Short hits were popping off like mad in every direction, boated 2nd and 3rd keepers at 7:16. Switched to a super spook to try and weed out the big'uns and got keeper #4 on that about 2 casts later, though it was the smallest yet, a little under 16 inches. Mojo and I both landed a bunch of shorts there for the next 10-15 minutes on a second pass, then decided we better get while the gettin's good if we want to get some reds. I checked the tide chart and time on the GPS; it was 7:40am - one hour to high tide.
We took about a 5 minute or so drive to our first planned redfish stop and got to fishing again. We saw redfish all over the place but they weren't too aggressive for the most part. They didn't spook easy but they didn't eat easy either. we backed off and cast back toward them, and within 10 minutes of arriving at the area, Mojo hooked in good. I ran in circles yanking up the trolling motor, tilting up the Yammyha and diggin the net, which we hadn't used yet, out from under all the junk we stacked on top of it for the ride out. After a nice long fight that Mojo executed pretty much flawlessly (dude adjusted his drag a few times on the fly to make sure he didn't break off or lose it - I was impressed), I finally got the net around the day's first redfish at 29 inches. The fight was so long we drifted all the hades over the place makin all sorts of noise and pretty much spooked up the school pretty good. Unfortunately we never really did get them to bite on the rest of the incoming. Spent the next hour trying all sorts of junk to get them to bite. Closest we came was when we were trying to gently set the anchor in a good casting position, I saw two nice reds swim right by us maybe 8-10 feet away. I underhanded a zara spook about 3 feet in front of his face and yanked it in right across his path. He immediately turned after it, came up from the bottom, bumped it with his nose, then hauled arse. I don't read fin sign language but I'm pretty sure he was flipping me off and laughing.
Tide went slack, we talked about moving on the slack, but eventually decided that was dumb because we knew we just chased a small school of nice size reds of the creek we were in. We decided to just take 5 where we were and wait for the water to start moving the other way, which took about 2 hours longer than we expected. So for those couple or few hours we got little hits here and there, Mojo got one small keeper trout off the grass line, I totally Mooked my one good red hit at that spot, and a chump-azz pink dookie fish 'r-u-n o-f-t' with my last surviving Redfish Killer.
Once the tide started ripping out the school came back and laid up underneath the rocks in the run. I got my only other confirmed redfish hit of the day there, but it jumped out of the water and hit from above, had most or all of my lure in its mouth, bent my rod over and the plug slid right out his mouth. Somehow, I think he got the whole plug but none of the hook on account of his unorthodox jumping strike. 20-30 minutes later I got a nice wake push, roll and boil that I'm sure was a redfish, but about 1.5 seconds later I hear an explosion on the other side of the creek, which turned out to be Mojo hooking in to another good one that went flying toward where my plug was. I resisted the urge to try and entice a double-hookup hit and got my line the heck outta there cause his looked nice. Mojo had another long fight and I again ran around the boat moving two rods out the way and yanking two motors out of the water. Mojo landed a perfect 'tournament red' that came in maybe 1/8th inch under 27 and was pretty dang fat (proof positive that today was not a tournament).
The bite had already slowed down by that point and Mojo wanted to go after some more trout, so we got the heck outta Dodge and headed for a not too distant trout spot in deeper water. After playing simultaneous games of "dodge the scallopers" and "they don't have a dive flag, but aren't those people swimming around that boat?' we got to the spot. We ran two ten minute drifts there and got about 5-6 keepers between the two of us, then hit one more spot for about 10 minutes on the way back to the lighthouse to see if we could find some bigger ones. Bite was extremely slow there (about 4 foot over really spotty bottom) but I did hook in to the only one of the day that might have been over slot; he was close. I lost ihm right at the boat though so we'll never know. Called it a day and headed home a little before two.
I was a little disappointed to get shut out on reds, but Mojo got some good ones and I got plenty of trout early and late. Didn't count the keeper trout but probably about 15 or so, though nothing over 19". Pretty good day on the water.
Oh I almost forgot - Mojo used the bone topwater all day - I forget what it's called but it's the one they have at JBT for about $12.50 a piece and they come in a cardboard box like Rapalas. I got trout on super spook, super spook Jr., Top Dog Jr, Some sort of Bite-A-Bait, and the Redfish Killer. All the redfish were in about 12-18 inches of water; all the trout but one were in 2-3 foot water.
First fish of the day:
Couple minutes later:
Think this was Mojo's first keeper on the day:
Mojo's Not-Keeper
Also Mojo's Not-Keeper
Mojo accidentally catches small keeper while hunting grassline for reds
The keeper red
...and then some more trout
