Well, Walt and I had redfishing withdrawal this past week. So, after bad weather conditions and working in Walt’s yard with his tractor, we were overdue to head out. As we prepared the boat and once at the ramp, the launch went without a hitch. I was feeling relief as pressure of hustle and bustle rolled off my shoulders by the river’s beauty and salt air. My plan was to find some new spots, that I had not fished before and some that I had not been at for a long time.
With an incoming tide in the morning, we left a little earlier to take advantage of the best conditions. Coupled with a south wind, it could not be better. Winds were brisk and a moderate chop on the water worked well for us, too.
Our 7' medium heavy action spinning rods spooled with 10-pound Power Pro and a 20-pound was attached to our artificial lures. We never changed, just used the same lure all day, as this is our favorite way to fish and they work well for us. We can cover a lot of ground with these.
This morning the reds were aggressive following our lures, swiping it, thumping it until we were solid with several double-hook ups. As the tide neared high, winds picked up to 15 mph. So I drove us inshore to get out of the wind a little, to one of our snook spots but no one was home.
All but two reds were all slot size up to 26”. We caught and released pushing 20 for the day. Early on, I could not come tight on the first 5. Meanwhile, Walt’s catching them. I checked my hook and sharpened it. Could not be my fault:-)
One of the minor drawbacks fishing with lures are hanging up on the rocks. These lures will sink to the bottom and hang up if you are not reeling fast. Sometimes we had stick the rod tip into the water and reel the spoon to the rod tip to set it free. This happened way too many times, so I switch to a lighter lure. But keeping our rod tips up and reeling a little faster was effective. All of this helped.
After a great tasting meatloaf sandwich that Suzie made(Walt’s wife) the wind velocity increased to near 20. I fired up the skiff and drove 5 miles to a creek that was an area that I cut my teeth on. It is one of the rockiest creeks I know and just getting into it requires an idle speed approach.
We caught the majority of our reds in a stretch of 150 yards and one hour of fishing. We had some protection from the mangroves but not a whole lot. Without the iPilot trolling motor, it would have been impossible to fish without anchoring.
On our way back in, we felt good because of all the reds we caught and being one with nature.
