Due to issues beyond my control I have been off the water until now. I had Thursday thru Sunday, 4 days in a row, booked. The first 3 were offshore and the fourth was to be inshore. The weather canceled the first 3 of them and it looked like the fourth was going to be rained out. On Friday night I decided to go to China Sea for supper. Chandler was eating so instead of getting my order to go I decided to join him and his deckhand. He reassured me the canceling of my first 2 trips offshore was a very good move. He asked to take a friend of his from Georgia inshore on their boat. Although I do private boats I do not do them inshore. We decided on going for a sheepshead trip. I had to avoid the main river because of foggy conditions and no radar on his boat. This boat is a 2017 Tidewater. As we started out I mentioned his VHF radio. He told me they do not need one where he fishes in Georgia. Seeing we were already underway I made the decision to continue. Just wanted to help my buddy out. Once out of the pass I was greeted with aa wall of very thick sea fog. He had the Empire rigs marked so I headed that way. It did not take me too long for me to tell myself it was a dumb move to continue under these conditions. As I got right in front of the pass the air cleared up just enough for me to target a rig. I headed there and made it just in time. When I tied up we were once again engulfed in dense fog.



It took a while for us to let the fish know we were feeding them some food. I was getting ready to go to another rig close by but I got the first bite. This bought us some extra time here and we were soon putting some nice sheepshead in the box. We also landed a nice redfish to add some color to our fish box.

All my trout and redfish rods have 40 pound power pro slick braid on them so if I accidentally hook into a big shark, cobia, King Mackerel, bull red, or any other monster of the deep we have a chance of landing it. Today was the day to brace for a fight and a half. After a very long fight with this fish doing what ever it wanted we were able to see a very large, bull nosed, manta ray. I was busy with other fish so no picture was taken. After a while we hook on to another Monster. This fish also let the angler know it was going to swim around and do what ever it wanted to do until it got tired which would be a while. Once we were able to net it we took a few pictures and returned it to the sea. There is no way we would ever want to keep a black drum this big.



After a while it became evident the bite had dropped off. It was just after 11:00 and we decided to go in and get some ice for our fish. The 2 small bags they brought were almost nonexistent. Unfortunately the fog still had not lifted. I followed my bread crumbs on the electronics all the way back to the pass and a few hundred feet into it. I was so glad to get out of the fog.

Once back, it is still early, we decided to go to one place and have a quick look for some redfish. Unfortunately it was not a quick look but we managed to find a trophy redfish.



We finished off getting 4 redfish for the box and 1 largest of the day sheepshead to top off our catch for our efforts.



Knowing we were going to have a lot of heavy rain with some thunder storms for most of the day I attempted to talk my Sunday customers out of the trip. I had Mike, his girlfriend, his mother and father from Mass. They had rain gear and were ready to take on the challenge. On the way down to Venice marina I went through some heavy fog and was hit with heavy rain at the boat launch. Not looking forward to another day like this. I got there early and did not see any other boats being launched. What the heck was I getting myself into? We were soaked right from the start. I hit many places looking for some positive conditions. Every place was a bust. Along about 11:00 we had our first fish. A hardhead catfish for our only bite in over 3 soaking hours had me just about beaten down. I found the only other boat that was foolish enough to be out there. He had managed 1 slot. I moved around a bit more and finaly had a rod bend properly. This is what they were here for. After a very good fight we now had something for the ice. Usually the size I would want to put back but being the only one of the day it was being invited to join our family for supper tonight.



We picked up 2 rats that went back of course before landing a good yellow mouth.



I let the other boat know I found a few and he told me his area had started working for him. Eventuly the place I was in had stopped but his was going well. He invited us to join him so we went around the corner just in time to see him land another keeper. We slipped in close by and started getting a bunch of rat reds. They were all 14 to 15 inches. Only one was close enough to measure and even that was short. It did feel good to be getting into some fish though.

There was another monster storm heading our way and as it hit us the other boat decided to call it a day. They had enough of this weather. He left with 5 keepers for the day. Once he moved out I reset the boat and we managed to pull out 2 more keepers in the heavy rain before it was eident this area had changed. I knew this would happen as I watched the water color change creep into our area.

It was now about 1:00. With only 3 keeper redfish and 1 beautiful trout on ice I did not want to head back even though we were experiencing unreal conditions. My customers from Massachusetts just wanted to catch fish so I went back to the place we cought our first keeper. I continued beyond that and slipped into a drain that does produce at times. The drain was not producing but we found the redfish just to the side in the cains waiting to ambush anything slipping out of the pond. The redfish were soon ambushing our dead shrimp we were throwing at them.



It is now almost 2:00 and I moved to one other place that my brother and I had fished a few years ago with great success. Due to all the dieing canes the place has changed a lot. We decided this would be the very last place for our day. Everybody was soaked so you know these people were troopers.

We managed to put a few more keepers in the box and around 2:20 another storm was heading our way. This one had lightning in it so I quickly picked up and headed to the barn. We could not escape the rain and running at 40 mph it pelted the heck out of my face. As I was running in the wheel and red pass the rain was just behind us but fog got real thick. If I did not have my radar I might have hit something there. Even though the wheel is narrow I was still running with radar and chart zoomed in close. At one time a pelican flew in front of me causing me to throttle back when it showed up on the radar. I never saw the bird but I figured that is what caused the solid blip on my screen.



Once at the marina Mike's girlfriend had to go change her cloths so she did not get into the picture. Poor kid was drenched right through. I was very thankful that we managed to put together a box like this under such adverse conditions. I managed to put together a good trip after all. These last 2 days showed me I can still fight the elements and get the job done. My year is off and running.



Life is Good!

Awesome, Larry !

Well done boys! That's a bucket list trip for me.

Now that's starting your season off with a bang.

Great Job Hoop, it's only going to get better!