Missed It By "This" Much

Took the day off and got some fishing in before heading to Busch Gardens. Launched at 8am to a high to outgoing tide. Winds started off calm but picked up from the SW at 5-10. Air temp in the mid 50s at launch time but rose to 60s by the time I got out of the water.

Trolled down to spot to target some puppy drum where I've had success in the previous few days. After working the shoreline and channel edges for an hour with no hits, I made my way over to "Little Island". Casted on the leeward side and on my 3 cast to that spot, finally had one on. This one felt bigger and was thinking it was a slot puppy. Didn't see it and made another run. Finally saw the tail and it was huge spec (huge for me). Got it on the boat using the Fish Grips. Measured 23" - just 1" shy of a release citation.

After working the island, I went back to the other side to see if the bite picked up with the tide and wind change. No hits on the shallows so I decided to troll and immediately found a school of tiny specs. Three in a row not measuring more than 10". 

Continued to troll and had a few hits but nothing hooked. 

The steel bridge operator decided to let all marine vessels through on 2 bridge lifts within 10 minutes. This caused a parade of boats to come through with a few mega yachts in the 60'+ range.

I sat there an watched the parade since I had to keep pointing towards their wake these ships were causing.  This killed the last 30 minutes of my trip and  needed to head out.

Fewer fish today but was excited to see a larger spec. LOTS of people out fishing this section of the river this morning. 

Some shots of the mega yachts coming through today.