Stood up... but I made the best of it!

With all the intentions of providing the best possible service to another welcome guest, I crawled out of bed at 4:45am, loaded the boat with the tackle, rods/reels, drinks and made my way to the Bait House, arriving shortly after 6am. I purchased 8 dozen frisky shrimp, some baitpump batteries and a bag of ice and was on my way, launching by quarter to 7. I got everything in order on the boat, traded stories with other anglers who were launching and waited, and waited, and waited. A NO SHOW. What kind of person sets up a fishing trip and doesn't have the courtesy to make a phone call to cancel? All I can say is they must not have been raised right! With 8 dozen shrimp in the live well and a beautiful sunny morning and time on your hands, what would you do? Go Fishing! As I was walking down to the parking lot (one last check for the "Guest") I saw some Redfish tails out in the flooded marsh so I hurried down to the boat, changed out a lure for a weedless jig, tipped it with shrimp and ran back up the board walk to cast at the feeding fish. I had no takers but my bad spirits were dissolved. I cranked the boat and ran up to the Horsehead area and started tossing a mullet colored Zara Spook. It wasn't long before the lure blew up and the fight was on and eventually a nice 21" Trout was in the boat. I worked my way around the flooded marsh grass, getting a few hits and eventually settled in near a point when the tide started out. I caught a few more Trout, a nice Blue and a hard fighting Bonnethead Shark. Moving to another shore line that I have never fished I picked up a few more Trout and then anchored up at a large run-out. The Trout were thick and a number of times I had 2 Trout on at the same time so I had to reel one in and then grab the other rod to get it in. Most of the fish were small but I did have a few "keeper" sized ones. The bite slowed so I headed to Jackstaff, rounding the corner to find my buddy Charlie Jones and his cousin Tommy Phiester (visiting from Oregon) I tied up with them for about an hour, watching them catch some really nice Blues on finger mullet, then I finished the day by trolling the bank, almost at low tide, tossing a jig/shimp. I picked up a small Redfish...and headed to the dock. I ended up with 27 Trout, a Blue, a Shark, and a small Redfish. What a great day of fishing!