March Fishing with John

Got out the other morning with John and fished the South Shore looking for reds and trout.  Cool start to the morning run as temps were down in the 40s but with a favorable weather forecast we launched from EG and headed south as usual.  We got the flat early before the sun was over the mangroves and with the birds working all around us we started looking for potholes.  We finally found those potholes as the sun started to rise and John was quick off the bat with a good quality fish for the cooler.  He waited patiently for the fish to pick it up before he set which seemed to be important this morning since the cooler weather had them a little slower on the bite.

John caught a couple more reds but the bite slowed in the outer potholes as the tide was pushing in pretty quick so we put the trolling motor down and cruised back to a big U-shaped hole that I've found fish in before on these tides.  We were rewarded with a pretty healthy trout (no pics) that went in the cooler as well. 

We waited out a few boats to clear the area before heading to Schuster's Hole along the mangroves as we thought the tide was getting about the right stage.  We caught a fish right off the bat and quickly got it in the cooler as well to finish out both family dinners. It was a little slow as we would get a bite every 10 min or so or about the time it took for the mullet to swing back around.  We could see the water ripple out in front of the hole and watch the mullet get a little closer and then we would usually get a strike.  We had lunch and missed a fish while eating and then got back to it from the deck and John got a good bite a little while later.

John had just missed a fish in the hole but on a couple of casts later stuck this one with a solid hookset.  The bite had picked up a little and the fish were sucking down the shrimp instead of picking it up and playing with it.  We also caught quite a few rat reds but they were covered up with spots and some had some very pretty blue tails.  It's almost like the tails were glowing and you could see the tails pretty far away from the boat after you hooked up on them.  Maybe I should have studied redfish?

We had caught upwards of 10 fish and the cooler full with a couple of reds being 22+, so we decided to explore just a little before the tide ran out. 

I jumped up on the trolling motor and trolled around the mangroves looking for fish and we found some pretty large fish sitting up closer to the mangroves on some shallow broken water areas out of the wind.  They were pretty spooky so of course we ended up spooking them all off the shoreline in some really shallow water.  I had never looked in those areas before but now I know where to go back to on that tide to find some fish to chase from the poling tower because the trolling motor and especially the powerpole were to much for those spooky fish.  They would be really fun to hunt with an artificial or a free lined shrimp.  From there it was the top of the tide so we decided to call it a day and we made a quick run back to the launch to load up and to clean some fish for dinner. 

Fishing with Alex and Eddie

Fished with a DuPont colleague this morning Alex and his son Eddie.  We had a cool start out of EG but with some shrimp and a moving falling tide I thought we might be able to find some fish.  We ran south to Schuster's hole as I thought we might get a quick fish or two before the tide fell to far off the mangroves so we fired it up and got there as quick as possible.  As we got closer to the hole I could see some activity so we got set up and put our first shrimp of the day into the hole and it got bit almost as soon as it hit the water.

We ran down to Cockroach Bay but the tides weren't right so we motored back up to the north where we started and rewarded with one more keeper to put in the boat.  The red took a shrimp on one of the first casts in the hole again.  Eddie did a great job of getting the red in and we took a couple of quick pictures and into the cooler.  We searched around for a little while longer and saw some more reds but we never got any more bites so we headed back to the ramp to load up and clean some fish! 

March Fishing with Vance

Fished with Vance this weekend on some low incoming tide conditions on the South Shore of Tampa Bay.  Weatherman called for light winds and light chop so we hit the water early from EG Simmons and ran south towards CRB.  We jumped onto the flat earlier than I thought we might to maximize our time on the water and found fish right away.  The morning was a little cool after this recent cold snap and it took a few missed fish for us to figure out the slow bite.  You really had to be patient and let the fish eat before setting the hook but it wasn't long before we brought a couple of nice reds to the boat. 

The water continued to warm and we continued to pull in some nice reds from the holes so we worked a little closer to the sandbar back into some deeper incoming water to hopefully catch a bigger red and all we ended up with was this guy!

This is one SLOB of a trout and it was longer than the redfish I had put in the boat!

Of course he ended up catching another big trout and we both caught a couple more reds on a deep hole off the sandbar.  Needless to say I will be marking those couple of hole on the GPS as they had some cuts from bar dumping in there so they weren't unlike most trout streams I fish in the North Georgia mountains.  Well the tide was rising quickly so I thought it would be a good time to head to Schuster's Hole as the fish should be pushing off of the flats up into the mangroves.  So we put down the trolling motor and head in.  We already were having a good day and ended up finding the hole untouched with the perfect wind to fish the area.

Well first couple of casts in and missed strikes but it didn't take long to find some fishing willing to eat the entire shrimp. 

We fished this hole for the rest of the incoming tide.  We would catch a couple of fish and push the mullet off and not get bit for a little while and then when they came back we would catch a couple more.  We had a couple of doubles and some nice reds. 

We finished up on the last shrimp with this solid fish as the tide was quickly coming to end and then we tried with some artificials but with no luck.  We put down the big motor and headed back to the ramp to load up and clean some fish for dinner.

Parents Weekend

We entertained Mom and Dad a few weeks ago and had a great time.  I was able to get Dad out on the water as well.  We started out being able to run from EG Simmons which was nice as the wind had finally laid down some.  We ran down to Little CRB before turning into the skinny.  The tide was moving and the water was thin but it wasn't long before we started finding fish in the pot holes.  They were small and scattered and we caught probably 15-20 reds all about 18-20 inches, so not keepers. Most of them looked like this guy.  Dad figured it out really quickly how to catch reds on a jig head and the fish were cooperative.

After a quick lunch we moved around some and fished a little closer to the mangroves with the incoming tide.  I thought it would be good to move down the mangrove line with some shrimp pitching into holes and within 100 yards we had two keeper reds in the boat.  I was worried that we wouldn't get any fish for dinner but that was quickly taken care of.  We pulled out of there as the tide died and ran back down to boat launch.

We reserved the next day for some family time and visited the St. Pete farmers market for some fresh veggies and some good pasta.  Really good weekend with great weather and lots of memories.