March 23rd, 2015 Attempted Cooked Shore Lunch with Capt. Toney

Last year Capt. William Toney, with Homosassa Inshore Charters came to one of our meetings to teach us about Spotted Seatrout and how to catch them.  During that evening he mentioned that his guide's association offers a special charter called a Cooked Shore Lunch.  This trip included the first half of the day catching trout, then traveling to a remote island to have a fresh fried trout picnic lunch, then back at the dock by late afternoon.  This sounded like a great deal of fun so it went on the list of fun activities to schedule for 2015.

Well since our club has grown in numbers since last Spring, we thought it would be fitting to invite Capt. Toney back once again  His assigned topic for March 3rd's meeting was "Filleting Fish", and as always, we learned a few new tricks.  And so to keep with the theme of trout and filleting, we scheduled our own Cooked Shore Lunch charter with him and so it was.....set for Monday, March 23rd.

We had a total of six NCLA members register for that outing and two of the NCLA member spouses which was just enough to merit two full boats.  Four on Capt. Toney's boat and four on Capt. Mark Zorn's boat.  And so it became just a matter of waiting for Monday, March 23rd to arrive.

Oh what beautiful weather we had been having during the month of March.  Not a care in the world.  Certainly no worries for bad weather had even been considered.  Over the weekend of the 21st and 22nd, all of the final details had been e-mailed to everyone....what time to meet....where to meet....what to bring.....etc.  Don't think we left anything to chance.  

By 4:00 a.m. Monday morning, we heard rain on the rooftop.  "Okay, so it's a typical Florida morning shower.  Should be over soon" we told ourselves.   By 6:00 a.m. Capt. Toney got on the phone and expressed a little concern about the days weather forecast.  Maybe it would rain all day, maybe it wouldn't .  He couldn't guarantee it either way.  His main question was did the ladies want to cancel the trip or take a chance on  the weather improving and go for it?  It was a good question and one six women would probably not agree on unanimously.  After all, we had already made plans to spend the day on the water.  And surely, it do what most common morning Florida rain showers do....move on past, right?  Well, that's what we gambled on!

By 8:00 a.m. all eight of us were at the designated meeting point, MacRae's of Homosassa 

We met Capt. Toney and Capt Zorn and wandered around the bait and tackle shop as the two Captains loaded up their boats with our beverages and snacks.  We kept and eye on the local t.v. weather reports and our ears tuned to the local dock-rats that were drinking coffee under the riverside awning.  Half of the reports indicated rain all day.  The other half said that the weather reports don't mean a thing.  Although mos of us had our rain gear on, it really didn't look all that bad on the river.  We would forge ahead and keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

It's 9:00 a.m. and still drizzling.  The rain hasn't lightened up much, if at all, but we're trying to be optimistic so we go ahead and take our seats, four in one boat, four in the other.  We're as ready as we'll ever be at this point.

Well, there was no turning back now.  The next 15-20 minutes were spent chatting during a smooth ride out of the Homossassa River.    To our delight, we were actually able to throw back the hoods of our jackets.  The showers seemed to have dissipated while we were talking and we hadn't even noticed.  Maybe there was some literal "light" at the end of the tunnel?  A bit more confident that the foul weather was heading in a different direction.  We hunkered down as the Capt. went full on the throttle.

Although we were optimistic that the weather was improving, we knew we weren't out of the woods yet because those few rain drops that did hit us stung like needles as both Capt.'s were jockeying for position.  We were all smiles when we felt the boat slow down quickly.  Clearly we had reached our first destination.  Capt. Toney rigged each of our poles with his famous go-to lure, the 5 inch DOA CAL jerk bait in nite glow.

9:30 and we were not on a mission to catch as many trout as fast as we could.  Capt. Toney had several spots that we would hit over the course of the morning but the quicker we got the job done, the quicker we could get to the island and out of the rain.  The rain had picked up and the wind had intensified as well.  We were in a pretty tight spot.  All five of us were lined up on the same side of the boat (due to the wind direction) casting and retrieving in a frenzy.  If there were any trout out there they sure couldn't miss us!

Capt. Toney pointed in the direction where, 30 minutes ago we could see the distant mangrove/shore line.  The rain and clouds had rolled in so quickly and quietly that we were a bit caught off guard.  We had admitted to ourselves that it was probably going to be a misty drizzly day at this point, but certainly hadn't expected this kind of unexpected storm cloud.  We knew at that point that things were just not going to get better, no matter how much we "willed" it to.  Mother Nature wasn't taking sides with the Nature Coast Lady Anglers this day and so as not to prolong our suffering any longer, we agreed to call UNCLE, throw in the towel and ask the Captains to take up back to the dock.  As much as we wanted it to be a fun day, there just comes a time when you have to call it for what it is, a day of misfortune.  

By the time we made it back to the dock, we were all soaked to the bone and ready to go home.  We had tried to make the best of it and the Captains did their best to keep us optimistic but even they had to admit the sun was not going to make a showing.  But we weren't going to let bad luck keep us from doing this all together.  We just regrouped and rescheduled the event for another day in the near future.  Hopefully with better weather next time.