Lanark 5/4 - Redfish Rodeo...
Posted: May 5th, 2004, 12:09 pm
We had so much fun on the maiden voyage of Hard Times IV this past weekend, Skeeter and I decided to play hookie on Tuesday and hit the water again around Lanark.
We had great expectations since it was a full moon, and rising tide all day.
Well, the tide was lower than I have ever seen it coming out of Lanark. Temperature was 54 degrees at around 8:30 am... burrr.... Water temp was 63 degrees. The north wind was cold as well.
Bought several dozen live shrimp and caught a couple dozen pinfish and headed to some honey holes. Picked up one short trout on white shad with green tale SWA in about 2' of water. Went to deeper water, picked up a keeper trout and spannie in 6'. Bite was very slow. Drifted about a 1 mile drift, picked up a ladyfish. Nothing was biting... Drifted a live pinfish for that 1 mile drift, and nothing?
Guess it was the cold front.
Saw a couple of Tarpon fisherman on the Lanark reef. We were getting close and decide to move up to the FSU lab. Picked up another spannie and saw a couple other Tarpon boats...
Tried all soft and hard baits in the tackle box and nothing was biting. Live Pinfish, nada. Shrimp, nada, (well, at least not as productive as I thought).
Well, it was 1pm, and we decided to go back west. Just stopped the boat in a random spot, threw out the C/T with Live shimp. Saw some fish swirling at the edge of a grass bed. Then the Redfish Rodeo broke out!
We quit counting at 25 each for a total of 50 redfish. All was 16 - 17 inches long! It was the best 30 minutes of catching fish that I have ever experienced in the past year that I have lived here. Was able to keep one that was 18 inches. This was my first experinence with this many redfish. I've see it on TV alot where Redfish are that thick down in Louisiana, but never have found anything like that here in the Big Bend. By the end of the summer, these Redfish would be keepers... 
Here's the link to the AVI file:
https://home.comcast.net/~vicarms/MVI_0078.AVI
About 45 minutes after the Puppy Redfish Roundup ended, the final highlight of the day was on the last cast, Skeeter hung into a large fish that began to spool his line. We followed the fish with the boat about 200 yards and it jumped out of the water. I thought Cobia as I've never seen a shark that large jump out of the water like that. Anyway, 15 minutes later and a tired Skeeter as he got it up to the boat, we determined that we had a 5' about 30 lb shark.
Cobia would have to wait for another day.
We were able to get one of the Redfish catches and the Shark fight on a digital video camera. When it get's loaded, I'll copy in the link. It was pretty cool seeing the action on video!
Water ended up 73 degrees by 3 pm, with winds out of the N, and NNE. Very calm and slick water by 3 pm.
Catch for the day:
4 trout, 2 keepers
2 spannie keepers
4+ ladyfish
50 + redfish shorts
1 redfish keeper
1 5 ft shark
Have a good one!
Dale Hollow
We had great expectations since it was a full moon, and rising tide all day.
Well, the tide was lower than I have ever seen it coming out of Lanark. Temperature was 54 degrees at around 8:30 am... burrr.... Water temp was 63 degrees. The north wind was cold as well.
Bought several dozen live shrimp and caught a couple dozen pinfish and headed to some honey holes. Picked up one short trout on white shad with green tale SWA in about 2' of water. Went to deeper water, picked up a keeper trout and spannie in 6'. Bite was very slow. Drifted about a 1 mile drift, picked up a ladyfish. Nothing was biting... Drifted a live pinfish for that 1 mile drift, and nothing?
Guess it was the cold front.
Saw a couple of Tarpon fisherman on the Lanark reef. We were getting close and decide to move up to the FSU lab. Picked up another spannie and saw a couple other Tarpon boats...Tried all soft and hard baits in the tackle box and nothing was biting. Live Pinfish, nada. Shrimp, nada, (well, at least not as productive as I thought).
Well, it was 1pm, and we decided to go back west. Just stopped the boat in a random spot, threw out the C/T with Live shimp. Saw some fish swirling at the edge of a grass bed. Then the Redfish Rodeo broke out!
We quit counting at 25 each for a total of 50 redfish. All was 16 - 17 inches long! It was the best 30 minutes of catching fish that I have ever experienced in the past year that I have lived here. Was able to keep one that was 18 inches. This was my first experinence with this many redfish. I've see it on TV alot where Redfish are that thick down in Louisiana, but never have found anything like that here in the Big Bend. By the end of the summer, these Redfish would be keepers... Here's the link to the AVI file:
https://home.comcast.net/~vicarms/MVI_0078.AVI
About 45 minutes after the Puppy Redfish Roundup ended, the final highlight of the day was on the last cast, Skeeter hung into a large fish that began to spool his line. We followed the fish with the boat about 200 yards and it jumped out of the water. I thought Cobia as I've never seen a shark that large jump out of the water like that. Anyway, 15 minutes later and a tired Skeeter as he got it up to the boat, we determined that we had a 5' about 30 lb shark.
Cobia would have to wait for another day.
We were able to get one of the Redfish catches and the Shark fight on a digital video camera. When it get's loaded, I'll copy in the link. It was pretty cool seeing the action on video!
Water ended up 73 degrees by 3 pm, with winds out of the N, and NNE. Very calm and slick water by 3 pm.
Catch for the day:
4 trout, 2 keepers
2 spannie keepers
4+ ladyfish
50 + redfish shorts
1 redfish keeper
1 5 ft shark
Have a good one!
Dale Hollow