Steinhatchee Re-match 5/22 and 5/23

[Saltydawg]

Took a quick solo trip back to the Hatch to try the trout one more time before the madness of Scallop Season begins. Believe me it was worth every inch of the drive. The weather was perfect and the tides were right for what I love to do the most, topwater. Morning low tide was before dawn so rising all morning so was easy to follow it in keeping my 20 ft bay boat in my target depth of about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 feet without worrying about leaving myself high n dry. Thursday morning the bite was good with 3 nice keepers and a bunch of shorts falling for my bone colored Skitterwalk. As the tide and sun rose I finished my limit and released a bunch of keepers on a Yo Zuri twitchbait. NICE DAY! But just a prelude to Friday where the topwater bite was off the chain. Could hardly get a retrieve in without some sorta strike. Released a 22 and a 24, which you can imagine was super exciting on topwater in skinny water. Started my limit with a 15 1/2, 19, then a 18 and almost outsmarted myself by deciding my “ keeper limit” for my remaining 2 was gonna be 18-19. Well, musta released 10 or more in the 15-17 range and it took my twitchbait after tide was turned to fill it out. Water and bottom was beautiful, nice clear water, great grass with potholes everywhere. Sorta ended day a little later when I saw a school of fish pushing a bunch of water in front of me maybe 50 yds out. Was hoping/ thinking redfish and only rig I could heave that far was my topwater. Well like the Saturday morning fishing shows they exploded all over each other to try and get it. Turned out to be BIG amberjacks and a 20+ pounder managed to foul hook himself by his dorsal. Well 30 minutes later with my 10 lb test rig I was able to get my Skitterwalk back and him safely released. I was worn out and called it a day but I sure do LOVE inshore fishing on our beautiful gulf.

[doomtrpr_z71]

I went for the day on the 19th and sounds like I should have waited, I ran to pepper fish and the grass was horrible and I couldn't fish top water past rocky creek.

[Saltydawg]

Yeah, seems like I heard some other fishermen say that the floating grass was bad down south. I went N both days and there were strips of floating grass that were thick and random floating grass pretty much everywhere but not terrible and heck at least on Friday morning if I didn’t pick up some grass in the first few twitches I had already had a strike.

[Saltydawg]

Also, forgot to report that I’m talking a big ole tarpon rolled about 100 ft from my boat Friday morning but i had just thrown my topwater in a different direction and by the time I could get it in guessing he’d moved on. I was more than willing to sacrifice that Skitterwalk just to see one jump. While not as rare as a unicorn sighting, for me at least seeing tarpon in Deadman’s Bay is a special occurrence.