A Bad Day of Fishing

Better than the best day of Working -- Right?  Well, yesterday was supposed to be good as far as the forecast said -- like the day before.  But, Friday, I only caught one keeper Spotted Sea Trout (and cooked him that evening with a few hot dogs and a couple burgers).  That day, I had fished from about 1:00 p.m. until a little past 5:00 p.m. and only caught that one -- though the blues were constantly taking all but the heads of my mullet.

Yesterday, I had put on a red jig head at the bottom of my heaviest mono leader and had a 1/2 ounce slip sinker above the swivel of the leader on my smaller pole -- there were two other drops on the mono leader so, I added hooks to each and threw the three mullet in the waters just beyond the sand bar.  I kept throwing my surf rod with its black steel leaders deeper into the channel and current and then, played leap frog with the two rigs.  I even arrived around noon to fish more of the outgoing tide to see if there might be some better fishing at that time.  Low tide was supposed to be around 4:30 p.m. and I figured to fish until the tide was completely out (and did).

I stopped once on my way out along the beach to try casting for some of the small mullet but, half a dozen casts didn't produce a single mullet.  When I drove out to the point where the river meets the ocean (Nassau Sound), I could see the lowering tide exposing some holes in the sand bar there and hoped they would yield some of the little bait fish.  It took way too many casts to finally get something to use for bait and they were mostly bigger mullet in the 5 inch range.

As the afternoon wore on, the only thing that seemed to be hitting my larger than desired bait were most likely Blues (as they left only the heads on the hooks -- the tail and bodies cleanly bitten off).  As 4:30 approached, I had only caught one small Blue on the piece of bait hooked onto the jig head.  A little earlier, something (probably a Blue) had taken the top piece of bait, including the hook and cleanly bit through the mono drop of the leader.

Around 3:00 p.m., another angler had arrived just to my right and came over to ask what he might expect to catch and I told him what I had caught the few other days.  He said he was from Jacksonville and had driven some 45 minutes to get here and he had shrimp for bait.  He started catching some Whiting shortly after we talked and the nasty looking rain cloud approached from the west.

As the rain approached, I had put away my casting net and bucket just before putting away my small pole and its support.  I was down to the two fish on the larger pole and I took the one from the small rig and cut it in half to use on the bigger surf rod -- if something should bite and steal the bait.  I even dug out my unused "Fish Bites" from my tackle box and cut it into 3 pieces -- a few Whiting might not have been so bad, I thought.  Well, something did decide to bite and I saw one little hit and got the big rod in my hands just as there were three more quick, hard bites -- and then, nothing.  Whatever it was, it had taken everything including the three ounce sinker and the two mullet with the hooks and it had bitten right through the 50 lb braided line -- above the steel leader.

The rain arrived and I decided it was time to leave -- left my two pieces of cut mullet on the beach and gave that one Blue to the guy from Jacksonville.  By the time I reached the access point to the beach, the rain had passed and others fished on -- not me.  It was a frustrating day of fishing and it probably could have turned out much better than it did.