Flatties!

Despite what the weather man said, I headed out for a few hours this morning anyway. Yes, I did get wind and rain, and no, I did not see any other boats.  I planned to trout fish, but the wind made it pretty tough.  Ended up with a handful of shorts and two keepers, and just plain missed a few on the cork and DOA rig.  Made a quick run to the flounder stuff, figuring short casts might be a way to tame the wind.  They are here! Two shorts, six keepers in a little less than an hour. One of the keepers flopped out of my dang hand on its way to the box. All flatties caught on the flounder crack...4" white Gulp! swimming mullet. 

She's baaack...

For the past six months, it seems like every time Michelle & I got to fish together, it either rained sideways or blew 30 knots.  Still a little apprehensive, with the full moon looming, but a fairly good weather window, we headed out despite the dirty outgoing water.  We stuck our nose in an assortment of skinny creeks, and stumbled upon a large school of upper slot and oversized Reds.  Michelle wasted no time picking off one Red after another.  In thirty years of fishing the marsh pretty hard, I have never seen a red with absolutely no spots. Today Michelle caught just such a fish. That’s the thing about salt water; you never know what might show up!  I broke a couple off before she finally let me stick one.  Ended up with 8 overs and 3 right at 22 9/10 that we saved for the grease.  Time for Plan B, which was to get on the beach and look for Triple Tails.  We literally ran over 6 before getting a shot at a nice one that dunked the cork, but it didn’t stay on.  We had one more fleeting shot that didn’t pan out, and around 1:00 they seemed to disappear.  With only a couple hours remaining, and some pretty dirty low water, we decided to chunk the bombers in hopes of a big trout.  We stuck half a dozen shorts before Michelle got the hooks in a nice one, which we released.  It’s safe to say, my baby is back!!!

Bernard brings the heat…again

Had an excellent time with Bernard, his Dad Bernard and his Uncle Jimmy.    Bernard is one of those guys that totes around that lucky rabbit’s foot you’d like to steal.  Seems like every trip, Bernard and gang make this way turns out to be fishy.  Although day 1 brought a load of rain, we did manage a good mess of whiting before we headed to the hill.  Day 2 we decided to run and gun for everything inshore we could find.  We ended up with a few red, white(ing) and blue (fish) slams and one traditional as well.  The redfish bite in the morning was really good, as we had double hook-ups, a few double break offs and some nice upper slot and over sized reds.  We targeted flounder and although we got one on the trusty Gulp swimming mullet, the flatties are quite stacked up yet.  The trout bite was fairly good on the high incoming, but we weeded through mostly short fish.  Had a fairly decent mess by the end of the day, and had a great time tapping all the different opportunities spring brings.   Bernard sent me a pic of his famous grilled redfish on the half-shell.  Hopefully his secret recipe is soon to follow.  Thanks guys for another outstanding trip!

Outstanding Spring so far…

Thought I’d shoot out a little fishing report/forecast, as things are definitely heating up.  While Trout are biting, we’ve had to bounce around a lot to find them, and many have been short.  As most of you know, the whiting bite has been exceptional, and should stay strong through April.  Seems like they’ve been biting hardest during the slower moving tide phases.  Tripletail have begun showing in fairly decent numbers, although there are a lot of undersized TTs in the mix.  A sure sign of spring are the sharks and Spanish Macs that have shown up.  Look for the birds diving from the beach out to 13 miles for the Spanish.  Gotcha plugs and Clark’s spoons with a trace of wire work well.  Finally, looks like the Reds have gotten back together and hanging around on the shells during low water.  Here’s a few pics from a few trips with TR, Graham and Capt. David Blackshear.  Stay tuned…

Coastal Pond Pig

Little Man Dan strikes again. Had to jump a fence, run from a bad dog, and had a deer scare us probably more than we scared him. Dan smoked this one with a Zoom Smokin Shad-our biggest LMB out of the "secret pond" so far...probably a tad over 5. Stay tuned-had some pretty good days in the salt marsh as well. Will post later.