30 May 2008

I met Jordan and the guys from APX alarms at 0600 at Navy Point. We headed straight for open water. Snapper was on todays menu, and we wasted no time getting to our mission. Nearshore, mostly public, reefs were our targets. Four stops was all it took to make up a nice box of fish.


The cooler included:
12 Lane Snapper
5 Porgys
3 Mangrove Snapper
1 Red Snapper
1 Scamp

The guys had to be at work by 1230, I'm sure they didn't have much time to spare. Thanks again, fellas, I had a great time.

23-24 May 2008 "The Memorial Weekend Marathon"

David, Stephanie, Steve, and Jan met me at Shoreline Park at 1400 for an afternoon trip in celebration of Steve's birthday. We wanted to get Steve hooked up with a big Redfish, so we headed for the Pass. We were immediately rewarded with bent rods!

The Catfish weren't holding anything back. They were devouring everything we put down. Not what we were looking for, but I think these guys would have had a great time regardless of the species. We boated probably close to a dozen Catfish before moving on in search of redder pastures. Steve didn't know it yet but the sun was about to shine down on him.

David started us off with a nice, if little, Scamp. Then he followed it up with a 12" Gag Grouper...and the clouds parted from over Steve's head. He hooks up big, and catches his first Flounder of the day.


Dinner is served!
A few minutes later Steve connects with another, bigger Flounder. David answers with a small Red Grouper. That gives Dave the three most common Grouper species we catch; Scamp, Gag, and Red Grouper. Again, Steve finds an even bigger Flounder, his best of the trip.


A few Catfish come across our baits among the Flounders and Groupers, keeping everything lively. Somewhere in between all this, the beer cooler ran empty, and the bladders got topped off. The ladies gave me this kinda coy look and asked exactly how far away a "civilized" bathroom was. I reassured them it wasn't far and began heading that way. When everyone was finished using "real" potties, we ended the trip tossing jigs at a couple of docks. Then returned to the ramp, cleaned fish and said our good-byes.

Thanks again David, Stephanie, Steve, and Jan, I had a really good time.

I went home, tidied the boat and waited for Shawn to get home. She had a wedding to photograph this afternoon, and got home just after I finished. It was around 2100 when I arbitrarily mention that I ought to go flip some shrimp under the dock lights and catch some Speckled Trout.

She looks at me and says, "If you want to go right now, I'll go."

Now honestly, how many wives do you know that would say that? Man, my wife kicks ass! Of course, I totally agree, and reload all the stuff I'd just taken out of the boat. By 2200 we're nearing the ramp, ready to go.

We hit probably 6 docks before we found one with fish that wanted to cooperate. We saw fish at nearly every dock, but many of them had seen at least one other fisherman already tonight, if not more. We each caught a couple fish before the wind forced us to move on. A few more docks and we stumble upon an awesome Trout bite. We stayed right there for what turned out to be a LOT longer than it felt. I guess time really does fly when you're catching Trout.



All told, we boated close to 2 dozen Speckled Trout, all of them at least 18" and included 4 over 20", and 5-6 Ladyfish. We released everything we caught. When it dawned on me to look at the clock it was 0200. I was supposed to meet Capt. D.P. at 0530 at Navy Point to go throw top-waters for the early morning Trout bite. Looks like sleep isn't on tonight's menu!

After pulling the boat and getting back to the house I saw that the clock had crept to nearly 0245. Shawn went inside and crashed, worn out from following a bride around for 8 hours, then catching Trout 'til her arms were exhausted. In my nocturnal mind washing the boat was the obvious conclusion to going fishing, so I began at 0300.

I cannot believe, looking back, that I did this!

I finished up 30 min. or so later and, in the bright 0330 light of the street lamp, the boat shone beautifully... I'm not willing to admit what it looked like the next afternoon.

I spent the next little while rigging for the next mornings outing. Capt DP was having problems with his trolling motor, so I needed to pull mine off to take with us. I took a shower, changed my clothes, and hopped in the truck. Continuing my escapade, I rolled the boat to the pump and refueled. The traffic was amazingly light and the bill was not so amazingly heavy at $3.82/gal. As I was pulling away from the pump, the brightest light I've ever seen, blinded me for a few seconds.

