6/27 and 6/28
Posted: June 29th, 2009, 5:03 pm
Saturday Katie and I launched from St. Marks a little later than I would have liked. Started to slowly work our way east looking for some new territory and fishing some old territory I hadn't visited in quite some time. Managed to find some trout in 2-3 of water but nothing really impressive. Finally reached the creek I was looking for at about 11:30. The tide was coming out and it had brought the reds with it. Casting topwaters in about a foot of water was the ticket. Everytime mullet stirred the water or jumped, the next cast would result in a nice blow-up. Brought home one 26" fish who took my skitterwalk into the crushers and turned him into fish tacos.
The next day I got an early start with Matt and a buddy from work. My buddy is a newbie, so we started out a little deeper letting him throw a cork trying to get things started easy. Couldn't buy a hit. Once the water settled we ran back to the area I was in saturday and his first cast results in a 24" trout. A couple cast later a 23" trout. The trout got smaller from there, but they were hitting whatever we threw; soft jerkbaits, topwaters of all shapes, jigs. Managed a couple triple hook ups. About 11:30 we headed into the 1 foot range and my mullet were still there. Managed probably a dozen reds between 25-29". I caught a couple on large topwaters, but they were mostly knocking the large plugs around. The smaller topwaters they were inhaling headfirst and deep. I had hooks ripped/broken off of three plugs; guess its time to replace some more factory hardware with 4x's. I managed two overslot fish and Matt caught a perferct tourney fish which helped us recover mentally since our topwaters didn't find the big trout earlier when my buddy was soaring high on beginner's luck.
About 12:45 my work buddy says "this thing is broken" and I look back to see there is no reel on my rod....WTF. I tell him to get out of the boat, he looks at me confused so I help him out of the boat. I feel the tension tightening on my line so I slide the rod under the boat and tell him to grab it, follow it to the reel and not to break the line in the process. We were drifting pretty quickly so I fire the up the engine and go back to get him. Matt yells, "you got your skitterwalk." Crap, I had left my plug out trying to save my reel, luckily only a couple twist around the prop to undo and we're free. Return to recover my buddy and my reel, both looking a little rough. On that note we headed for the hill. Katie will try round two of the avacado redfish recepie that Henry Wazchuck showed on his show a couple months back. It was good the first time, so I'm pretty excited to try it again.
I'm a little rough after a days fishing on 1.5 hours sleep.
Thinking we have the reds pretty well patterned, Matt and I decided to take the fly rods next trip. A camera will be in tow as well (we'll try to get some water shots with my shirt on); hopefully we're not setting ourselves up for disappointment. We've already agreed that no conventional tackle will be taken, as it would be too tempting to pick up a plug when the mullet start flying.
The next day I got an early start with Matt and a buddy from work. My buddy is a newbie, so we started out a little deeper letting him throw a cork trying to get things started easy. Couldn't buy a hit. Once the water settled we ran back to the area I was in saturday and his first cast results in a 24" trout. A couple cast later a 23" trout. The trout got smaller from there, but they were hitting whatever we threw; soft jerkbaits, topwaters of all shapes, jigs. Managed a couple triple hook ups. About 11:30 we headed into the 1 foot range and my mullet were still there. Managed probably a dozen reds between 25-29". I caught a couple on large topwaters, but they were mostly knocking the large plugs around. The smaller topwaters they were inhaling headfirst and deep. I had hooks ripped/broken off of three plugs; guess its time to replace some more factory hardware with 4x's. I managed two overslot fish and Matt caught a perferct tourney fish which helped us recover mentally since our topwaters didn't find the big trout earlier when my buddy was soaring high on beginner's luck.
About 12:45 my work buddy says "this thing is broken" and I look back to see there is no reel on my rod....WTF. I tell him to get out of the boat, he looks at me confused so I help him out of the boat. I feel the tension tightening on my line so I slide the rod under the boat and tell him to grab it, follow it to the reel and not to break the line in the process. We were drifting pretty quickly so I fire the up the engine and go back to get him. Matt yells, "you got your skitterwalk." Crap, I had left my plug out trying to save my reel, luckily only a couple twist around the prop to undo and we're free. Return to recover my buddy and my reel, both looking a little rough. On that note we headed for the hill. Katie will try round two of the avacado redfish recepie that Henry Wazchuck showed on his show a couple months back. It was good the first time, so I'm pretty excited to try it again.
I'm a little rough after a days fishing on 1.5 hours sleep.
Thinking we have the reds pretty well patterned, Matt and I decided to take the fly rods next trip. A camera will be in tow as well (we'll try to get some water shots with my shirt on); hopefully we're not setting ourselves up for disappointment. We've already agreed that no conventional tackle will be taken, as it would be too tempting to pick up a plug when the mullet start flying.
