It has been quiet lately, too quiet. Rain, extreme heat, tourists and inability to get several people out at the same time have set us back. Bait is a major problem. Not whiting and other pan fish from the surf, but rays, rays big enough to deem worthy of the Everols we arm ourselves with. Each weekend is the same. We fish during the heat of the day trying to move up the food chain, finally we get a good ray, but there is only an hour or two before everyone was planning to pack up and go.
I go to work in a daydream just waiting to get another chance to go to the place I got my big tiger. I always think one of these so called sources, the ones who say they go out on commercial boats and can save us some rays. I fantasize that they call us up and we will arrive with more rays than all of our coolers can hold. I am in a haze half the time just waiting to get more than 2 Everols out at the same time in the same place.
The reality is that it is just not very easy in the Carolinas to camp out for the night and get some sleep. Drunken tourists roam the beaches, and worse yet the locals who fall asleep on the beaches. So we try to make plans to travel to good remote areas. Semi remote areas I guess. Plans are made a month in advance and we still have a tough time getting the numbers we expected.
Our recent trip was no different, however there is something to be said about strength in numbers. Land based fishing is a team effort. Some of us are better at bait fishing, some of us will paddle more than others, and some will paddle in conditions no one will, or at distances the rest dare not venture in the dark of night and some have more than enough gear to share. Somehow everyone has a place.
Dan and I head down to our spot Thursday after work to start bait fishing. We finally meet up around 1030pm, the tarpon are in thick. This is my second day dream. I had just got back from a weekend before watching tarpon who wouldn?t eat and arrive to spend hours casting, cast after cast only to have a few slam my DOA on