Fishing Doc's Stomping Grounds

I fished the other morning with Dr. Schuster down in Bradenton looking for some snook that he had been targeting a few weeks earlier.  It took a little while to find some bait but after we located the schools it only took a few throws to fill it up for the day.

We ran into our first hole on the incoming tide and got set up.  It took a few minutes before we got a bite because I couldn't make the perfect cast up in the mangroves but finally we started getting some good casts in there and we were rewarded with 3 smaller snook around 20 inches or so.

The current slowed and so did the bite so we decided to go drift some flats on the last part of the tide and target some trout and bluefish that Doc had gotten into a trip before.  We get to the grass flats and I think it was the first cast we started the drift off with this.

A nice solid 20 inch trout for the cooler.  We were targeting the potholes but this fish came from the open grass away from the pothole.  We ended up catching 4 or 5 more on that drift and as we got farther into the drift the bite slowed so we circled back around for another pass.  It wasn't long before we had a couple more nice trout.  Dr. Schuster was free lining whitebait while I chose the traditional popping cork rig and both seemed to be producing.  The fish also seemed to be over the grass and broken water instead of being in the potholes which was a little unusual but it didn't take very long for us to figure it out.

We even had a couple of doubles and caught quite a few fish over 18+ inches with the longest being right around 20 inches.  The last fish of the day for myself was a nice solid trout that was released for next time.

Dr. Schuster dropped me back off at the launch and he headed back out for lunch and to set up on the broken water.  He told me after the trip that on the last bait he caught a smaller trout and was bringing it in when a much larger fish ate the trout and took off across the flat.  He had to clamp down on the spool to keep the line on the reel and he said the fish (shark) cut through his leader.  Overall, we both caught quite a few fish and had some good fish to take home for dinner. 

Every Tampa Bay flats fisherman should know how to use a popping cork

So, a much different title for this entry but it comes with a good fishing tale from today's outing with Vance and his Dad.  Light winds greeted us this morning as we ran south from EG towards the flats of Cockroach Bay.  Rain was way south for the morning and although I was worried about getting into the wet stuff, both of my fishing companions were ready and fired up to go fishing.  We pulled up to the first flat and I quickly got on the trolling motor and started looking for potholes.  It wasn't more than what seemed like 5 min before we were into fish.  It started off with some small trout and we pulled out 5 or 6 while Mr. Whitaker got the hang of fishing with a popping cork and circle hooks.

Vance didn't get on the board until this really nice trout.

By that point we had boated quite a few trout and were looking for some larger fish as most of the trout were smaller.  We drifted a little further as the tide slowed and finally found some activity around some pothole I liked to target during the winter for reds.  Well we found a couple trout with Vance getting some more meat in the cooler with another large trout.  We saw the trout swirl chasing bait and Mr. Whitaker pitched in and unfortunately caught the smaller trout because when Vance pitched in it was game on.

After playing the fish perfect on his new St. Criox we put it in the cooler and started looking again.  It wasn't long before we saw some mullet working and I had no longer mentioned that we might be in the area of some reds when Vance's cork disappeared very quickly in the pothole he was in.   This is when the fish story begins. It was just that quickly that he hooked up and his line broke.  After reeling in it was determined that the braid (main line) had broken and the cork and everything else was still out there.  It didn't take long for the cork to pop up about 20 yards away and I figured we would just go over and retrieve it and start fishing again.  Little did we realize that there might still be a fish attached!  As we got closer the cork dove under and out of site (think Jaws!).  We would wait for it to come back up and we would take off after it again (again Jaws!).  By this point it was all hands on deck so we closed the distance after a few missed tries and some tense moments when we didn't see the cork come up.  I had the grand idea to try to hook the cork with my jig.  Well we got within 10 yards and I made a quick cast to where I thought the mid point of the fish and the cork were and like throwing the hook on Deadliest Cast somehow I was able to snag the line and the cork.  I quickly loosened up the drag to hopefully keep the fish on the cork and line and played the fish for a tense 30 secs before we go the fish close enough to grab.  Vance made a great snag on his leader underneath the cork and wrestled the 24 inch red into the boat.

We cruised some more potholes on the way to Schuster's Hole without any luck and got to the hole and it wasn't long before we were rewarded with some fish.  Mr. Whitaker got a nice flounder and I got a snook on a jig before we took off back to Cockroach to fish some mangroves on the high tide.

When we got inside Cockroach there were some fisherman already in the cut I like to fish so we cruised some other mangrove shorelines while they fished and eventually they came out so we pulled up and started our drifts around the cut.  It wasn't long before we had some bites and Mr. Whitaker pulled out his first Florida red.

I got my redfish as well for the inshore slam and we caught a kitty cat to make a trash can slam.  As you can see from the picture above the clouds started rolling in and the tide started to die so it was a quick run back to EG to clean some fish!  Great day overall 15+ trout, a few reds, snook, flounder and a couple mangrove snapper.