First time in Matanzas Inlet

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daytonajim00
Fisher
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 1:05 am

First time in Matanzas Inlet

Post by daytonajim00 »

Wen't fishing @ Matanzas Inlet today. I was dissapointed in the lack of good fishing spots in the Flagler/Palm Coast area (other than the Flagler Pier) so we decided to check out Matanzas. Pay the 2$ bridge toll and head north on A1A. There's a BBQ joint on the left about 5 miles down that sells bait and tackle. We picked up some live shrimp and continued north another 5 miles maybe. A1A crosses the inlet and crossing that bridge was the mistake of the day. We should of stayed on the south side. The south side has rocks and is where the channel is. The north side has a nice beach area on the river portion. We walked down to this "river beach" like some pack mules. We brought the baby so we had double weight. I was thinking set up a pack-n-play and throw some lines out. Anyway, I realized we were maybe 200 yards from where we parked to the inlet. So I carried 75% of the load and led. We had pack-n-play, 2 poles, small cooler, diaper bag, baby, bait bucket, another plastic bag that she brought lord knows what, tackle box, 2 pop out chairs and a sheet. You couldn't walk on the dunes or even see over them and the beach curved funky around them so 200 yards turned to 400. What made it worse, as soon as we made it to where you could see around the dunes there was a 100 yard plateau of sand higher than the tide pools and beach area in between us and the inlet. We marched up to this plateau completely downtrodden at this point and our first steps sank about half a foot. It was inevitable. We had to walk through what seemed like a mile long stairmaster. You burn twice the energy per step! So we get to the inlets' beach and I see kids wading out like 50 yards. The water was maybe lower 70's and there was no way my girl was gonna come. I felt like what ever at this point so we made camp and I basically fished the 4' water shallows with no bites what so ever. We left after an hour and I made two trips to carry most of the stuff. I felt bad I led us to this disaster. The quote that stuck out for the day was my girl saying "frozen wasteland" in complete discouragement when we first stepped on the soft plateau that seemed to go for miles. The fussing we were doing up until that point broke down into us simotaneously laughing in disbelief. Anyway, we went back to the BBQ/Bait place and got some food and refreshments. This place had a cool park area with old settlement ruins that the city build a gazeebo like stucture around with a boarwalk and the ruins in the middle underneath you as you walked through. THat was cool. There also was a boat ramp lagoon and 3 seperate piers. We fished the pier into sunset and got more action than the bad side of the inlet. My traps and back are sore from lugging and I thought I'd update this section. Might check the park out again another day.

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