Rutherford and Little Florida trip

[MikeinSlagle]

Made it down to the beaches today. Not much to tell really.

We first hit Rutherford. Had about a 20 minute layover in Lake Charles waiting for JT's Seafood to open so we could by some crab. That slowed us down a bit. The gentleman working there that sold us the crab and shrimp was a helluva nice guy. Beautiful blue crabs I almost hated to put on a hook. Good sized shrimp too. Kudos to JT's.

Winds were slight and out of the North-Northwest. Both beaches were calm with almost no wave action and the prettiest I have ever seen em. Well I have had never seen Rutherford before but it was cleaner than the others on Holly Beach side. Water was almost green and not coffee, tea or chocolate milk as it is when I am usually at Holly.

Rutherford Beach was a bust. Didn't catch anything. I may have had one bump on my gulp swim mullet but that was it. Nothing wanted a bone She Dog. Nothing was hitting the crab (alive or cracked) or the frozen shrimp. We fished the shrimp on bottom and under bobbers. Nothing. Not even catfish.

We took the ferry and headed to Little Florida. There is a small pond on that beach that produced flounder and reds last time we were there, one flounder was around 18". This time, nothing. A few fingerlings flopped around my swim mullet but never took it.

When we got to the pond two guys farther up the beach had just landed a stingray. It was probably 2 foot across. He said it was his second one of the day. He said he had one really good red "long as his arm" break off right before he landed it and something else broke off before he could see what it us. Those guys were using cut hardhead.

Before we got our hooks wet, a fella we passed on the way in hooked into something that took about 15 minutes to land. It turned out to be a 4+ foot black tip. We took some photos and released it. He said he had been there 4 hours and that was all he caught. Caught it on a mullet.

As for us, it was a repeat of Rutherford. We couldn't even hook a catfish. We packed up and headed home empty handed. Ho Hum.

Mike