I had been looking forward to fishing all week, partly because I had missed fishing last weekend due to a bad cold, and partly because I had just bought a new (used) kayak from my neighbor, Bruce. I debuted my Ocean Kayak Trident this morning at 7:00, just as the sun was beginning to rise. I'll leave the description and yak comparison for another entry so we can move along to the fishing.
Kelly and I had committed this morning to paddle out to a new spot he's dubbed "The Courtyard." The last time he had fished it, he had caught three redfish in short time, so I was onboard for some tailers. The tide was high and there was a nice cloud cover as we paddled out. The wind would increase throughout the day, starting around 10mph and peaking around 15mph.
Once we reached the Courtyard, we both started throwing our topaters--Kelly his bone Spook and me...well...I was throwing a super ugly Mirrolure She Dog that one of the guys at Mastry's had convinced me to buy. After Kelly caught three gator trout to my none, I switched back over to my bone spook.
It was really fishy back in the courtyard, but nothing was biting. I liked the protection from the wind and the nice muddy bottom, which is good for the fish to warm up on over the winter. The bugs were pretty horrendous, though.
After not getting any bites for a couple of hours, I told Kelly we had to paddle back to our usual haunts so that I could get the skunk off my new yak. We stopped in what we call "Steve's Hole" and I caught three trout on back to back casts, and the yak was officially a catching kayak. I paddled back to catch up with Kelly, and he had reeled in a nice flounder.
We made a quick run down to the Redfish Hole and caught a couple of trout, then back up to the Howard Frankland underpass, where we split up. I went over to one of my good producing spots and caught ten trout on topwater and popping cork with live shrimp, then got off the water.
Kelly stayed out a bit longer and netted a few more trout, and we probably caught over 20 between the two of us, but the reds eluded us for this day.
