No fish!

[Riley Smith]

Well, that's relatively. What a difference a couple of weeks make. I fish a lot this time of year at night under lights, and the sudden cold sure put a whammy on THAT! For one thing, the shrimp are gone. I don't know if they're TOTALLY gone or there just weren't any in that particular place at that particular time. One tactic was to catch some bait, which I almost never do. Except there were no shrimp, or at least the bottom wasn't covered with them as it was a couple of weeks ago. I did catch two mullet, one of which sacrificed itself for some cut bait.

I SAW some monsters but the only one I'd attempt to catch was too far from the rod when I sighted it. I keep a spoon on to sight cast. The only good speck I saw made a pass at the spoon and spit it out. I could tell it was a nice one from the yellow in it's mouth. I caught a smaller speck (not legal) on the spoon, and two crabs on the cut bait. The crabs were very nice sized and had big orange claws and I tried to take a pic but they jumped overboard before I got the camera focused. And I saw a monster...black drum. Maybe. It MIGHT have been a sturgeon but was too quick to identify. All I know is it was too big to catch and gone in an instant. And had not a single bite on the shrimp lures.

It was very quiet and peaceful, except it sounded like some cormorants or anhinga were in the marsh grass about 300 yds south and they made all kinds of rude sounds. The dampness finally seeped in and I pulled the plug and went and got coffee and breakfast before it got good light.