Priority's

Yes we all have priority's, some of us deal with them and others put them off to another time. Now I've been wanting to do this for a while now but since I've been sick this summer, I don't do things by my self in the boat much, but this trip was different and I went by my self. Yesterday morning I called Nick, Seabiscuit, and told him what I wanted to do with he and Jason but I had a pending trip and had not heard back from them and would get up with them after 4 pm. well long story short, when I got back with him, Nick was wanting to go Grouper fishing for the near shore Gags and wanted me to go with he and Squid. As tempting as this was, looking at this bay was a high priority for me as I felt that it held Red Drum and I really wanted to check it out before the weeks end and going into it cold with a client on the boat, I call it doing my homework, so I turned the invite down...now the "rest of the story"...

As Seabiscuit, Squid and Jason were on their way to the Grouper grounds, I was driving to the ramp with "Dire Straits" "Sultans of Swing" cranked up so others can enjoy it riding down the road to put the boat at the ramp of choice to pull in and find, I'm the only one there at 7:15, ah cool, good omen.
Cruising down the water way I see a few boats looking for bait or heading to their fishing area and watch the Skimmers glide across the slick water hitting the occasional Mullet minnow for their breakfast and enjoy the coolness of the North East wind as I head to the bay.

I enter the first bay and turn the boat toward the back entrance to the bay that I want to look at. Skimming across 2 &1/2 feet of water at break neck speed dogging Crab pots and oyster bars, I slow the boat and get my polling pole, yes I don't use a trolling motor, and climb onto the cooler to enter the bay. As I ease to the entrance, nice size Shrimp start hopping away from the boat in large numbers and tonight's dinner entered my mind but I opted not to get the net out as that is not what I had come to do so I pushed on into the middle of the bay for a hundred yards or so and staked the boat. I got out the binoculars, climbed on to my console and glassed into the back section of the bay slowly looking for movement from tailing fish in the slick water.

Finely I saw what I was hoping to see and hopped down, un-staked the boat and pushed further toward the back, staying off the Oyster rock and the side of the bank the fish were on. Suddenly there was a huge eruption on the port side of the boat by a school of Red Drum that I had not seen, as they went on a small school of Menhaden, this was very cool to watch. I looked at the fly rod and my spinning rod with the "Top Dog" on it and decided not to harass them and save it for another day, after all this is not what I came for. I ease the boat down a little further till I was about half way in-between the 2 schools of Drum and staked out once again. I climbed back up on to the console and watched the show for the next 40 minuets or so making mental notes of the movements of the fish and seeing the occasional tail wave in the air of the slick water, the eruption of one or the other schools on bait or the movement of "Nervous" water as they moved down the bank.
As both schools of fish moved into the back of the bay I decided that I had accomplished what I come to do and it was time to leave the fish to rest with out me being there so I pushed the boat back out of the bay through the jumping shrimp, this time thinking that its tint to go and look for making some shrimp stuffed Speckle Trout and headed back to the ramp with the feeling that this priority was taken care of and I could head back to the house to do some things there.
Climbing into the truck to hard back to town, on the CD player were the last 2 songs on the "Dire Straits" "Your Latest Trick" and "Local Hero/ Wild Theme". What a perfect ending to a perfect morning. For me it is not always about catching fish, its about just being out there or just being there with some good friends. Guess its how I was brought up, thanks Daddy Pop...