October 7, 2012

Kelly and I loaded up and rode out to Ft. Desoto together, launching by 7:00am.

It was a gorgeous morning to be on the water.

Straight off the bat, we paddled back to Snook Island, hoping to get a red or snook on the early morning bite. We stopped briefly at Carrabas and had some good follows from redfish, but no takers. 

Snook Island and the surrounding waters were really quiet for the first hour or so, so quiet, in fact, that I  was starting to think we should cut our losses and move out. Right about that time, Kelly caught his first fish, a nice snook on a Spook Jr.

A short time later, he caught a trout, leaving him with only a redfish left to complete the slam.

Meanwhile, I had caught two trout on soft plastics, and was back to throwing my Badonkadonk. I had drifted right up to the edge of Shell Key preserve, so I anchored up and started fanning out casts. A short time later, I caught a nice 21" redfish.

After this red, I had three more blow-ups from reds, so I waved Kelly over and we started slaying 'em.

I caught another in the same size, and then Kelly got his red, also on the Spook Jr. By 8:30am, he had his slam:

We hung out in this spot for another twenty minutes, each of us losing out a a number of reds, but then the bite died and we paddled out.

From there we went out to the major flat adjacent to Bunce's Pass and chucked a variety of artificials. Kelly added another two to three trout, and I think I notched another as well. We each caught a couple of pinfish which we then cut up for sharking.

Our first shark, however, was not a shark. It was a big ass bull red on the end of Kelly's line:

We continued to soak baits, with each of us bringing two sharks to the boat, all of them bonnetheads. It was a drag screaming good time.

*We also added in a "trash can slam" each, catching a catfish, pinfish, and lizardfish. I actually caught a trash can grand slam, adding a needlefish to my list. 

October 4, 2012

Dropped the girls off at school this morning and headed out for a quick fish at Bunce's Pass. The tide was super low as I launched, with only one other guy out fishing from a red kayak. He was set up on the channel that runs from the pass, by Tampa Bay Watch, and on to the residential canals. The guy was chucking shrimp on a popping cork, and from what I could tell, catching fish after fish.

I paddled up about 50 yards past him on the channel and started throwing my topwater along the edge where the grass drops off into the sandy channel. Over about 45 minutes, I caught four upper-slot trout on my Badonkadonk topwater, and had countless other blow-ups.

I continued to work my way out to the pass, anchoring from time to time to work a particular spot. The topwater bite died down, so I switched over to throwing a 1/8 oz chartreuse jighead with a variety of tails. I caught six more under-slot trout in this fashion, and also caught a juvenile mangrove snapper.

Kelly showed up toward the end of my session and we compared notes, then I got off the water. Forgot my camera today, so no pictures, but it was another good session on the water.

Monday, October 1, 2012

I had to drop the girls off this morning, so I didn't get out until 9:30am. The only other guy out was a fellow who fly fishes from his silver canoe.

Since it was low tide, I paddled out to the southeast in search of deeper water along the channel. At some point I got into about three feet of water and anchored up. I started throwing topwater and had some good follows, but couldn't get anything to take the lure. It was 10-15 knots of wind the entire day, which made the topwater fishing pretty poor. Too much chop.

At some point I decided to put on a 1/8 chartreuse jig head with a DOA CAL shad tail, and immediately started catching below-the-slot trout. When the shad tail wore out, I put on a paddle tail. When the paddle tail wore out, I put on my rootbeer shrimp tail. In about an hour and a half, I caught 10 trout, only one in the slot. Still, it was good fishing.

My 11th fish hit really hard and fought like hell. I was super surprised to see a juvenile gag grouper on the other end of the line. (Sorry, couldn't get the photo to rotate.)

With just an hour left before I had to get off the water, I drifted back toward our angry trout spot, with a  popping cork and half a pinfish dragging behind. In the meantime, I threw the jighead/shrimp tail combo, which eventually rewarded me with a very nice redfish. 21-ish inches, and so bronzed up. Sexy redfish. I took it home for dinner.

Solid fishing for two and a half hours on the water. Nice to have it all to myself. If it had been a calm day, it might have been epic.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

I was paddling away from the launch at my favorite part of the day:

I turned to the north and started slowly working my way back to Snook Island. There were huge schools of mullet everywhere, so I was constantly stopping to make some casts. I had a early blow-up from a trout, but for the next three hours, I didn't get a single hit.

