, Dad- 8 and Capt. Tim-0.  My new name, from Henry, was Mr. Doughnut, as I couldn’t catch “doodely”.  Henry was crowned grand champion, and got to captain the boat home. 

I would also like to mention that we were sharking for table fare.  I know a lot of folks scoff at the idea of eating shark, but the spinners, blacktips and sharpnose in the 2-3 ft range make for some really fine eating.  The key is to gut the sharks immediately and get them on ice.  While many folks steak them out, I prefer to filet them.  The filets are firm, white and have very little if any red in them.  They are delicious grilled or fried.  Thanks gang for a couple awesome days of getting our strings stretched!