I took a neighbor friend with me that hadn't ever been flats fishing in Florida even though he was an accomplished off-shore fisherman. Since he told me that he just wanted to 'catch a lot of fish' regardless of species (even though we wanted trout dinner), we picked up a couple hundred shrimp, and headed out.
On the water by 7am, water was dead clam with winds out of the North. 5' water. My first cast, 22" trout.
His first cast, bam! 19" trout ... What a way to start the morning!Decided to anchor, picked up about 3 more keepers in the next 1/2 hour along with numerous trash fish (ladyfish, cats, sharks, etc...) He was having a blast.
Moved about 200 yards over into about 3 1/2 ft of water, and anchored for a little while, picked up several more trout, a few shorts.
By 11:00 we had 9 trout in the box, we were only keeping 17' and above, releasing less than 17's. Wind now coming from the SSE and chops and rollers had picked up to 1 -2 feet.
Ate lunch and moved about 1 mile west, needed to get rid of a bunch of shrimp. His first cast, landed a 21' trout.
That made our limit Picked up 24 inch spannie, what a fight, it was a blast, along with a 3' shark. What a hoot!
Black clouds began to roll in around 1:30 were rolling in and the wind was picking up significantly.
Total for the day:
10 keeper trout - all greater than 17, 2 of them 22 inches
approx 20 trout - less than 17 released,
4 spannies
75 + little catfish, lady fish, short blue runners, hard tails, etc...
5 sharks
Great day on the water with my neighbor! He's wanting to go again next weekend
Dale Hollow
The trick is to behead as soon as caught then gut 'em. whatch out though when you rinse your hands over the side of the boat for his friends. 
