Far Beyond Driven Posted April 10, 2011 Posted April 10, 2011 Forged on my own for the Brown Blast after fishing with Mull for three years, this turned out to be good as he had to cancel at the last minute. Also was the earliest I've ever pulled out the Four Winns, and the first time she's fished St. Joe.Crew was on time, daughter got up fine, tow down was uneventful (first trip in the Four Winns each year something goes wrong - every year). After two years ago barely getting 5 coho and last year only having 3 fish, we ripped down to the cement wall at 42 and set up all 9 rods with a mix of brown and coho lures.Didn't even get the whole spread in and we were 5/8 in probably 5 minutes. Landed 4 more coho right after that, each bigger than the last, and boxed those. Losing room in the cooler in a hurry, we punched the throttle up to 5 mph and pulled all the lines.I'd never caught a fish on a Bomber in the spring, but I knew Sixshooter's big king last year came on one, so we put 4 of those on a shore side and 4 small spoons for browns on the outside, and were just about to swing the boat around and scrape the shore for browns when a yellowbird just wandered out of formation. I grabbed it and tripped it, and then the water out back exploded. Before we could react a big "V" went across the back of the boat, getting the rigger rod and a 1 color on the other side and spinning it all up, and then it ran straight back to 400'+ on the counter. L action rigger rod, 10# leader, and a big king with a pile of gear I cannot move. We knew this fish was the one we needed, so we cleared what we could, backed the speed to a crawl and slowly worked it in, picking up the tangles as they came to us.One of the outer birds still out fell back, but we just let it drag, and it came loose and pulled back into place.After some tense minutes gaining line 1' at a time with the drag backed off to nothing and my thumb on the spool, we slipped the net under a 13.2# football of a king. Sweet. Got the spread back together, released a coho, quaded on coho and released them all, and then got up on the beach looking for browns and caught 2 more coho.Pulled lines and went deep, looked for lakers for an hour with nothing going, so we ran north and worked the beach for a brown as it was much nicer in there and my daughter was cold out deep. Had one rip in there that didn't stick.King was good enough to push us to 5th, 0.2# out of 4th. Maybe should have boxed a few of those coho to sort.....Boat stalled twice at the dock jogging in the current and we had to throw ropes to get pulled in. Saprk arrestor all messed up and plugs fouled - guess I may need to run a hotter thermostat if I want to fish her in cold water. The 14' never seems to mind.......Already ahead of last year's fish count, but the average weight is a bit low this year. Maybe something to do with 100 2# coho in the mix.
Just Hook'n Posted April 11, 2011 Posted April 11, 2011 Impressive Kevin and crew. Great job on the 5th place. NICE start to the season.
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