When my vision returned I saw It was coming from the sign in front of the Waffle House! Shining like a beacon in the pre-dawn hours, it was so enticing that my willpower shut down, I gave into an All-Star Special. I must say... it was excellent! I stopped back by the house to drop off the boat and couldn't keep myself from calling DP, even though it was 0500. He didn't answer. Didn't answer when I called 2 min. later either.

0505 my phone rings, DP, he's on his way to the ramp. I told him I'd see him there, and he better hurry, the sun wasn't going to stop rising just for us! 0530 and I'm back underway, for the third time, 15.5 hours after it started.

My insomnia was rewarded on my very first cast. This nice Trout nailed my Rapala Skitterwalk (Baby Trout pattern).


Dusty commented that I just successfully did the first cast jinx, nice job. I laugh it off and continue casting, and casting, and casting. We moved twice, and got a few big blow ups, before I broke the streak with a smaller fish. We saw a few more nice fish moving across the flat, but couldn't get another one to commit to our baits. 1015 and it's a unanimous decision to head back to the dock.

Captain Dusty dropped me off at my truck. I was ready to get home, in bed anyway. Luckily, when I got there, Shawn was up and getting ready to take the kids shopping for a few hours. I told you she was awesome! I slept most of the afternoon away, but it was worth it!

18 or so hours of fishing/cleaning/fishing/cleaning/fueling/eating/fishing:
-Caught well over 20 nice Trout, a couple nice Flounder, some Ladyfish, Groupers, and a few Pinfish.
-I got to meet 4 great people, ones I'm really looking forward to fishing with again.
-I spent some great quality time with my wife, something we don't get as much time to do anymore. Teaching her a new technique, and watching her be successful. I'm one of a fortunate few to have a wife that enjoys fishing with me.
-And I got to fish with one of my favorite partners on a gorgeous May morning.

What a horrible life I lead.

Thanks to everyone for participating in my little marathon, it's not something I'll soon forget...or probably repeat.

22 May 2008

I picked Cam up early and took him to try to catch some croakers. We launched at Navy Point and ran around to our fishin' hole, anchored up and baited our hooks. We caught a Pinfish, a Pigfish, and a Croaker. Then Cam yells "Daddy, I got one!" I looked over and saw his 10lb outfit straining with the fish. He pulled up 2 nice White Trout. Thats about the time the bait fishing stopped. I caught a Ladyfish next, then another. We hooked a few more White Trout and Ladyfish, we couldn't get through them down to the baits we wanted.

The sky was getting dark with clouds. It looked like the rain was coming. We'd had a blast sharing sodas and fishing time, and both of us were getting a little hungry. We decided to head for home, and a hot meal.

I need to do stuff like this more often...you can't take a kid fishing too much.

17 May 2008 Outcast Inshore Slam Tournament

That annoying alarm blared at 0400. Reluctantly, I got up. We were meeting at Day Break Marina at 0500 and if I closed my eyes again I'd likely sleep 'til noon. Everything had been readied the night before, all that was left was to load the rods into the boat and grab the bait. By 0530 we were ready and waiting for the 0600 shotgun start.

As soon as the tournament committee let us go we were racing to our first spot, looking for a Speckled Trout. We fished hard, moved around a few times, and Tim finally connected with our only Trout of the day. He ended up tipping the scales at 3.25 lbs. Another 15-20 min. passed trying to catch a bigger one; I finally hooked up with a nice, if unexpected, Flounder. That's 2/3 of our slam! He wasn't a big fish, but it WAS a Flounder. Immediately we picked up, we HAD to find a redfish.

The Redfishing was slow, but within an hour we'd caught eight, all oversize by 1.5"-11". Our biggest fish was 38.5 inches. I was the lucky one on the Redfish hole and boated a fish that was a hair under 27", perfect. A 7 lb Red to go with a 3.25lb trout and a 1 lb Flounder, that's 11+ lbs. We've got a shot winning this thing!

