5/18 - Late day trip for the "Jet Set"
Had Dave S. on board today, only after I hit the water at 8am by myself. I went up in a creek hardly no one ever goes in anymore (GOOD!) The tide was flooding big time with the 25 knot ENE winds pushing the water. It's a creek area I grew up on. First fishing it in my ole 14' Aluma-Craft with my dad, and then later in my 17' Carolina Skiff, ands 22' Bay Boats. I may not be able to get up in this creek at low tide with my killer 26' boat with an 18 degree deadrise. But I certainly can on a flooding tide. And did with ease. Damn, what a great boat!
My very 1st drift of my float I had a beautiful 20 inch Speck (see photo). And before the incoming tide quit, I had 5 more, a small Flounder and a Bluefish. Not Bad I thought.
Then, I had to pick up Dave S. at noon......so I thought. But this JET SET Dentist from New England called and said, "My plane is running late. I'll call ya when I get to Jax. (coming from NY) and I'll hop a taxi and come straight to the boat ramp."
Unfortunately for me that meant waiting a while. So I went back to the boat ramp. Tied off in the almost Gale Force wind conditions, popped open my big comfy deck chair, and took a nap!When you have the room for big comfy fold out deck chairs. They come in very handy for occasions like this.
(have I mentioned how much room I have in my BlackLab Marine boat lately?)
At 2:30pm Dave's Taxi pulls up and we take off for some late day fishing. THIS GUY WANTED TO FISH AND BAD! I head as far as I can from the Mayport area. The wind is kickin' like no tomorrow. This wind is really getting old, by the way.
And we had a good time. Dave catches a nice Trout on the first "fish-able" spot in the first few minutes. Which was a good thing. Proves that even in a "gale", I know what I'm doing.
So we end up with probably 10 Trout to 19 inches, 2 Black Drum, and too prove my point about salinity in the St. Johns River...Dave then catches a small POMPANO!
This Pompano came from so far down river, that we can almost see the Jacksonville sky-line!
This easterly over 20 knot daily wind, and lack of rain has made the St. Johns River nothing but an extension of the Atlantic Ocean. It's NOT a river....at least not where I fish. The wind did finally die around 7:00 pm as we headed in to clean fish, and meet Dave's son for a pick-up.
It was on very L-O-N-G day, since I went out by myself at 8am and was up at 6am. Didn't plan on it being that long. I finally ate my first morsel of food all day at 10:00 pm. I was starving! Then I hit the sack.
And believe it or not I had a dream that I fished all summer and there was not one puff of wind.
Yeah.......you can certainly tell that was a DREAM!
Capt Dave Sipler's Sport Fishing
WWW.CAPTDAVES.COM
904-642-9546
26' custom plate alloy center console
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