We were hoping to catch some reds out in the flat on the low, but hadn't seen any by slack. Fortunately the wind was breezy enough to keep us moving 0.4 mph according to the GPS. We drifted over 3 miles and covered a whole lot of area, just cranking the boat up every 30-40 minutes to keep us in the skinny. As soon as slack hit, we started getting a few giant blowups from reds. I missed a couple, and then mojo yanked the hook out of 2 or 3 in a row. I know those were reds cause he had the scales on his hooks to prove it
On the early rise, reds were sporadic, but we boated several more trout. They were all good size today; with the exception of maybe 3 shorts, the smallest one we got was 17.5" ... marked a few spots for next weekend
After about an hour without seeing any reds at all, mojo gets nailed again but it misses his lure - doesn't hit again. He got a kink in his line, and while he's standing on the bow screwing with it, he says "reds - it's a school...omg cast cast!!" I couldn't see where he was talking about from the glare of the sun, but when I finally found them, I noticed we were about to drift over the biggest red I have ever seen in this area. We ended up getting the boat within a few feet of it before it very slowly moved off. I'd say it was at least 4' - when it was next to the boat its tail was around the front of my center console and the head was almost to the bow. I made a half-arse underhand cast trying not to spook them. No takers, but another I hadn't originally seen, close to the same size, spooked off about 15 feet away. I made a second cast out in front of them hoping one would hit it on the splash, and knowing there was little or no chance of a red that big hitting something coming toward it. Again no takers. They got a little too far off to see, but I was watching the pushes move around for a bit waiting for one to turn so I could throw across its path, but no joy on that either and they just kinda disappeared. I did notice while watching that there were at least 5 enormous ones, and umpteen more that weren't making porpoise-like wakes.
Bite slowed down, cranked up the boat, drove a very wide path around that drift and re-started it on almost identical path. I had hit the MOB button on the GPS where we saw the school, and I gave it close to 1000 feet leeway where we restarted, trying not to spook them off with the motor. Well, when we got almost exactly to the MOB marker on the chartplotter, I was standing still just watching the water with my rod in one hand and lure in the other noleflyfisher style. finally caught a tiny pinkish flash in the water running perpindicular to our drift, threw out about 10 feet in front of it and a few feet past and lost sight of the fish. Mojo can see it from the bow platform, says "yah it's coming after it" and about 2 seconds after that there is a whirpool and my spook has disappeared. Got a perfect hook set and the fight was on...lasted close to 5 minutes with a 7' medium-heavy rod and stradic 4000. didn't even get it close enough to the boat to get a good look for a few minutes...and here's the punch line - I finally get a good look at it and say "[explicative removed] it's small!"
Well, so I got this pig, measured 29.5 and maybe the heaviest one I've ever caught that size, and the most fight I've ever had from one that size. Irony of it all is, it was the most disappointed I've ever been, hands down, about catching an over slot red. The way it tore off drag and the wake it was making out there, I thought I had me a bull...but no...today was just not my day
I caught it on this lure. I purchased this in town on my way to the lighthouse. It had been out of the blister pack just under 15 minutes when this happened. By the time I got the fish in the boat, 3 of the 6 hook barbs were broken off in the fight, and the lure had huge chunks of paint missing, and 4 or 5 dang respectable dents in it. This is the 4th one in 5 days lost to or destroyed by over-slot reds.
