Flatwoods and fishing...

[1eyefishing]

Rolled down to Jefferson County Florida for some fun this past week.
I stayed at the buddy's house in Wacissa who leases 2500 acres behind his place. Spent some good day time and night time riding around in the UTVs and looking at sinkholes full of gators and foodplots...
I took my little 15' jonboat with me and was able to fish 4 of the 5 days between my 2 travel days. Explore a lot of small water with a local friend that I've never been. Exploreda lot of smaller water with another local friend that Ive never been able to get to in my bayboat.
As usual on a week long trip, there are good days and bad days and days to windy to fish.
The 1st day was the bad day even though it was almost too windy to fish. After a quick breakfast at Rocky's,I went up to saint mark's river by myself to see if there were any leftover winter fish upriver... Only managed a couple of small mangroves snapper and three catfish.
It was too windy to be anywhere else so I just enjoyed some scenery and some sunshine...





The next day was even windier but my buddy and I decided to launch at the lighthouse, and try to hide in the East River.
My usual spots produced but I wore my buddy out catching some kind of an east river grand slam... I caught sea trout, sheepshead, black drum, and short red fish...
My buddy only caught just short of 1800 catfish.









The next day we launched at live oak island and fished around there and then to the east all the way to little pass...
The seabreeze came up and cut us a little short, So we snuck Through the back of little pass and around The back of John's Island and Patty's island into the Goose Creek channel where We had to face the music and the wind from the South to get back into live oak...
He caught a good trout and I managed a couple of short reds...
We got back to my house place Wore out and we have to change up and go to the Jefferson County NWTF banquet. This was an eye opener because I'm sure between the auctions and the raffles and the drawings they raised well over $100k.







Get home late and stayed up late with this midnite bonfire...



After an exhausting day and a long night, I woke up Sunday morning Not sure I wanted to fish but this was to be the 'good' day.

Got to continue below so I can fit more pictures in...

 

[1eyefishing]

Sunday morning I wasn't sure I wanted to fish because I was bushed, but the weather and my buddy said let's go so off I go.
We took the jonboat over to the Aucilla river and snuck through the backwaters over to an adjacent system (Pinhook river area). We found a very prominent oyster bar set up at the mouth of a small bay. The south wind and incoming tide We're pushing up on this bar...
My first cast produced a redfish.
My 2nd cast produced a red fish.
My 3rd cast, my fourth cast, my fifth cast all caught redfish.
Every cast caught a red fish Until about my 16th cast brought a black drum in.
Kept catching red fish until my 21st cast came back with just a piece of shrimp on the jig.
20 fish on my 1st 20 throws of the day.
I wound up with 26 reds, one sheepshead, and that black drum.
My partner ended with sixteen reds and two trout.
We had 6 double hook ups with both of us hooked up at the same time..
Almost as remarkable was the fact that we did not See a trash fish. No catfish, no puffers, no lady fish, no stingrays.
Called it a day and went home after that one stop.

 

[1eyefishing]

Home recuperating now,
Got a solid day tomorrow cleaning the boat, unpacking and makin ready ta go again.
Thx fer listenin...

 

[4HAND]

Lookes like a great trip.
Small world -
One of my cousin's husband grew up in Wacissa. They live next door to us.
That old cracker house at the intersection in Wacissa is his family's homeplace. His daddy had a general store there when he was growing up. A couple of his brothers still live in Wacissa. He's early seventies.

 

[4HAND]

Old Snuffy probably knows 90% of the folks at the NWTF banquet, if they were locals.

 

[doomtrpr_z71]

Home recuperating now,
Got a solid day tomorrow cleaning the boat, unpacking and makin ready ta go again.
Thx fer listenin...

You're not helping my need to go fish the pinhook

 

[Browning Slayer]

Heck yeah!!

 

[slow motion]

You did well my brother. Thanks for sharing. You're keeping us from going into withdrawals. Hadn't caught a fish in what feels like years.

 

[antharper]

Great trip !

 

[1eyefishing]

You're not helping my need to go fish the pinhook

Keep your bearings about cha...
Pinhook far upper left... ramp far right.

 

[doomtrpr_z71]

Keep your bearings about cha...
Pinhook far upper left... ramp far right.
View attachment 1214238

Bearings ain't my problem, getting my fiberglass boat in and out of there with my 115s lower unit intact

 

[1eyefishing]

Bearings ain't my problem, getting my fiberglass boat in and out of there with my 115s lower unit intact

That's it in a nutshell...
Boulders along there from the size of pumpkins to the size of cars and bigger.
I was with a local and in the water on a nearly full moon rising tide. We picked our way over there watching the sidescan for the hazards, and pulled anchor and headed back at speed directly after the tide peaked and the bite cooled off.