ECONFINA 4-03-04

[dolphinatic]

We got to the "creek" about 7:00 to find TK and a few others waiting for the water to rise. We decided to put in despite the very low tide. I trimmed the motor way up and proceded to troll on out. We did good until we got to the "creek" entrance at the flats. The water was so low that I decided to just get out and drag the boat a bit. I had my 9 year old with me and thought it would make for a funny story somewhere down the road. One day he could look back and say "hey dad...remember that time we wanted to go fishing so bad that you dragged the boat out in ankle deep water while we talked about how much fun we were going to have?" Anyhow, we finally made it and at 8:00 we were running full throttle to the bird racks.

It was a bit windy but nothing like what was to come later on. My son started catching blues right away using shrimp under a CT (his favorite setup). There wasn't much else biting, so we decided to troll out to a spot we found 2 weeks ago that produced some nice spanish. We boated 2 spanish off a silver Clark Spoon. The wind picked up and we decided to head back in closer.

We stayed east of the birdracks and drifted for a while. We caught a few nice trout and more blues. The blues seemed to be schooling everwhere. My buddy was catching trout using a jighead and green curly tail. I caught a few using my gold/black chugbug. Even in the windy weather, they were slamming the chug!

About 1:00 or so, we had 6 nice trout, a few spanish and a bunch of blues. We decided to move closer in to keep from being capsized. We decided to make one last drift for the day. Almost immediately after we stopped, we began catching trout. At one point, I caught 3 keepers on 3 consecutive casts! We were literally throwing the fish to the back of the boat without even taking time to put them in the cooler. Within 30 minutes we had limited out on trout and were playing "catch and release." We boated about 25 keeper sized trout in 1 hour releasing everything over our limit. It was the best part of the day as well as the windiest. With a cooler full of fish, we decided to call it a day. Just like everyone else, we got soaked on the way in. Regardless, it was a good day on the water.

TOTAL FOR THE DAY: 15 TROUT (17-21"), 2 NICE SPANISH AND 12 NICE BLUES.

[ALMAR]

Sure makes me think back a few years when I would not let the wind, rain, sleet, or snow keep me from fishing. Glad you were able to catch instead of just fish. Pa

[RodBow]

Thanks dolphinatic, I'll know who to call for a tug.

[Tidedancer]

Good report. Yes it was windy out in the flats on Saturday.

[dolphinatic]

be glad to do it......however, the next tugging that I'm gonna be doing is for something offshore

[Sir reel]

Way ta hang in there dolphinatic, You weren't the only soul to do the ole "jump and drag". If I'm not mistaken...there were at least two others. If I hadn't had such a dedicated crew we wouldn't have had the sucess we did Got a question for you. What time approximately was it and what was the water depth when the fish turned on for you? Thanks for the report.

[dolphinatic]

Sir Reel.....we caught 6 or so keeper trout between 9:00 and 11:00 fishing in 4-7 ft. of water (with a chugbug I might add) all inside the birdracks. The trout didn't really turn on for us until around 2:00. We moved in to 4 ft. of water and used nothing but SureKetch firetail grubs (pearl body/red tail). The trout destroyed them Between 2:00 -3:00 we caught about 25 keeper trout despite the "whitecaps." The only other consistent action we had was with the blues....they seemed to be schooling everywhere and would hit just about anything.

I caught 0 trout using shrimp this past weekend. That's a first and I'm not sure why. Hope this info helps....