Holiday weekend Jacksonville Fishing
Capt. Dave Sipler
June 21, 2012
Jacksonville - Saltwater Fishing Report
6/16 thru 6/18 - Inccesant EAST winds...
Started out the Father's Day weekend on Saturday, with "Moose & Litl' Moose" (actually Jason & son Mathew) it was Mathews 9th Birthday. Was supposed to be two dads and two sons. But regular customer Jason's buddy ended not coming with his son. Kinda a good thing as it would have been so tough on me in the conditions with two kids and two dads.
The forecast was for 25 knot winds, and it was!!! The morning worked out fine, and the sun finally started to shine as we float-rig fished for Trout. But by the afternoon. It was HEINOUS.
Thank goodness for hiding spots. I went to a nice hidey hole and we had fun catching another Trout, some school sized Croakers and some whopper Croakers. And a few small pup Black Drum. It was FUN. When I can find B-I-G Croakers. I'm all about them. Because too many times, the action you can get from them is addictive.
VIDEO LINK: http://youtu.be/lmWZZGwkuOU
While float-rigging, we caught the first Mangrove Snapper I've seen since the winter of 2011, when water temps dropped so low, and either sent them packing, or killed them all. Used to be they were a nuisence. Now they're kinda gone...just like the Jack Crevalle's (??)
Then, on Sunday I had 4 guys.....no kids. The winds were less. But by afternoon, not that much less. Tried and tried to get on a big bite of something! Or anything to keep 4 rods bending. Whoa it was tough! No matter where I went and what I did, the tide, wouldn't move much. We had a less than 4 foot tide to start off with and then the winds were holding the water up in the river. The guys caught some Croakers, and misc. species. But it was even tougher than the day before, especially trying to keep four rods, bent.
EAST winds, are not good for us around here. By the end of the day, we hooked a big Redbass that got off the hook, after eating a mullet. Then, finally we hooked a decent Trout on another mullet, along a rock pile. The big Croakers from the day before were not on the same spot. I did so much running from spot to spot, it was ridicules. But I worked as hard as I could. Bad conditions, made for a really tough day.
By Monday, the winds laid down, FINALLY. And it was really nice. I had Terry H. and his two sons 8 & 10 years old. Zachary, and Gregory. The plan was just to keep the kids busy. But still, the "angler" in me wanted to target certain species. Keep lines in the water as much as possible. But I still couldn't find any larger Croakers again. And wasn't going to run 10-12 miles down river! So we fished from the White shell area to the big jetties. Again, the very weak tides were a problem. No current was the morning problem. But by the end of the day, the current was 6 ounces and wouldn't hold the bottom. Which was too much weight for the small kids.
But, they had a B-I-G day! Catching Ladyfish, Seabass, Whiting, Pigfish, & Croakers. But again, couldn't get into a "wack'em and stack'em" situation, anywhere. So I just succeeded that the tides were gonna beat me, again!!
At the jetties as the tide finally started to fall..,"here comes the wrath of day after day of H-A-R-D East winds."
Giant mats of sargasm weed. Pouring out the jetties. The kids were all about looking at it and picking the small crabs out of it that rode in all the way from the distant offshore Gulf Stream.
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