Thread: Florida Cracker Will Survive

Well Phantom 309 met up & we launched bout 8:30 Saturday morning to temps in the 40's & wind 10-12 mph & would turnout to be the worst of the day, but never really fell under 7 mph.....what a trooper, he outlasted the thermos of coffee till noon & we were just alertly cold, thereafter. 1st pass, dictated by the wind yielded 8 keepers & things looked outstanding. We would experience 1 more good pass & 1 here & there the rest of the day. Colors varied as started over- cast & 2nd half sunny. Ended the day single poling, but nothing happening. Part 2 of the day was unfortunately tragic. When we launched "late" there was only 2 other boats in parking lot, however, FWC & other law enforcement , air boats, other boats, & helicopter search parties all day was looking for fisherman's body missing since last Tuesday. Found out talking to relative when we got back, you think they would of advised us as went out in morning? Prayers sent to the family for closure. ...final note on the , had several Violet hits & caught a gar as the females seam to be moving in to spawn, where @ appears to be a mystery....

Sent from my moto e5 go using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Yep, Speck Detector tried to freeze me to death LOL .......
Was a good day (took all day) but had good conversation ..
I left the house at 7am and got back to the house 6:30pm,
almost 12 hours on the nose.
Was going to post the fish/cleaning/packaging pics but he did ......
We only had bout three of four 13 inchers, the rest were 11's, 12's,
Might of had a couple 10.5"s sneak in but we watched fairly well for size
limits ....
(numbers within the circles indicate number of fillets in the pkg)

Once again = Thanks Jeff, for another great day on the water ! ! ! ! !

Fun times for sure!
Congrats on a good trip!

Day of endurance, enjoyment and encounter. Thanks for sharing.
Doug

Sent from my SM-A716U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Originally Posted by up2specks

Day of endurance, enjoyment and encounter. Thanks for sharing.
Doug

Sent from my SM-A716U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Incidentally Doug, @ the end of 1 pass, we to caught that trot line, thankfully, we had 8 of 10 poles in & only 2 snagged, circled around & got both untangled....that guy has moved them since I've been out there the last couple months...we noticed he's put floats in between surface jugs to keep lines off the bottom... he's asking for trouble, as many fish that area & probably won't be as kind as we were, no harm no foul for us....he had them off SE side of bird island before.....

Sent from my moto e5 go using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Y’all did better than Jim and I did. We finished with six that Jim took home. We both made poor choices on clothing, as in not enough of it. About 10 I was cold to the core and we headed in. No giants but solid fish. We had ideas of single pole, maybe dipping some. All those ideas fell by the wayside. Fished just over 3 hours, slow the last hour for us, no sunshine came our way. We could see it over your way but it didn’t come visit. Glad y’all got out and found some, sure enough cold!

Nice post and pictures. WTG on the crappies.

cld day but some hot fishing. some nice pictures. I am going to have to get back on Jessup soon.

Been wanting your opinion Jeff and others on the validity of Jesup's past reputation and now updated(experienced) status on "heavily infested" Gator lake. We saw a small one last week probably 3 foot hanging curiously around us staying mostly 150' away. The dozen or so times I've fished it, I haven't seen more than a tolerable few. Other Florida lakes and past experience on St. John's and Santee Cooper measurably surpass this one!??
Also, last week while doing the trotline tango and Rubik's cube rumba, I mentioned a commercial fisherman in small jon boat that confronted us. He informed us that just lifting the line, even to untangle our lures, would be subject to "significant" wallet down-sizing if witnessed by FWC!! I did mention that I would arrange my calendar to introduce myself to the judge! He wasn't hostile at all even telling us that they use soap, marshmallows, hot dogs, chunks of cheese, small pieces of 1/2" square aluminum foil(that was what we saw) thankfully no cookies Ed (w/whiskers) Didn't see or hear any fish during our unscheduled, unwanted "line dance"! He was cast-netting Tilapia this day with marginal results @best. No doubt in our mind that he was trying the retirement check "twist" with us! Don wanted to know if they catch any crappie on the foil baits. It was unnerving later on as I caught Don watching me unwrap my sandwich, LOL!!

Doug

From my experience, though limited, of being on and passing over Jesup, I think it does have a good population of gators. I don’t agree with the term infested. I’ve passed over the bridge in the warmer months, early morning, and counted as many as 12. Some large but most in the midsized ranges. While on the water I haven’t seen more than one now and then, and have never seen one approach or act aggressively. I’ve also seen a lot on Monroe along the 17/92 drive, numbering just as many as my trip across Jesup. Up to you to decide which has more. Jesup has better visibility from the bridge which may account for some of its stigma.