Fishing with Greg and Mr. Dean at CRB

After celebrating the big Dawg win last night over LSU, we continued it right out into the mangroves and flats at CRB this morning.  Tides were a little slow as we are coming off the neap tides so there was just enough moving water this morning to go out and try the morning incoming.  The water was pretty tea-colored after all the recent rains so along with the slower tides, the water clarity didn't give me much confidence but all of that would be forgotten after a little time on the water.  We got a really early start to a beautiful crisp (<75 deg) morning and were to the first stop before the sun was up. 

It didn't take very long to Mr. Dean to get on a fish, well a nice ray.  So, needless to say we were quickly back at it to find a game fish.  Well, it didn't take long to find the first of many snook on the morning.  Mr. Dean started it off for us and was 1/3 of the way on to his slam with the hardest fish first.  We spent the next hour catching and releasing a few small reds and bunch of smaller snook and a couple of mangrove snappers.  We pulled up the powerpole and headed to the cut down the way to look for some fish sitting in the slow morning current.  We got a bite right off and ended up with a couple more fish for the boat including this smaller red and snook.  

The tide wasn't moving very well but there were still fish around they were active so we ended up with a couple of reds and a couple more snook.

From there we headed outside to fish some out front mangroves for snook and reds and we weren't disappointed at that stop either.  Greg knocked out 2/3 of his slam as well with a quick release of his snook and a smaller red.

We still had some monster shrimp left so with the north wind we putted out to the flat to find a trout or two.  Well we accomplished that after we found a little bit cleaner water and Mr. Dean got the boat slam and his personal slam pretty quickly.  Greg followed pretty quickly with his slam as well and if it wasn't more me breaking him off he would have had a nice keeper red for the boat as well.  I had my trout on one of the very last shrimp and it was a pretty good fish but it came off right at the boat  but I was ok with that.  We had caught 20 or so fish with quite a few species and a couple of inshore slams.  Plus the weather and water was great and along with the fellowship and stories it was a perfect way to celebrate a big Dawg win yesterday.  I can't wait to get back out there and continue this great end of summer/early fall fishing. 

CRB and Fort De Soto Sept Fishing Trips

I took a quick trip on a high incoming tide to Cockroach Bay in the kayak last weekend.  I didn't get any photos but it was a snook catching kinda morning.  Unfortunately, the fish weren't very big but the numbers added up to 12+ snook so I can't argue with that.  Add a couple of smaller reds and some good mangroves and a nice sheepshead it was a pretty good morning. 


Well onto this morning.  Loaded up the skiff and picked up Tony and headed down to Fort De Soto to fish a low incoming tide.  We got some good shrimp and were in the water and fishing pretty quickly.  We headed to flat that Greg and I fished two weeks ago and starting working top water.  It didn't take long to get on the board and I was first up with a smaller trout.  We worked some pot holes with some shrimp and I got a pinfish that I quickly turned into cut bait and produced this. 

That fish was a hair over the slot and after removing the piece of metal stringer that was in his mouth it got a second lease on life and will hopefully join the breeders and head off to make some more reds for the future.  In the same pothole a few casts later Tony connected on this great trout on topwater.  We thought nice red at first but after that first head shake closer to the boat it was time to change the fight and ease off a little. 

After that I kept looking for those groups of reds to pop up but we never saw them so we headed to some old oysters that Tony used to fish and within the first couple of casts around them I caught a 20 inch red that got to go back in since I already had some dinner with Tony's trout.  We didn't really find anything else there so we went to another deep hole and caught a couple more trout and a smaller flounder before we ran out of shrimp.  It was time to call it a day since the UGA game was early but with all the boat traffic and quickly warming temps we will save that all day adventure for some shorter days in a month or so. 

Fort De Soto Scouting Trip

Greg and went out to Fort De Soto the other morning to do some scouting for the winter.  We were looking for low water holes and fish holding areas that might hold some fish here in a few months after the water levels start dropping.  We started pretty early with a 0.3 tide with an incoming all morning so we knew that even if we ran out of water in a shallow spot we could get back out since there would always be more water behind us.  We stopped at the local bait shop on the way down to the Fort and although the shrimp weren't the largest, the few bucks was well spent as the bait shop guy gave us some pretty good direction on which way to go from the launch.

So the Fort De Soto launch is really nice and it wasn't long before we were in the water and headed to our first stop of the morning.  We found the flat very quickly and with no putt-putt zones and places to run we were fishing very quickly.  I jumped up on the platform and Greg grabbed a top-water rod.  We had a bunch of missed strikes and the wind was pushing us across the flat pretty quickly but we finally started seeing some deeper holes and worked them a little better with both top-water and subsurface jigs.  In one of these holes I was able to snag a pinfish so we had some cut bait back out into the hole and it wasn't long before we were rewarded with a really nice trout.  A 20+ inch trout on our first float in the first hour of fishing.

 

In the same hole it wasn't long before Greg got another pretty big thump so turned on the video camera quickly to see a redfish get reeled in but to our surprise it was a pretty nice bonnet head.  After we caught that one there were a lot of sharks around the boat for some reason so I will try tie some shark flies and put in my 8wt for next time we visit the fort.

From there we drifted a little further south onto the flat looking for more holes and fish.  We got pretty skinny into the flat and did push a few reds out of a hole but weren't able to connect as we were already over them before we spooked them.  We poled a little further out and turned back around to the water as another boat was coming on to the flat and there was a very large group of reds just appear and they were up pushing water.  The other boat was in prime position and hooked up very quickly about 200 yrds from us.  I didn't want to spook the group but they were busting up pretty quickly into smaller groups so we put down the trolling motor since I couldn't pole fast enough into the wind to keep up with them and got back around upwind to set up a drift.  We fished some of the mullet schools then started working some of the pot holes for trout with some shrimp and were rewarded with a couple of nice trout and then I happened to see some red coming straight at us.  I had a loaded up shrimp under a cork and pitched it out in front of the pushing fish.  Well it wasn't 10 seconds before that big red found the shrimp and then it was game on.  

Unfortunately, we didn't find any more reds but we were able to find some new spots to fish.  We found a couple of mangrove snappers later in another location where there were some guides hanging out but the best part about Fort De Soto is the size of the area and the diversity of the fishing opportunities.  I'm looking forward to getting to learn the area this fall since it's so convenient to the house.

Follow that up with a Dawgs win over the Palmetto State Poultry later in the afternoon it was a pretty great day!