DaParson's Fishing Adventures

With the schedule on Friday - Dewey and I could only get out for a couple of hours. We had the privilege of taking Wayne Hamilton - one of our friends from church out with us. The water had warmed up to about 67.2 and the wind was not too bad out of the SE. We tried fishing out towards the end of the jetty on the leeward side of the waves ... but really didn't do much good. There was one boat on the other side - much bigger than ours - the waves were such that he would disappear between the waves. Too much for Dewey's little 17.5 boat.

Here was the biggest Black Drum the Wayne caught. We fished a couple of hours - the tide was very slack but them picked up a little as the tide began to ease in. We fished for a while out towards the end of the jetty on the outside. But really didn't have much luck there. We went back towards the boat cut where we had our best fishing earlier in the week. 

Here is a nice drum that Dewey caught. This last year we have caught several like these that almost seem like a crossbreed between a Black Drum and a Bull Red. They are a bit more slender than most of the drum that we catch ... may be be a bit more juvinile that the others. 

Here is the only Red of the day. He was a beautiful clean fish - nice spot patterns. Wayne was very proud ... you can see it one his face ... we could hear it in the boat ... in the car ... at the house ... and probably at church ... every Sunday ... for a month! (laughing) 

No ... it isn't the doublemint twin ... here is two pics of the same fish. This drum bottomed out the boga grip scale of 50lb. He was vented and sent on his way. 

Here is the last drum that Wayne caught. One the day, he caught 4 Black Drum and 1 nice 38" Red. Not bad for a couple of hours fishing! 

What a Monster Black Drum! Ben Dedman caught this Huge Black Drum at the North Jetty Saturday, March 25th. His estimate was that is was well over 70lbs! Great Fish Ben .... now I have to get back to work - wishing I was fishing! (grin)

Here is another pic of the same fish. They guy holding the fish is 6'5" ... so you can scale the fish from the size of the picture. Ben had a scale that bottomed out at 50lbs easily!

There are days of fishing and then there are days like today were it was an incredible DAY OF CATCHING! The water had cooled down to 61.7 when we arrived - but was at 63.1 when we left. There was a strong outgoing tide and the water clarity was fine - nothing special either way. The wind was SE about 10-15. Dewey and I usually put out 6 lines when it is just he and I fishing. There are times our boat looks like a upside down dead spider. The fishing was sooooo good today - that we started only putting out 4 lines. There was a time that were fighting 4 fish at once! Many times we had 1 or 2 in the boat and before we could get them out - we were fighting more fish! It got so bad that we literally pulled all of our lines out of the water for about 15 minutes just to drink coffee and get a bite to eat! As best as we could count - we caught about 26-28 Black Drum and 2 Bull Reds. It was a crazy day. We fished for a little over 4 hours. Dropped the anchor about 8 and pulled it up...

I noticed a trend - Dewey catches the fish ... and I took the picture. But every time I caught a fish - - Dewey was busy fighting fish and couldn't take my picture! (grin) At one point - Dewey and I looked at each other and felt that it was just too good to be enjoyed by just us. We really wished there could have been some folks in the boat with us. It would have been great!

This picture is kinda twisted with the rolling of the boat and exposure. Still was a nice fish.

Here is Dewey and another Drum. You can see the boat behind us - There were several boats around the boat cut and a few others past us. The boats that we could see were hooked up fairly often. We did see several "floaters" - Big Drum that weren't either vented or treated properly to give them the best chance of survival. When we left - there was one drum that was floating by the rocks - we went over and netted him - vented him and sent him on his way. For those who have followed this blog - you know my story about venting. Last year I caught the biggest Black Drum I had ever caught up to that point. We were out at the end of the Jetty - I got him off the hook - worked him back and forth several minutes - then released him. He went under - then floated to the top - we pulled anchor - netted him again - worked him - let him go only to see him floating again. I spent close to an hour working on this fish - trying to get him to submerge. We finally just left him - wat...

This was another one of the Drum we caught. This was the "typical" size of many of the fish. We did have proabably a half-dozen or so that would have been right at or over the 50lb range.

Here is another Black Drum that Dewey Caught. As best as we could figure - we caught 26 -28 Black Drum and 2 Bull Reds. The largest Black Drum was probably in the 50lb range. The Reds were in the 38-42" Range. We were whupped.

There were times that we had fish in the boat and before we could get them out another line would go off. Here is one of the times I had two fish in the boat and while this picture was being taken - I had a fish that was dragging another line!

Here was one of the two Bull Reds that we caught on the day. We fished both with cracked crab and cut shad. We caught both Reds on shad - but caught Black Drum on both the crab and shad.

Here was another one of the Black Drum.

Here is Dewey with another Black Drum.

Here is another double. I was unable to hold them up - because Dewey wouldn't wait for me to finish fighting the one that I had on the line! It really was a day that both of us caught all we wanted ... plus some.

We stopped taking pictures after this one. It was an incredible day of fishing!