Swiss Cheese
I had a Disney engineer once tell me after a monorail crash that minor holes in the design's several fail safe contributed to the accident. This is what is commonly known as the "Swiss Cheese Effect".Flip it around and you can call Tuesday's combination of weather, tides, water temperature, and the luxury of leaving work early the St Augustine's inshore fisherman's swiss-cheese-a-palooza.
I left work around 2:30p to a < 2 mpg east wind, overcast skies, and a low tide at 4:12p.
Low tide is the best time to fish because it allows you to see where the oyster beds are and it also forces the fish our of hiding.
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| High Tide |
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| Low Tide |
Working in St Augustine allows me to fish some areas I wouldn't normally have the chance to on the weekend. Hospital creek was the destination. This creek is not one of the most popular because it is literally in the middle of town and the guys with the boats can run up the intercostal to the more secluded creeks.
The launch is a huge pain in the ass if you don't have some type of secure foot protection. During low tide you have to carefully walk your gear down and avoid slipping in the ankle deep mud.
This trip was really about exploring. After passing under the bridge for the deaf and blind school I immediately spooked a large school of reds...oops.
After paddling around I hooked into my personal best flounder- 17.5"
After securing the flattie in my cooler I worked a quarter mile stretch of oysters and caught a few rat reds....yawn.
I kept watching the spot I spooked the school of reds and after about an hour they didn't just come back but they decided it was time to eat.
I picked this 25" Red from the school!
People ask how I fish off my board....here is a glimpse:
Also my first grouper off the board!
I am planning on trying this spot again this weekend.....more to come.
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