Great day of catching fish and cheating Mother Nature. Winds were forecast at 15-20 with choppy seas. Made a plan with my buddy Mark to launch before sun up, stay near the ramp and be willing to abort the day if things got real nasty. He said yes and was at my house at 530 this morning. We bought 4 dozen medium shrimp and launched from the El Jobean ramp just as dawn was breaking. Decided it might add to the fun if we broadcast part of our trip live on Periscope. We did 4 short broadcasts and had up to 13 followers at a time with us.
We went into Tippycanoe Bay in search of trout. We found them and and a bunch of their friends. We caught easily a dozen trout, mostly 12-14"ers but found 3 fatties in the 15-16" range that went in the cooler. We also caught and released a dozen or more red fish, ranging from 12-16". A bunch of catfish, one sheepshead, my first black drum and two Ladyfish. 6 different species in 5 hours, upwards of 30 fish released. Everything was caught on live shrimp under DOA corks with 1/0 circle hooks. What a great day! But it wasn't quite done yet.
As we headed back to the ramp in 2-3' seas, I told Mark he still had a shot at the inshore slam. Trout, Reds, Snook all in one day. Doesn't my sheepy count in the slam? The channel between the Myakka and the El Jobean ramp is a great snook habitat. We trolled a Storm Twitch Stick lure. Mark hooked up with a very nice snook and said, "here we go." I told him as long as he got the leader touch, it would count, since snook closed at the end of Novemeber. He battle the big linesider back to the boat, surviving a nice jump and driving it back down. As it approached the starboard stern, we saw it was a nice 30" snook. At 8' away, poooof, he spit the hook. Gone. No slam. Mark hooked one more, much smaller one in the same channel but lost it at the back of the boat. No leader touch. The slam eludes him again.
We were off the water by noon as the white caps continue to build behind us. Great day of Messing About in Southwest Florida.
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