06-04-2005, 03:05 AM
Wow, am I glad TD did his W-dance ! That was the first time I've ever gotten the chance to "hang ten" on my float tube. White-caps ? I saw curls and breakers.
It started out like it was going to be a day of catching. While I was testing out my new watershoes with my new fins in the harbor, I got a mud and "something" at the mouth of the harbor that hit my minnow and took off realy fast and left me with an empty hook. Also the jockeying and fumbleing from the fierce phantom fish attack dislodged one of my fins and I almost lost it along with the watershoes(they were both dangleing) - leashes are a good thing when testing new stuff on a tube.
After returning and replacing the shoes with wading boots, I made my way out of the harbor, I trolled a bottom crawler rig and tossed a small white marabou at the rocks with no success. Then I changed to a minnow and added an in-line float on one side and went to a bigger marabou. I must have hit a "school" of micro-mudcats or something - in a period of maybe 15 minutes, I lost a dozen crawlers and and as many minnows to the thieves and only caught one of those 6 inch mudcats in the act(on a size 1 hook and the crawler was as long as the mudder). Then I re-rigged for a chunk of sucker meat - hoping it would be too big for the peskey little bait snatchers. It was, but wasn't for an 11 inch mud. My last glimmer of hope for either a nice fillet or some good future bait came when I bounced a white and chartruese jig off the rocks of the north jetty and a mystery fish demonstrated the limit of abrasion resistance in my current fishing line.
After a few hours of bobbing in the surf, my "not quite conditioned calves" and my "not quite water proof waders" inspired me to get in some shore fishing time. The ride in was kind of fun, once I got the wind and the waves working with me. Surf's up.
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It started out like it was going to be a day of catching. While I was testing out my new watershoes with my new fins in the harbor, I got a mud and "something" at the mouth of the harbor that hit my minnow and took off realy fast and left me with an empty hook. Also the jockeying and fumbleing from the fierce phantom fish attack dislodged one of my fins and I almost lost it along with the watershoes(they were both dangleing) - leashes are a good thing when testing new stuff on a tube.
After returning and replacing the shoes with wading boots, I made my way out of the harbor, I trolled a bottom crawler rig and tossed a small white marabou at the rocks with no success. Then I changed to a minnow and added an in-line float on one side and went to a bigger marabou. I must have hit a "school" of micro-mudcats or something - in a period of maybe 15 minutes, I lost a dozen crawlers and and as many minnows to the thieves and only caught one of those 6 inch mudcats in the act(on a size 1 hook and the crawler was as long as the mudder). Then I re-rigged for a chunk of sucker meat - hoping it would be too big for the peskey little bait snatchers. It was, but wasn't for an 11 inch mud. My last glimmer of hope for either a nice fillet or some good future bait came when I bounced a white and chartruese jig off the rocks of the north jetty and a mystery fish demonstrated the limit of abrasion resistance in my current fishing line.
After a few hours of bobbing in the surf, my "not quite conditioned calves" and my "not quite water proof waders" inspired me to get in some shore fishing time. The ride in was kind of fun, once I got the wind and the waves working with me. Surf's up.
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