New Moon, Hot Days, Good Fishing 7/30, 7/31 & 8/1/11

Had a great time these past few days with some old friends and new ones too!  Fished Saturday with my good buddy Lawrence, his son Vincent & his Dad George.  This was one of the toughest days, although we got on a pretty good Flounder bite, caught a few decent Trout and the Shark bite held up as usual this time of year.  I'm sure many of you have caught a Bonnethead record and didn't even know it, as 24 lbs is at the top.  Well, George hooked one (on the lightest tackle of course) that pushed 30 lbs easily.  The biggest one I've ever seen!  Vincent was one of the most die-hard anglers I've had on the boat in a long time, and ended up catching quite a few fish through shear persistence and sweltering heat.  Thanks Lawrence & crew, I had an awesome time!

On Sunday, Peter & his son Jeremiah came down from Atlanta to explore the Jekyll area.  They will be on our coast for a few weeks, and have a boat to do some fishing.  These guys are avid fishermen, and fish all across the country and are big fans of artificials, like myself.  Ten year old Jeremiah is a child prodigy in the fishing arena.  This kid grabbed up the lip diver, as did Peter, and immediately got into fish.  This was one of the better Trout bites I've been on this summer, as these guys came just short of 15 keeper Trout.  These were all keepers, with the exception of one short fish, and inluded 3 just over 20".  The heat was so bad, and the bite so hot that Peter & Jeremiah both jumped into the river at noon.  Should've taken a picture of that!  Peter-good luck with Jeremiah's fishing addiction!  The kid's a natural!

Headed out today a little less than optimistic with extremely high tides, nearly 3" of rain last night and the water looking like chocolate milk.  We had Don and his sons Keith (who is about to be married this weekend) and Ken (a rising Junior at West Point, and pitcher on their Baseball team).  They were together for a boys weekend before Keith gets hitched and Ken heads back to school.  Amazingly enough the day started off pretty good as the corks went under for a quick Trout bite.  Trying to mix it up as best as possible we moved on to find the Flounder. Although Keith & Ken had been away from the rods & reels for a while, they picked it back up rather quickly as Dad, Keith & Ken all got a Flounder pretty quickly.  Keith & Ken went on to double up on Flounder right after that.  Headed out to the sound for a little Shark fishing and although some super-sized Rays showed up we did manage a few decent Blacktips and another big Bonnie.  Heading back to the Marina we made a few more casts with the corks and ran into the school of poor-man's tarpon (aka the Ladyfish) which was pretty cool as you know how balistic these fish can get.  Thanks Don, you've got two amazing sons to be very proud of!