I had the day off work, so I decided I would go wet a line and do some moving around on the water today. I fished this morning and early afternoon in Black Creek at the back of Doctors Lake … the bass aren’t on the beds yet – caught 2 largemouth around 2-3 pounds each, missed a good one (4-5 lbs). All bass were caught with a Terminator chartreuse spinnerbait (1/2 oz) – I was surprised because I fished (carolina rigged and flipping-pitching) a 6 inch Zoom Junebug curl tail worm for two hours and nothing even looked at it. I worked the spinnerbait around the lay-downs and over the flats in the back of Black Creek (water temp was around 67/68 degrees). Then I ran back northeast into Doctors Lake to see if there were any bedding bass in Flemming’s Cove … no beds and the winds were putting up 1-3 foot waves, so I booked out of there and headed back to the marina at NAS Jax. While in Black Creek, I saw a couple of nice size gators (one was an easy 7-8 feet … just hanging out and enjoying the sun today). Since the west wind really picked up, I pulled the boat and traveled north up the 95 to the 9A to drop the boat in at Clapboard Creek to fish the incoming high and outgoing low tides tonight. I put in at Clapboard Creek around 4:30 PM and ran the river behind Blount Island to the Dames … then to Dunn’s Creek to hit a few spots I like (man, the west wind was putting out some chop on the main river). After catching a few flounder and a red before sunset, I headed back east and fished behind Blount Island and into Broward Creek. I ended up with another small flounder, three 15-17 inch reds (1 at the base of an oyster bed and the other two in little grass cuts where there was water moving through just as high tide steadied up), and about 15 trout once the sun went down … only one was over fifteen inches – the rest were little guys. Water temps in the creeks on the incoming tide was 64-65, water temp in the creeks at slack was 66/67. I caught all the trout in and around Blount island … in the lights, near structure (dock pilings, rocks, etc.), and once the high tide started dropping out and moving the water out into the main river.

Pretty much from around 10:00 AM this morning until around 8:00 PM this evening the wind was steady out of the west at 10-15 knots. Then, the wind dropped off and went light/variable up to 5 knots. I got off the water around 10:30 PM … fishing was just slow today for me, but man was it gorgeous out there … ready for the heat and the sun

I fished a gold/speckled with white underbelly Mann’s jerk-bait, a white chub-tail plastic minnow on a 3/8 oz jig head, and a 4 inch Berkley Gulp Natural Molt shrimp. No takers on the jerk-bait, a few trout on the minnow, and everything else hit the Berkley Gulp shrimp. All fish today that were caught were released back into the wild … to catch again another day.

If the weather will at least hold in the upper 60′s low 70′s and Mr. W. I. N. D. will stay away, the upcoming weeks for both freshwater and inshore/saltwater fishing should prove to be fantastic as the bite heats up. I can’t wait!