3/5/22 trip
Posted: March 7th, 2022, 10:05 pm
Went out about lunch time on Saturday. My two guests had never fished with me, one is a hard core bass fisherman, the other fished Mississippi area. I think they were pretty worried at first, even though I told them not to expect much, we were just killing time on the flats until the tide moved in and we could get in to the creeks I wanted to fish. Temp on the flats was about 63-65. We did have some baitfish bumps out there.
Moved in to the first spot and the bass guy caught a very nice 24" trout. Was kinda thin, but will be nice when she fattens up shortly. She was released. We then proceeded to figure out what they wanted, which took a little while. Water temp was around 70 and warmed to 73. We started steady catching in the mouth and a little inside the creeks-never went in very far-stayed in sight of open water the whole day. I stuck with the gold spoon and was rewarded with a couple of decent reds. After they had caught quite a few trout, they switched - one to gold spoon and one to a gold blade spinner bait. After we had a decent number of reds boated and pictures made, we were close to our trout limit and all switched to jigs/swim baits. Lost count of the number of trout, but it was a mess. Only two shorts caught. We had decided we wanted fish to eat and for some reason, I had in my head that the trout limit had lowered to 4. No worries as I did know about the 19" rule and we tossed a lot back that were too long. Our only keeper over was like 19.5" (it was gill hooked)-had quite a few in the 20-21 range-released quickly. We targeted the 17"-18" fish. So we kept our "limit" of trout and reds and finally called it a day. Had multiple double hookups and one triple hookup. I warned them this was a fantastic day and it is not always like this (for me anyway).
The bass fisherman was truly impressed with the fight of the reds. His first was about a 20" fish and he thought it pulled good! His broad shouldered 25" fish showed what a red could do.
My boat is now in the shop getting the Power Pole installed (I took delivery as it was still on backorder) and I really missed having one. Drifted into a lot of the mouths on accident with double hookups and probably spooked some fish. Was a very rare day where every spot I told them often held fish, not only had fish, but they were hungry. Spectacular day.
Moved in to the first spot and the bass guy caught a very nice 24" trout. Was kinda thin, but will be nice when she fattens up shortly. She was released. We then proceeded to figure out what they wanted, which took a little while. Water temp was around 70 and warmed to 73. We started steady catching in the mouth and a little inside the creeks-never went in very far-stayed in sight of open water the whole day. I stuck with the gold spoon and was rewarded with a couple of decent reds. After they had caught quite a few trout, they switched - one to gold spoon and one to a gold blade spinner bait. After we had a decent number of reds boated and pictures made, we were close to our trout limit and all switched to jigs/swim baits. Lost count of the number of trout, but it was a mess. Only two shorts caught. We had decided we wanted fish to eat and for some reason, I had in my head that the trout limit had lowered to 4. No worries as I did know about the 19" rule and we tossed a lot back that were too long. Our only keeper over was like 19.5" (it was gill hooked)-had quite a few in the 20-21 range-released quickly. We targeted the 17"-18" fish. So we kept our "limit" of trout and reds and finally called it a day. Had multiple double hookups and one triple hookup. I warned them this was a fantastic day and it is not always like this (for me anyway).
The bass fisherman was truly impressed with the fight of the reds. His first was about a 20" fish and he thought it pulled good! His broad shouldered 25" fish showed what a red could do.
My boat is now in the shop getting the Power Pole installed (I took delivery as it was still on backorder) and I really missed having one. Drifted into a lot of the mouths on accident with double hookups and probably spooked some fish. Was a very rare day where every spot I told them often held fish, not only had fish, but they were hungry. Spectacular day.