A bigger Flounder would be the clutch fish. The mission had come down to this. We moved around, caught a few fish at one spot, improving with each fish in the net. The bite slowed. We moved again and kept right on catching; Captain DP put 7 fish in the boat with 8 casts. Our final Flounder, which we estimated at 2.5+lbs, hit the ice and DP put the throttle on the dash.

We're in the 12lb range now and felt we had a better chance of improving our Trout. We went back to doing what we started the day with. The bigger Trout never showed. As the clock neared 1730 it was time for us to pack it in and head for the scales. We felt pretty good about our chances, but we knew Tim's brother had a few nice fish of his own.

When our fish got weighed we were in the lead with a 12.5lb aggregate, including a (then first place) 6.9lb Redfish, a 3.25lb Trout, and a 2.35lb Flounder. As the evening progressed we got bumped by Capt. Chad Pruitt and crew, with 13.65lbs, and again by Tim's brother, Chris, whose crew won with 14.6lbs. We finished in third for the aggregate and second in the Redfish division. Whoo hoo! What a day of fishing!

Thanks to our sponsor, Georges Marine Electronics, and to Outcast, Blazer Boats, Day Break Marina, and all the other sponsors for putting on a great event.

16 May 2008

T Land, Captain DP, and I met at the ramp at 0600 to do some prefishing and bait catching. We knew there was some bad weather on the way, so we were going to launch, prefish/catch bait, trailer the boat and sit out the rain, then relaunch at another location to catch a different variety of bait.

That's pretty much what we did, with the exception that we never made it back to the truck before the monsoon came. We got caught in driving rain, less than 100 yds of visability, with winds in the neighborhood of 50 kts and lightning popping all around us. It was hairy there for a few minutes, but Captain DP got us through the worst of it. He had his boat handling skills put to the test in these conditions, and passed with ease.

Once the rain slowed a bit we got back to the bait catching. T Land and I threw our nets over and over, successful on most of our attempts, and made relatively short work of the job. All in all we had 7 dozen Bull Minnows, 8 dozen Finger Mullet, and a few dozen Pinfish when we made it back to the ramp... soaking wet, and laughing about it. We made our move and found 2 dozen nice Croakers to round out our bait tank.

The afternoon was wearing on, and with the Captain's Meeting at 1830, we elected to head in so there would be time to clean up before we needed to be at Day Break Marina. The Captain's Meeting was nice, most of the local teams from last weekend's IFA event were there, and the food was excellent. We are all looking forward to putting these baits to good use tomorrow.

10 May 2008 IFA Panama City

I apologize for the delay in the report, I've been worn out from this past week.

On Monday May 5th my grandmother Mary W. Pinney passed away at the age of 89. I sure am going to miss her.

The funeral was scheduled for Friday at 1300. Capt. DP and I were supposed to leave for Panama City (PC) early on Friday morning to pre-fish for Saturdays tournament. Obviously I wasn't going to make that. So DP came by my house at 0330 friday and picked up the Pier Pressure headed for PC. We decided he'd take the boat and fish Friday and I'd meet him as soon as I could.

I made good time after the service and arrived in PC around 1800. DP had found some fish and things looked good for us. The captain's meeting went well and we all headed back to the condo. We were sharing a condo with like 4 or 5 other teams and had an absolute blast! The fishing stories lasted way too far into the night and it finally got quiet enough to go to sleep sometime after midnight.

