Put in at Sand 'n Surf or is it Sand n' Sun or whatever the landing off the dirt road off Alligator Point Road and motored to my honey hole near St. Teresa. Drayno fished frozen shrimp [no "livies" at the BP] mostly, under a CT. I tried cut mullet at first and then used my in-line spinners and various shades of jigs, but NO action. We fished the rising tide for about an hour. But I KNEW they were there! There were lots of swishes and swirls, we saw some slashing through bait schools, and the birds [including a bald eagle] were hanging close.
But I wanted to be sure to hit Turkey Point Shoal before the slack tide at high, so I went with the crude ol' faithful: I got out of and away from the boat and I threw some cut mullet. The water was SO dirty that I just HAD to use something good and stinky. So, before long I had one on:
It had the feel and made the runs of the 24" redfish it was:
Given we had one in hand, we hung out for a while to get another so we would each have one, but no luck and the morning was waning.
So we went to Turkey Point Shoal, and it was SOOOOooooo smooth and the water was very, very clear. I began casting a jig with a brown "mullet" soft bait having a chartrues tail. I felt I had a snag and so I dutifully pointed the tip of my rod at the snag and began to reel. It move toward me, but then it began moving sideways, then it took off with my jig, and with my drag whirring! I fought the thing just like the red but since we were out on the shoal, and even though we were in only a few feet of water, I did not think it was a red. I thought it was a big trout. I had a 25 lb. fluorocarbon leader and it was not cut. No. What happened was that as I started getting it near the boat, and after I told drayno to get the camera, the fish just seemed to, well, let go. He was off. Gone. Fishing it like the circle hook rig I had used on the red, I had not set the hook. agggghhhhhh...... Lesson learned.
But I kept with the artificials. But that color and no other dark colors worked after that, so I switched to a light color.
One of the good things about artificials is that you don't catch as many catfish as you do with what I had gotten that redfish with, nor pesky sharks.
The white tail was the hit!
I was careful to set the hook this time and got her up to the boat:
Here is a close up so you know the rig I used so you can get one of these too:
Y'all let me know if you want any more tips!
EDIT: Oopps! Forgot to mention that drayno got a 14" blue fish [makin' smoked-fish spread tonight] and we had several short specks.
