Easter Weekend

Kate and I started off Easter weekend with a little fishing and boat riding on Good Friday.  I decided to fish in and around Weedon Island since it is in our backyard, so I launched from Crisp Park and took out to find some fish on the flats around Weedon.  After heading south and getting up on the flat I didn't find much for life.  I didn't have any bait so I started with some topwater and with no activity and cooler water temps the topwater bite was not there so I started making my way a lot shallower until I found some mullet activity and some puffer fish so I knew I was in the right depth water .  I got the trolling motor down in the water and the cooler up front for a little higher vantage point and worked a new penny gulp shrimp on a jig head in and around some shallow pot holes off of the mangrove shore line.  Pretty soon I had a nice trout to the boat and I was spooking some reds and trout along the grass areas so I knew I was in the right place. 

I made it up to shallow turtle grass flat and looked up to see tails!  Those big old red and blue tails were flagging me down and saying come over here so I tried to get closer to them but they seemed to be skiddish of the trolling motor so I ended up pushing them off into a little deeper water where I was able to fan cast to them.  I ended up with a couple of nice reds in some shallow water in the mullet schools. 

So I had dinner in the boat so I headed back to the launch to pick up Kate for some exploring and some more fishing.  We headed back to Weedon and jumped a pod of dolphins in one of the channels so we got to watch them play for a little while which we both enjoyed.  Then we put the hammer down to get back to the flat.  We worked some of the same areas as I was just on with little to no luck then got closer to the mangroves as the tide started to move in.  I caught a 12 inch flounder in a cut then moved to some broken water where I thought we might find a trout.  Well I very quickly hooked up on a rather large snook that decided it didn't want to be caught as it cut my line after the first jump.  I kept fan casting and looking and I saw what I thought was a redfish laying in a hole a long ways off so I made a good cast and was rewarded with this.

A solid 23 inch trout for dinner.  After that I tried a couple more spots but it wasn't meant to be.  So we fired up the big motor and headed back in.  We had the redfish blackened at Pegs on Friday night and cooked the trout on our new grill on Easter Sunday.