3 Days of Econfina Redfish Madness!!!

[big bend gyrene]

This past week, my wife's cousin Barry and uncle Tommy made it down our way (from upstate South Carolina) to do a bit of fishing. The trip was Barry's third in 3 years, but Tommy's first visit to the Big Bend area as well as his very first time doing any saltwater fishing.

Despite consistently strong winds we managed our goal of fishing Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and even managed to make it to close to 30' deep on Saturday for a couple of hours of grouper fishing. Decided to post in the "inshore" section as our hottest action was in waters between 2' to 8'.

Each day we started our trip out with a quick run to nearshore depths (approx. 8')... my thinking was we could catch both game fish and bait while waiting to see if the waters calmed enough to run out deeper. We threw a little of everything, including live shrimp, topwater plugs, soft-plastic fish bodies, and gulp jigs. All three days we had a relatively steady bite while drifting from 8' until we reached approx. 5'. By far, largest number of fish caught were ladyfish, but we had enough trout, mackerel, and bluefish mixed in to keep us wondering what was on the line each time we had a bite. Keeping things interesting for Tommy were occasional catches of new species he had never seen such as lizardfish and remora.

After drifting the nearshore depths on Thursday and Friday, we spent both afternoons cruising hard bottom & oyster bars looking for reds. The reds really gave Barry and Tommy a show - 11 reds on Thursday, and 7 more on Friday. Below are a few pics from the first two days out.

Barry with a nice red on day 1...


Barry with another nice red...


Tommy showing off a trout...


By Saturday, I was willing to throw some caution to the wind (literally) and decided to do my best to get offshore the first half of the day. The decision paid off. We bottom fished using pinfish and got close to 10 hits. We lost the first few fish to structure, but kept at it and started bringing fish to the boat. Final offshore tally was 4 grouper, with the last being a nice one that really gave Barry a heck of a fight



I truly believe that we were all ready to call it a day after a tough ride out and back in from catching the grouper, but I just couldn't resist giving the redfish one last try on the way back in and the payoff was BY FAR the highlight of the trip. 19 reds all caught out of the same school, and even better yet THREE SEPARATE TRIPLES It was SUCH A BLAST, with us all grinning from ear to ear, yelling "FISH ON!", and giving high fives to one another after each triple. Below are a few photos taken during the redfish slugfest...

Hot-hand Barry gets things started...


And catches another...


I decide to join in on the fun...


TRIPLE TIME!!!


Tom and I show off our two contributing fish for the second triple (Barry was a bit quick with his release!)...


And Barry's back on again...


Can't think of a better way to end the post than by sharing a picture of Tommy with a grin from ear to ear, as he sets the hook on one of our last reds. MAN, what a trip! One I'll remember for a long, long time!

[Reel Slow]

Awesome fishing ... those are some very nice reds

[birddog]

Thats a special trip. Very nice.

[boggob]

A trip like that makes you look like a professional. Its always nice to take some pilgrims out only to have them return as old salts.

[Barhopr]

A trip for the photo album for sure!

[High Hope]

Awsome

[whitebc]

Nice trip, hella some fish!!

[big bend gyrene]

Just a few more notes to share from the trip...

All but a few of the reds bites came via spoon. Pardon the pun, but the spoons were worth their weight in gold

Not all the reds came from the exact same spot, but the majority did and the school was seemingly full of same sized fish. Most fell between 4 and 6 pounds, and it was funny how each time we thought we caught a slightly larger fish we would throw him on the boga to have it read exactly 6 pounds

Mainly shared photos of reds with one or two spots (did notice one had no spots), but wish I had taken a few photos of a few we caught with a good many more. We caught a few with somewhere between 6 to 8 spots per side.

One last note, few fish were harmed during our trip as I couldn't justify keeping too many fish with a freezer already full of grouper and cobia caught late last year and earlier this year. We kept a redfish a piece the first day so Barry and Tommy could enjoy some blackened on the ol' cast iron skillet ( ), but outside those three reds we only kept one other red that we couldn't revive (hooked deep in the gills and lost too much blood)... even let keeper grouper go, so most should still be out there for future enjoyment.

[caseycook]

Niiiiice! Great report and good looking fish.

[Mook!]

NICE!

Always glad to see someone beat the 'take a newbie fishing' curse! I have the worst luck almost any time I try to show someone new a good time

[FUTCHCAIRO]

HEY GYRENE, MAN THAT IS ONE NICE FISHIN TRIP, GLAD YA GOT SOME TO PUT IN THE GREASE.
SEMPER-FI
PA THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

[Ron Wilson]

WOW! What a sweet trip. You probably spoiled those boys.

[WaltDawg]

Nice size on those reds. Luckily you had multiple folks in the boat to justify keeping those bad boys. I have a feeling your buddy will be making it down more often! Make sure you let 'em know that its not the fisherman, its the guide.

[tin can]

That's a heck of a weekend. Nice goin, guys.

[Pinocchio]

WOW! You musta stumbled into that mess o' reds Chalk and his bud, CS Marine, spent about a decade lookin' for and finally gave up on! Glad to see ya hit da, Mutha-Load, that proves them boys was not jus' hallucinating for bein' out in tha sun too long!