Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut! This is a lesson I seem to have to re-learn with a high degree of frequency. I was standing on our dock after putting out some corn for the ducks. The intention is to get the gorgeous wood ducks to feed in the shallow edges of our little creek and to have a drake and a hen have a litter of chicks in each of our boxes. Some years we get more than one litter per box.
Erin was chatting with a neighbor and had picked up a rod I had rigged for big snook and jack crevalle in the inlet or along the jetty. It had a large popping lure on a fairly heavy mono leader. She was reeling it in slowly and it was gurgling gently but not doing much in the way of popping or walking the dog.
I knew better than to criticize her technique but I did suggest it might be a bit too big for our little creek. I mentioned that I had never had a bite on it in the backyard creek. She kept chatting and casting and winding without looking at the plug. Just before she lifted it up I saw a decent swirl behind the plug.
I thought to myself, “If that thing eats it right at her feet she’s going to jump and may even fall overboard.”
It didn’t bite, and I told her about the swirl I had seen. A couple of casts later the big lure was out maybe 30 yards when it gently disappeared under water, no big sucking smash strike like a nice snook usually makes, the lure just went underwater like a bobber with a live bait a bit too big for the size of the float. She felt the gentle tug, wound tight and a nice snook jumped.
She did a good job and I jumped down into the kayak I had used to put out the corn and got it by the lip and got back onto the dock. “Let it go.” she said so I showed it around to the neighbors who had gathered and dropped it in head first and watched it swim off.
I got a good one, also in the backyard, a few days later, on a smaller popper, and blew a big pompano when I chose not to wait for the net Schroeder had offered to dig out of the bowels of his Seacraft and broke the leader.
Inshore fishing has been good and the Florida and Mexico sailfish bites have been off the charts with record results in local tournaments.
**Late Flash **
I had a bite on a nice snook this evening and toyed with a young great blue heron that wanted my top water plug. I teased him for close to five minutes. Just now Erin told me I would never guess what she just got. When she said a raccoon I ran into the other room hoping like crazy she had not really CAUGHT one. The population in Florida has a high incidence of rabies. Luckily she pulled the hook on it!
