So after my Cobia encounter Wednesday evening, had to go again Thursday. Conveniently enough, the 'red phone' from work awoke me at 4am and I was in the office by 5am..worked straight through to mid afternoon and headed for the coast after 9.5 hours at the awfice. Picked up my friend Andrew on the way and took him on his first trip to the flats here. Andy is my O.O.G. fishin buddy from back home in central Florida who moved up here for law school last year but hadn't got a break until finishing finals and finally having nothing to do Thursday. We used to go bass fishing in the chain of lakes he lived on several times weekly since we were about 6-7 years old.
Wind was still windy, water was still choppy; I initiated him with a right proper shower on the way to our first spot. I had been explaining to him about my favorite soft bait; he asked me how to work it. I handed him a rig and pulled out another for me, and we practiced by the boat for a few minutes and he quickly got it down. On his first 'real' cast, he brought in a 19" trout.
Chalk up yet another first-cast-keeper for the Zulu. I ended my two day streak by not catching anything until my third cast. Short... I had recently developed a special affection for the MirrOlure Crankbait chart for reasons unknown and chucked that the rest of the time in the 'generic flat' netting I think one keeper and a couple of shorts. No ling-ling
I wanted to show him some of the different areas and environments we have around here, so I took him up and through a couple of creeks and a quick run around stoney bayou. Left there and headed to one of my favorite creeks and started a drift at the mouth. Andy picked up a decent keeper flounder on the drift in, again on the Zulu, and got hit on almost every cast until we decided to call that drift and head up to a red hole in the creek. We got to a trusty red hole slightly later than optimal for redfishing, but well within the range where I expected we'd catch at least 1 or 2. Nothin...not even baitfish screwin with either of us. I couldn't figure it out other than my curse of bringing a new person out and trying to show them a good time had somehow surfaced just when I thought I might actually be beating it for once.
Figured it out over the next 20 minutes when I caught 2 sharks; one bonnet, one pointy. decided to abandon that spot, and by the time we got out of the creek, ominous clouds were building across the shoreline as cool air blew in off the Gulf on to the warm land. We decided to go ahead and call it a day around 8pm with a little sunlight left and get out safe.
On the way in the ramp pool I said "Sorry the fishin kinda sucked" knowing his favorite target is reds, and he laughed...said it was an awesome day, so I was happy that he had a good time.
Caught almost everything on Zulu other then the couple trout I picked up on the crankbait. Water was 79-81, everything caught in 1-3 foot depth.
5/09
Got out about 6pm LH - stroooong winds, water was a few degrees cooler, bite was waaaaay off what it had been the previous few days. I was getting about 1 hit every 15-20 minutes on topwater, and almost went home skunked for the first evening in a long time. Finally brought in one pathetic short keeper trout on a top dog jr, still tired from lack of sleep Wednesday night, proclaimed it "sucks" and went home well before sunset so I could try and get some rest for fishing today.
