BigBendFishing.Net

Finally got a chance to fish with my oldest son Monday. Left out of Yates a little late because of lack of water in canal. Stopped just outside the channel to catch bait with ultra light and Mullet gizzard. Had a hard time catching small enough pins for live bait, but caught lots of large ones for cut bait. Wind was fairly calm, so no problem with my son's 13 foot skiff. We ran north towards Spring Warrior and stopped in about three foot for our first try. I fished cut bait on Carolina rig on bottom. My son started with lives pins under cajun thunder. My first hook up was a small trout, his was a shark, which we kept. We made several drifts over solid grass with not much luck, so we moved out to five feet over broken bottom. The tide was moving good by then and the wind was pushing us at a fair clip so we covered a lot of bottom. The fish also turned on very well on the live pins. My cut bait caught fairly well, but not as well as the live bait. Problem was catching small enough pins. Anything over two inches, they wouldn't touch it. As afternoon went on, the wind picked up and became very rough for our small skiff. We moved back to the mouth of the creek and with a lot of effort we finished off our limit with a 26 and a 28 inch Trout. We had several just short of 20 inch. No time to check the Reds. Felt great to see my son having so much fun, and relieve some of the stress that law enforcement brings.

CSMarine wrote: Problem was catching small enough pins. Anything over two inches, they wouldn't touch it.

I had the same problem out of St. Marks 2 weeks ago, the Pins were HUGE!

Sounds like a great day on the water with great company

Aquamaholic wrote:

CSMarine wrote: Problem was catching small enough pins. Anything over two inches, they wouldn't touch it.

I had the same problem out of St. Marks 2 weeks ago, the Pins were HUGE!

Sounds like a great day on the water with great company

No problem with the "huge" ones. My wife is from the Phillippines and loves to eat those more than the trout. I eat them too, but not when there is trout and shark fillets on the plate.

Nice fish CS

U can toss the big pins my way. The bigger pins always get used first when we grouper and cobia fish !

Jhults11 wrote:U can toss the big pins my way. The bigger pins always get used first when we grouper and cobia fish !

As I was catching 'em I was thinking I should be heading off shore with these bad boys. My problem was not having big enough hooks (or big enough boat to head that far out).

CSMarine wrote:

Aquamaholic wrote:

CSMarine wrote: Problem was catching small enough pins. Anything over two inches, they wouldn't touch it.

I had the same problem out of St. Marks 2 weeks ago, the Pins were HUGE!

Sounds like a great day on the water with great company

No problem with the "huge" ones. My wife is from the Phillippines and loves to eat those more than the trout. I eat them too, but not when there is trout and shark fillets on the plate.

Are they kinda like bream?
They can't be too bad, just about every fish worth eating eats pins

They taste better than bream. More bones, but the big ones are easy to pick. I don't eat bream that often, but my wife and I eat big pins all the time. Cook em the same way as any pan fish, the taste might surprise you.

Good report, CSMarine.

Jhults11 wrote:U can toss the big pins my way. The bigger pins always get used first when we grouper and cobia fish !

That's what I'm talking about. Send em my way. We were having trouble catching pinfish big enough to make it through the grunts and blackfish last weekend.
Nice report

Good trip. I know what you mean about the small pins, I couldn't catch any small ones last week. Did you have any trouble launching at Yates Creek? I always wondered if a boat could go in there.

Hey Reb. You have to catch the tide right not just to launch there but to get out to deep enough water to run. I always use a small skiff 13 or 14 foot. I've seen large boats go out of there but anything below half tide can leave you stranded in a larger boat. You also better know the channel very well or you'll get into trouble at the mouth of the creek. Even on high tide there is only one way through the oyster bars with not much lea way.