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!