Last Saturday I went to Jacksonville with the GF to visit my dad.
She loves to fish but never had the chance to go. This was our first trip where we did some serious fishing.
We arrived Friday and all it did was rain. So no go Friday night. Just visited with Dad.
Got up early Saturday to beat the big crowd and catch the early bite. All we caught at first was the early crowd. I didn’t know it was a 3 day open season on snapper. Had to wait in line at a ramp that has about 10 lanes. Finally backed in and the boat won’t start. I pulled up halfway to get a closer look. Got it to fire. Little did I know, she was cranking. It was just too loud at the ramp for me to hear it.
On to the fishing. All the snapper guys were headed offshore while we went in.
We were able to enjoy a nice sunrise
.
Dee has no fishing experience. Let alone casting artificials. I wanted some morning top water action. So I was throwing a Zara spook and I put on a popper spook for her. She wasn’t ready to walk the dog. She picked up the casting pretty quick. She went from throwing straight up or straight down. Effectively going the same distance of 10 feet in front of the boat, to getting pretty close to shore.
With bad coaching and persistence on her part, she was able to get the first score.
A monster 12 inch trout.
We only had the one trout on topwater with fish smacking just shy of our baits. I decide to switch up to a zman paddler for me and a redfish magic spinner for dee. I see some reds busting baitfish so we move in closer. Dee tosses her spinner right on the bank of some tall grass and something big smacks it hard.
So close!! Or so I thought. Her rod tip was pointing straight at the fish so I didn’t notice that it had taken her bait. She literally co
