Finally got out for a Cobia round, got packed up early, took off for the bait shop. Nothing quite has that early morning smell like a bait store. If you are prone to being sick on a boat this is not your kind of fishing. We got eels, had caught some spot the afternoon earlier in the week and for “chumming” we had whole and ground up menhaden.
We took off for one of our favorite fishing holes, the flats around Dameron Marsh. There were about 10 other boats and the sea conditions were pretty sporty. I would guess around two feet and about 5 second intervals. The wind was moving very strong, and the waves were kicking. No problem, we were determined to get on the fish.
Got anchored up in about 18 feet of water close to a ledge. We got the chum flowing in a new contraption I built out of PVC pipe. I’ll try to get a picture of it soon. It works far better than anything I have found on the market.
For fishing we set out 2 spot and 2 eels on opposite sides of the boat. The first couple of hours we were fishing backwards. I call it that when the boat is pointing one way but the bait and chum are flowing the opposite, “Chumming the anchor”.
Fish number one: Well despite all things seemingly working against us we hooked up with a big one. These fish are impressive, pull like they are intent on getting you in the bay, and just because you get them to the boat does not mean that you are even close to getting him in the boat. This guy swam directly under the boat straight to the chum line, yep got caught in it and I am thankful Scott was in the boat. I let off the drag as much as I could to let him swim while we maneuvered around the line, the anchor, the motor, and again. This guy was not going to make it easy. Finally, he tired out and we grabbed him in the net. It is the one I am holding.
Rain storm: We could see it in the distance, got calls from people on land and we knew a deluge was on the way. It did not have any lightning in the storm and we knew it was too late to run so we decided to just hunker down. Kept dry for the most part and Scott being a sport took the side that was getting wet. He and you all know I am not much for getting wet. Finally, the rain cleared but it was still a good wind.
Fish number two: Well it took a few hours of working on setup and bait and chumming but we hooked another one. Turned out they were both the same size. It can be remarkable how two fish can fight so differently. This one just kind of hung out by the boat with no particular place to go. We were leery of trying to land him so quickly but at some point we just gave it a go. Well, it turned out he was not ready at all. He jumped out of the net, back into the water and took off. Certainly we took another 10 min of fighting and we finally got him into the boat. He was in fact still powerful, the last picture attached is where he slapped my leg. The pic only shows half of his tail width.
Interesting site: We saw a sea turtle, I have a video that I will try to edit a bit to focus just on it and updated this post.
Anyway, a good day and two good fish.
