BigBendFishing.Net

Put in at the Mandalay ramp around noon with a buddy. We fished down the river to the Gulf. Caught several short trout, small ladyfish, and a few bluefish on the way down.

On the way back up the river, with incoming tide, caught a few bigger trout. 17 and 18 inches, and finally a 20 inch redfish about 200 yards from the boat ramp.

A few other guys were saying they were catching a bunch of smallie trout in the river. This guy fishing off the dock at the boat ramp pulled in a 25 inch redfish as I was loading my kayak up. With the cooling weather I'm sure the river action will heat up.

Good job, CCA. If you keep this up, we might have to find you another name! I hope to try Aucilla next week, after the freeze. Hope the wind's not too bad.

We went on Dec 28th and got tired of shorts in the river-probably boated at least 20, only one keeper. Were catching them left and right. DOA shrimp in white was the best producer with gulp white shad being a close second. Finally left there and headed WAY west. Took an hour to get there with the low tide, we really should have put in at St marks with where we ended up fishing. When the tide came in, after hitting a couple of creeks, we found one with the motherlode. Loaded up on reds and trout. Counting the river we boated over 40 trout (only 6 keepers though) and 15 reds (6 keepers, for which we kept the first three, we did not want to toss any back and risk not catching another larger slot - all 3 were 21-24" though). All on artificials. We would power pole down on any fish and catch until they stopped and move on. Some in 3 feet or less of water. Oddly enough, we tossed some live shrimp and did not catch a single fish on live shrimp that day.

Think of it as hunting and keep moving until you find the keepers.