WOW !!!What a trip. I tried 6 times to put this on the Fresh Water site. But when I go there it says I am a guest and I can't post anything if I'm a guest.
Aaron and I got to a little SHALLOW creek about 6.00AM. A friend of mine was guiding me while he was in a Kayak. He said the place was about 1/2 mile LOL ..more like a mile and 1/2 . I paid 8.00 for 2 dozen shrimp and Aaron and I set out for some excitement.
The entire place seemed about 1 1/2 feet deep. I was constantly worrying about tearing up my new outboard. "Finally"...he says, "This is the place...the deepest hole out here at 5 feet deep ." I anchored and Larry showed us how to hook a shrimp . We had three rods out there with bobbers about 3 feet above the bait. Aaron gets a bite. ....rod tears down .POP! line breaks..??? what the heck. I had on a 20 pound leader of spider wire. The fish snapped it like it was thread.I lost 2 more like that ,
I caught 3 lady fish {Trash fish} and 2 saltwater catfish {Trash fish } and Larry told me to fish at the channel before we decide to go home.
My bobber went straight down .This time all 3 rods had a very loose drag. I was tired of retying. "Good grief, how does one get hung up out here", I said. It seemed as my line was hung up on a log. Then...myline started veering to the left. I screamed over to Larry in his Kayak, " I got a big fish on." The fish now had the other 2 rods in a knot. Larry told me to quickly cut the lines of the other poles. I ask Aaron too do it but he was totally confused. I reached over and did it myself. My line is now hot as fire as this fish has been on for 5 minutes. I'm thinkingit will eventually tire out. NOT..LOL The more I fought this fish the stronger he seemed to get. Finally I got him close to see what it was. I was hoping for a huge redfish or snook. LOL Nope...a good sized stingray.
I knelt down to net him whem ZING....there he goes agian stripping line like a bat out of Hello ! !! This time he was hidding for the white stake that tells boaters they are in the channel. He wraps around the pole...and my fun quickly comes to an end.
And that is how my first saltwater flats story goes. I was totally unprepared with too weak of fishing line on. I had 10 pound test with 20 pound spiderwire leader. NOT BIG ENOUGH.
God bless,
Chuck7
PS Funny of the day....Once whileI was busy, I had Aaron watch 2 rods while I was messing with the boat. I looked up .AARON !!! I screamed.Where is the other rod. There it goes...A fish done pulled that baby out of the boat and moved it 50 yards. I paddled quickly after it and finally retrieved it with the lady fish on it.LOL What a trip.
First Saltwater trip in my jon boat.
You can take the fishing as cheap or expensive as ya want. The boat itself was 100.00 . An oar is about 7.00.One Christmas I got a trolling motor, charger and battery. For my birthday I got 2 boat seats. Slowly I added stuff. I didn't get it all at one time. My wife got a bunch of indoor /outdoor carpet for a dollar at agarage sale. I carpeted the boat. Then, as our finances inproved { 16 years later} I got a little outboard. If ya got a truck you can slide your jon in the pick up. I have a little lawn service on the side so I converted my lawn trailor to a boat trailor as well. Trailor was 200.00 ..20 years ago at a K-mart. I extended the tongue by buying an 10' piece of 2" Galvanized water pipe. [8D]Works like a charm.
