Econfina 4/9-11

[flatsbroke22]

Spent a long weekend with a big group of friends at Econfina. Got to the ramp around 3:00 Thursday to a rising tide. Fished a couple hours for trout to no avail so we went close to find some reds on the high tide. Lost a big red on the first cast with a live shrimp due to a straightened out hook. Then started casting plugs and boated two lower slot and released one short red. Friday we left out early to a calm and beautiful day on the gulf. Went to the spot we found the reds the day before and found big trout instead. Caught seven trout from 18 to 23" and one nice 14lb. 33" red that was released. We then tried for some rock bass on a rock pile in 8 foot and picked up a few and a flounder. Had a huge cobia swim around the boat a couple of times but couldn't get him to eat. Saturday was a different story as we only caught a few short trout. Got a big surprise when we got back to the hill and a buddy was telling us about a king that was caught on the flats. Turns out one his buddy's were in 2-3 foot trout fishing and his wife hung into something huge. She fought it for about 15 min. and handed off the rod. Finally boated a 42" king. First I ever heard of a king being caught in that shallow.

[Charlie P]

Good report! Was down there Saturday as well, brought 9 Trout from 16 to 22 to the hill.

Looked like all you GA boys were off to the West? We fished East of the river.

Did y'all stay at the "hotel" on the left coming in? Looked like a decent place to stay.

Charlie P

[flatsbroke22]

Yea we stayed to the west, maybe should have gone east on Saturday. lol We had pretty much all the hotel rooms and both condos rented. It's a decent place to stay. We do this trip twice a year in April and again in October.

[ugadawg]

I saw the Redneck Fishing Club sign at the hotel when I got down there on Saturday. We ended up with 10 trout 17"-23", 2 spanish, and a rock bass.

It is very interesting that a king mackerel was caught. There were baitfish all around all day long. At one point, a bunch of baitfish began to cascade out of the water as they were running from something. Looked almost like a waterfall there were so many. While they were cascading, I saw a couple bigger tails and one good sized spanish jump from the water chasing them. I then saw a fish that was well over 4 feet long jump completely out of the water chasing the baitfish. It looked like a king mackerel, and a really nice one at that. All of this happened in 4 feet of water.

[flatsbroke22]

Yea those bait schools were everywhere. I stopped and threw my net on a school and got about 200 ballyhoo. Got a video of it but need to edit it down. I put a few floating out the back of the boat to see what would happen. I did get one hit but instantly got cut off. Figured it was a spanish or shark, now that I know it could have been a king. Who knew.

[Nambleman]

Bunch of pigs! Nice fish! Its rare to see trout that are longer and fatter than redfish when lined up...a sight I dont mind seeing :p

[countrycorners]

Sounds great , nice fish!!

[flatsbroke22]

Tried to embed but get it to do rite. https://youtu.be/PXtvyFHl1S0

[Steve Stinson]

A year or two ago, I had my son and one of my employees fishing at the mouth of the Pinhook River, just West of the Aucilla. I had a large trout hooked and about halfway back to the boat when a 4' long King hit the trout and jumped out of the water so high that we were all looking upward to see it. I reeled in some slack line, then about half of my trout. None of us will ever forget how quick that King was moving, or how high he rocketed out of the water. We were about 3 casts off of the sawgrass line at the time.

[Bluewave]

We were there the weekend before and it was just getting started caught a few trout but all were nice. Good to hear it is going good now nice catch!