St. Joe 4/24 - 25
Posted: April 27th, 2009, 8:36 am
Had a great weekend of fishing out on the bay Saturday and Sunday. Met up with Trout Trent and JT51 at Bluewater early Saturday and hit it just after daylight. We fished some areas but I think JT's patience wore thin and they took off toward the back of the bay and I immediately hook up with a nice trout on a skitterwalk. 
The rest of the morning was slow but I finally got another nice trout in the boat around lunch time. I picked up a buddy at Pressnells and headed back out to try and sight fish some reds. We saw around 100 fish but most of them were spooky but we did manage to catch 12 reds on spoons and jerk baits. Sunday morning I hit the water with a friend who just had his first child last week and was in bad need of a quick fishing trip so we headed out at daylight hoping to hit some fish early and often. Ran into Birddog and said hello and then ran back to where we saw all the fish the day before. We made one drift with no luck, and the second drift the wind really started blowing and I was thinking it was going to be a bust. I had some technical difficulties with my gear and was in the process of re-rigging 2 rods when Matt started hollering, "they are under the boat, they are everywhere!" I look out to see a school of about 75-100 fish scattering in every direction under the Yellowfin. Matt chuncks his renegade right into the middle of a pod and immediately hooks up, meanwhile I have nothing to throw at them since I have 2 rods with no lures on them so I grab the only rod that was rigged and it only had a jig head on it with no grub. I throw it as far as I can while watching about 20 fish swimming right toward the bare hook. I jig it as fast as I can and try to make as much noise and flash with it and I felt the familiar double thump of a 27" redfish on the other end of my line!! We stayed with the school for just a few minutes and then they were gone. We ended up with 8 reds and 9 trout and had a really good time even though the wind was a pain in the rear. Good weekend of fishing, can't wait to go again!! 
Sunday's Dinner
The rest of the morning was slow but I finally got another nice trout in the boat around lunch time. I picked up a buddy at Pressnells and headed back out to try and sight fish some reds. We saw around 100 fish but most of them were spooky but we did manage to catch 12 reds on spoons and jerk baits. Sunday morning I hit the water with a friend who just had his first child last week and was in bad need of a quick fishing trip so we headed out at daylight hoping to hit some fish early and often. Ran into Birddog and said hello and then ran back to where we saw all the fish the day before. We made one drift with no luck, and the second drift the wind really started blowing and I was thinking it was going to be a bust. I had some technical difficulties with my gear and was in the process of re-rigging 2 rods when Matt started hollering, "they are under the boat, they are everywhere!" I look out to see a school of about 75-100 fish scattering in every direction under the Yellowfin. Matt chuncks his renegade right into the middle of a pod and immediately hooks up, meanwhile I have nothing to throw at them since I have 2 rods with no lures on them so I grab the only rod that was rigged and it only had a jig head on it with no grub. I throw it as far as I can while watching about 20 fish swimming right toward the bare hook. I jig it as fast as I can and try to make as much noise and flash with it and I felt the familiar double thump of a 27" redfish on the other end of my line!! We stayed with the school for just a few minutes and then they were gone. We ended up with 8 reds and 9 trout and had a really good time even though the wind was a pain in the rear. Good weekend of fishing, can't wait to go again!! Sunday's Dinner
