Ron's Fish Rag

Big Fish day, we had our chance

Set up today at o-dark thirty and caught the end of the flood. Water temp. was 52 deg F. South West wind at 10 MPH. Fishing 54 feet of water. Bait was JPS and Eel.

Friend Rob was with me today and we were looking for his first keeper. Graph was stacked with fish; wind and tide were aligned so the conditions were perfect.  Had a few promising pull downs before the start of the ebb, but couldn't connect. Once the tide turned the wind dropped to nothing and the river turned into a mill pond. It began to drizzle a bit, but conditions for fishing were perfect. 

It was then that Rob's rod went off, not at all like a normal bite, but more like the screaming fish that has hooked himself and is heading out. The first move it made was to head under the other rods and turn for the bow. This forced me to jump on to the swim platform and thread his rod under the others. Once clear, I handed Rob the rod back and began frantically reeling in the other rods. I then ran for the bow, connected my float and turned us loose in the tide, then I started the engine and began backing down on the fish. All the while Rob had not hardly even slowed the fish down and had not even gained and inch of line back. He was down to about 1/4 spool. As the boat began to pick up momentum in the tide, the line loss began to slow. And then as suddenly as it all began, it ended. The hooks had come loose... but what a rush while it lasted. We were both shaking from the adrenaline and it probably took us 30 minutes to regain our composure.

I ended up hooking one shaker after that, but that was it. Both fish came on JPS.

With a little help from my friends

Started off this morning first in line at the bait shop and in walked friends Kevin and Linda. Bait was scarce, but we managed to split a pound and a half of grass shrimp between the three of us, each fishing in our own boats. Kevin said he really only needed three shrimp anyway since he was fishing with three guys to which we all laughed and were on our way. 

The water was flat calm and a warm 54 degrees (much better than the 48 degree trip weeks before). Set up in 56 feet of water about midway through the ebb. Set one rod up with eel and the other with grass shrimp. I was telling Linda today that I have not had a fish on eel in quite some time in response to her comment about most of her fish coming on eel. Long about 09:00 the rod with eel got a nice hit to which I swung for the fences. No such luck on the hook set, so I dropped it right back down. Not a minute later she was on it again, so I swung away. This time I struck pay dirt. The fish immediately headed down river and before I knew it she had 150 yards on me and all I could do was slow her down. I was by myself so there was no way I could drop the anchor and chase her, so I started hollering for the boats nearby. Luckily, one of them responded by dropping their anchor and coming along side. I jumped in and we begin chasing the fish down. Finally we got it to the boat and it's a tail hooked, 51inch fatty. A quick snare and some pictures and she was released to swim again.

The guys who dropped their anchor to come help unfortunately had too small a float on their rode and it sunk, so I told them to tie up along side until the tide slowed and they could get their anchor back. Great bunch of guys. We all had a great laugh when I told them that it would be better to keep my chase boat along side anyway. 

After they moved off, Linda ( Diehard) and Al came by and tied off along side to fish for awhile. I was treated to a great meatball sandwich and plenty of laughs to finish out my day. It just does not get any better than this.

 

Ron