BigBendFishing.Net

Took a break from work this week to host a visit from my old college roommate, Tedd Terry.

Tedd lives near Hershey, PA now but like me was raised a good 'ol Souths Cackalackian. We began rooming together after becoming fraternity brothers together at Furman University, and during our college years we shared a TON of fun times together... enough fun times I'll just say we both graduated with "THANK-THE-GOOD-LORDY!" accolades.
Been begging him to make a trip down for some fishing for years and this year he lined things up not only to come down but also to bring his Mom and Dad with him so he could enjoy time out on the water with his father, Rod Terry, an avid freshwater fisherman.

You want pressure to produce, just beg someone to come for years and let them see lots of pictures from previous solid trips posted on facebook. With a 3 day window and weather forecasts changing by the minute, I was sweating bullets over putting them on a few good fish. After much study, decided to push a saltwater fishing trip for Tuesday morning, just hours after their arrival, due to concern that Wednesday and Thursday would prove less predictable. DEFINITELY made the right choice as we were able to run through some moderate chop Tuesday morning and fish midshore waters. Launched out of Ecky a bit after daybreak and the river was beautiful as ever.
Fished multiple favorite cobia spots. Thought I would have luck on some of the more public numbers on a Tuesday, but only managed to catch a fun but short grouper. Ran to a favorite natural structure spot and found what I wanted. Wasn't a crazy double-digit cobia day, and had to sit through some slow fishing only to be shocked by surprise bites and a few cut-offs as the result, but we did successfully bring two cobia into the boat, tagging a short and keeping our largest one. Wanted to also put a few reds in the boat and was worried about the mission, but was at least glad to have a nice keeper cobe on ice / the skunk off the boat! Also definitely let both Tedd and his Dad see how crazy hard cobia fight!
Ran in for some afternoon redfishing, and used shrimp floating beneath a cajun thunder for my company while I fan cast a gold spoon to the oyster bars we targeted. Wasn't at the first spot long before the cajun thunder went under and we put a 21" red in the boat. Visited another bar and quickly caught a short on gold spoon. Cast out a shrimp and wasn't long before we put an even bigger 25 incher on the ice. With a nice blackened redfish meal 100% assured, we ran in to clean our fish and cook 'em up!
Report wouldn't be complete without a quick report on some Wednesday fishing we did. Took Tedd and his Dad down to my pond and we spent a few hours targeting bass hiding under water lily cover. Had about a dozen MASSIVE bites, but almost all came unbuttoned while trying to horse the bass through thick, thick, thick cover. Did manage to bring one nice 4 pounder to the boat but quickly released it so it could keep on growing. Had told Tedd's Dad that I knew we had panfish because I had witnessed plenty of surface popping / feeding, but that I had yet to have a visitor catch one. That fired him right up to supply hard evidence and didn't take him long. Caught an absolutely gorgeous dark blue/green/black bream, a bit tough to ID because it was SO darkly colored. Casting my vote to warmouth, but certainly welcome confirmation/correction.
Saw the Terry family off this morning, but praying that I showed them at least enough of a good time I can talk them into making a future trip back down so we can do it all over again! Had a wonderful time with some truly wonderful folks.

Looks like a great week!

Way to put em on fish, war mouth or maybe crappie? ( speckled perch if your from central fl) Hard to tell from the pic, but all the warmouths I've caught were lighter brown, but that was a long long time ago.

Way to put em on the fish BBG.

Woohoo!

Glad u were able to put em on some nice fish! And memories!

Excellent report and pictures!

big bend gyrene wrote:

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That looks like a very large "fly bream" to me. Mouth isn't big enough to be a warmouth... see below, as I had the same question about this time last year!

I think both the big boy and the one Manley is holding is what is commonly referred to as a "fly perch". Not sure of the scientific name.

Think I'd call them tasty, Great Week John thanks for the report!

Ranaman wrote:Think I'd call them tasty, Great Week John thanks for the report!

Found this line from one panfish site interesting on the subject of species variation, "You might catch a panfish that makes you scratch your head and wonder what's on the end of your line.
That's because some of these species of panfish will cross breed, producing hybrid fish that are hard to identify!" Definitely big for a flier and mouth a bit larger than I would have expected, having seen it firsthand sure didn't look exactly like any crappie I've seen before, and not quite as bass like as some warmouth look. Yep, Joe, think your answer very well may be the best one!