Missed chance at a nice speck and schoolie striper

[SeaPlusPlus]

Headed out of crab creek with a crew of my dad and my fiancee Sarah at 7:39pm on Wednesday to see if we couldn't entice something up at a near by location, she's been itchin to catch a flatfish and I picked up two shorts there on Monday so thought we'd give it a try. Tide was rippin in.

Fished there for a few hours, Sarah and dad both caught croakers while I worked a jig/grub near the docks. Had a few small bites but nothing stuck.





Sun went down without much action so we decided to pull up anchor and drift further back near some docks with lights, and reset. It was then that I saw it, a huge dark fish shadow dart through a light and nail some small unsuspecting baitfish. I flipped out my jig/grub up tide from where I saw her and let it reach the light working it ever so slightly as it drifted/sank. WHAM shadow nailed it, fish on! Felt as big as he looked. Fought him to the boat with a smile ear to ear as this was going to be the biggest trout I ever caught, dad scrambled to get the net out of the t-top rod holders and right before he got there she threw the hook about 2' from the boat. She was huge, dad swear's she was every bit of 28", I say at least 25" (but that could be cause I want her to be smaller so I don't feel as bad about losing her), but regardless it was going to be the biggest speck of my life. Spent the next hour throwing everything I had to her trying to entice her again but she wanted nothing to do with it. Climbed up in the tower and could easily see her darting back and forth every few minutes eating baitfish but didn't want anything I had. Eventually gave up and decided to go let dad try some docks on long creek.

Found a dock with lots of light where schoolies were slamming the surface, dad managed to pull one 24" striper off the dock followed by a nice bluefish.







Put Sarah up on the bow to try and get her into a nice fish but about her 5th cast a lady living in the house who's dock it was walked to her back door and watched us for a few moments and then turned off the dock lights. Jerk!

Tried a few other docks but never found anything, headed home and back to the dock by 11ish. A good night on the water.