Tournament day dawned early, I know because I was up, waiting for it. We'd drawn numbers for departing order the night before, wouldn't you know it, we were set to leave dead last. Our run was considerably shorter than most teams and we were fishing long before many of them were halfway to their destinations. DP and I stayed at our first stop for the majority of the day. The fishing was great, especially for non-target species. We caught baby Groupers, Snappers, Bluefish, Blue Runners and a Flounder. Four Redfish also made their way into our boat along with the rest of the fishies. Three of them were oversize 27.5", 28", and 28.5". The other fish, however, was the tournament fish everyone wishes for, about 1/16-1/32 of an inch under 27. We were ecstatic, after measuring it three times the fish went into the well, high fives and all. Our fish was floating upside down in the well due to the air in its air bladder, it wouldn't have survived 6 hours in the well like that, so I vented the fish and he was happy as a lark for the rest of the day. Our good friends at the FWC showed up about an hour later to say good morning, asked us about the tournament, took a look at our fish, told us good luck, and went on about their business.

The day was wearing on and our second fish hadn't shown up, so we moved to another spot DP had found the day before. No luck. Another spot. No luck. Another spot, where we SAW a Redfish. Again, no luck. The spot we started the day at was the closest to the dock so we decided to close out the day like it began. Not long after re-arrival, just before the clock ran out, my rod bent and the reel sang a beautiful little tune. A grin split my face wide open. There he is!!!. Then my line began racing for the surface, and erupted from the water, attatched to a Manta Ray. I actually got it to the boat and removed the hook for the release. Only a few grains of sand remained in our tournament hourglass, we HAD to get to the check-in, NOW.

We pulled up with less than a minute to spare, grabbed our fish out of the well, and headed for the measuring board. Most of the guys we stayed with were standing around the board. As our fish came out of the bag they all smiled, telling us what a nice fish it was. The official measuring guy (bump-man) laid it on the board, flipped the fish over, flipped it again then gave me this real sorrowful look and says "I'm real sorry but, he's over."...WHAT?!?!?!? you're @#^^%$#@ kidding me!!! Capt Matt was standing there and noted that that was the closest fish he's seen in a competition. I looked for myself and sure enough, by literally a hair, the fish WAS over.

This was a case of a fish "relaxing" in the livewell. A fish just caught will be shorter than after he's been in the well for a while and calms down. Of course this minute amount isn't usually a problem; a fish doesn't get a chance to relax in the cooler. But if you're in a tournament, trying to squeeze out every bit of length possible, it's the difference between the "big fish" of the tourney and being DQ'd.

It was disappointing, sure, but what could we do? Captain DP and I chalked it up to rookie mistakes, one's we'll never make again. We'll be back again in Navarre, PC is already behind us, and we're looking forward to the rest of our tournament season.

Thanks for stopping by,

Capt. Josh

03 May 2008

I haven't seen Stuart and Larry in a couple of years. Stuart's been living in Europe, making these trips harder to schedule. Luckily, his daughter is graduating from the University of Alabama, and it provided him just enough time to get some fishing in with Larry while he's back.

We were in the water and underway from Galvez by 0630. Bad weather was on its way so our first stop was as close as possible to the ramp. The tide was nearly still but we managed to coax a few fish into cooperating. Larry was the first to strike with a trophy sized Pinfish, which he followed up with another, even bigger Pinfish. Working our way UP the food chain, next came the Bluefish. We boated a few Blues and a couple more Pinfish, lost nearly every bait we sent to the bottom, and checked the weather again. It seemed our weather window was going to remain open until around 1000 and we elected to make the run to the Pass.

Larry joked about a "trash can slam" so I told them we'd go try to catch some catfish, for a nice addition. It didn't take us but a minute to accomplish our goal. Catfish began pouring over the rail; we laughed and laughed. Moving around rewarded us with a nice 3lb Flounder, our best fish of the day. Other catches included a small Scamp, and a Blue Runner. The wind started to pick up, the front was closing in, fast. Heading toward the ramp was the wise decision and, ultimately, the one we made.

We hit a few docks on in Big Lagoon with limited success...meaning we caught more Pinfish and missed a few decent bites. Another look at the radar sent us running for the ramp, we only had minutes to spare. Just as I hooked the boat to the trailer, the first clap of thunder sounded. The guys didn't want the Flounder so we weren't forced to stand in the ever increasing rain any longer than to make our salutations, and joke about how much more time would pass before we could go again.

Thanks again Stuart and Larry, I had a great time as usual.