| Gainesville Sun Outdoors Columnist
Furloughed or just distancing, they created the wildest boat-buying spree in memory. They have made use of the new vessels on the gulf, on lakes and rivers. They’ve snorkeled about the clear gulf shallows near Crystal River and Steinhatchee, joining longtime on-the-water regulars in gathering scallops.
Now, another seafood-gathering (and distancing) opportunity awaits the North Florida folk embracing outdoor sports in the time of COVID-19.
Pretty much on schedule, the saltwater shrimp that annually run up the St. Johns River are present in numbers and size sufficient to make a shrimping trip worthwhile. Two weeks ago, the first good reports began to come from as far upriver as Green Cove Springs.
This week, cast netters have filled five-gallon limits of shrimp in the Palatka stretch of river. Most of the early-season shrimpers say the crustaceans are presently ‘mediums’. The longer they remain in the river, the larger they will grow. The best runs have lasted until Thanksgiving or later — and these, naturally, are the best years for finding and catching large examples. Some runs, on the other hand, are cut short by heavy rainfall amounts that almost always send the shrimp back out past Jacksonville to the ocean.
During daylight hours, experienced shrimpers usually anchor along channel drop-offs, as most shrimp travel along the channel edges on their journey. This is often in water at least 20 feet deep, and so the cast netters employ a trick to keep their nets from closing as they sink. They add a strip of duct tape or lawn chair webbing a couple of inches above the net’s lead line. River shrimpers further modify their nets by adding several feet of hand line.
It’s another fun seafood-gathering activity that’s sure to find plenty of new fans this season ... so long as a wet tropical system doesn’t cut it short.
We haven’t had many hook-and-line fishing reports along the Atlantic Coast recently, but Tuesday morning a pair of Crescent Beach friends sure managed a couple of memorable bites. Doug Cooper and Cole Childers carefully eased Doug’s vessel through the tricky Matanzas Inlet and out into the Atlantic. The men had netted some mullet early, and they slow-trolled these not far off the beach. The three-hour fishing trip produced a pair of fine kingfish weighing 40 and 25 pounds.
“There were more surfers out there than fishers," Childers reported. "The only other boat we saw said they released two tarpon.”
Inshore gulf waters continue to produce impressive catches. Saturday, Bo and Lacey Wilson and Tommy Lado fished out of Suwannee. Casting Gulp! baits, they put together a great mixed bag consisting of five stout tripletail, six trout and six nice-sized flounder. The action must have been fast, as they did all of the catching by noon.
The 7th Xtreme Bass Series qualifier in its Lochloosa Division went out of Orange Lake’s Marjorie K. Rawlings Park Saturday. Twenty teams fished through intermittent heat and rainstorms. In the end, Johnny and Joey Key won with a five-bass limit weighing 19.15-pounds. Their good limit was anchored by a fine Orange Lake 6.9-pounder. Jason Ward and Jake Sanders took second place with a 13.95 limit. The heaviest single bass of the day, a 7.93-pound fish, was weighed in by Joey Pate and Jessie Nash.
The Lochloosa Division is one of 11 Xtreme divisions throughout Florida. Ultimately, the competing teams are attempting to qualify for the year-end championship. This year the championship will be held in early November on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes.
Gary Simpson, a veteran tournament angler, operates Gary's Tackle Box at L & S Auto Trim.
The Link LonkAugust 20, 2020 at 09:11PM
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Area Fishing Report: Saltwater shrimp making annual run up St. Johns River - Gainesville Sun
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