It was frustrating because I would see the occasional tailing red, and the conditions were ideal: light breeze, clear and weed-free water, overcast skies. The fish simply weren't biting.

By the time I got back to Snook Island, there wasn't really enough water to fish. I spent an hour trying to make the best of it, but blew my chance there by not getting to the sweet spot sooner.

I slowly paddled my way over toward the big body of water that runs near the little mangrove island that everyone fishes. I made casts every 50 yards or so, prospecting for fish.

At about 10:00am the sun came out and the bite started to suddenly heat up. Finally, I started to get some hits on my topwater, I figured they were little trout, lots of blow-ups but no  hook-up. Eventually I got one to take my Spook, but to my surprise, it was a big ass pinfish. I continued to catch pinfish in this spot for 15 minutes, just happy to get some action. I kept three of the big pins to use as cut bait tomorrow.

Seeing that there were so many pins around, I changed my topwater to the Badonkadonk, which looks like a pinfish. A few casts in, I caught my first trout, right in the 18" range. After I snapped a photo and released him, I threw back into the same spot and my lure got slammed by something big. I never got to find out what it was, as the hook pulled mid-way in to the fight. From the way it fought, I'm going to call it a big trout.

I continued to drift over the flat, catching trout here and there and getting plastered by angry pinfish. My biggest trout came in a 21", shown below.

The bite turned back off at 11:30am, so I paddled off the flat before the water got too low. I spooked a lot of reds on the way in. At the end of the day I had caught six trout, none smaller than 18", and six pinfish, three of which are in my freezer for tomorrow.

It was a weird day on the water, but a hell of a lot of fun. It was good to be back out there.

July 21, 2012

My dad and brother were looking to get their pier fix on, so we headed out around 6:30pm on Saturday and set up on the South pier. We were about 100 yards past the bait house, fishing an incoming tide. 

Early on, we set up some big rods with live pinfish, and those pinfish swam around happily untouched for the rest of the afternoon and evening. In the meantime, I sabiki-ed up some greenbacks and used them for cutbait. 

I chucked them under the old Skyway span in front of me, and over the course of the night, had good success catching snapper, with 5 keepers coming home with us. I also caught a nice trout on a live greenback, and dad rounded out the cooler with a big grey snapper. 

The next day dad did what he does best, which is to marinate, bread, and fry our catch in pure Crisco. There is nothing like fresh fish...southern style.

July 14th, 2012

This is my favorite part of every fishing trip:

After catching a slam last weekend, my hopes were high to repeat this weekend. Kelly and I wasted no time and paddled out to the same spot as last weekend. We had a more favorable tide than last weekend, but less favorable wind conditions.

Early on I caught a couple of trout on topwater to get the skunk off, then settled in near snook island to seek out some mullet schools. The mullet schools were difficult to find due to the chop on the water, but I eventually found one and went to work on it. There was a gamefish nearby working the school with me, but I wasn't able to hook up.

I glanced over to Kelly, who was fishing over by snook island. He waved me over and I paddled up in stealth mode. He whispered across that he had jumped a snook and that there was a lot of activity in the area. My first cast I had a small snook take a swipe at my topwater, but no hookup.

We continued to fish the area for about thirty minutes, with several topwater blow-ups each, but no connection. The likely culprits were undersized redfish.

After that we worked the east end of the area without a hook up. Kelly had a close-up experience with a large gamefish chasing mullet clear of the water, but no luck in catching him.

We doubled back to the point near snook island and worked a big mullet school. I was able to catch another trout and a barely legal redfish, and Kelly hooked up with another trout.

So far we had been fishing entirely alone, but at that point, another kayaker paddled up within 30-40 yards of us and anchored up. It seemed like a break in code to me -- there was miles of water out there with not a boat to be seen, and he essentially anchored up next to us. To add insult to injury, within 5 minutes he hooked up with a big redfish. Disgusted, Kelly and I moved back to the other side of snook island.

As I was paddling in, I made a cast and my topwater got crushed by a snook. My drag was too loose, so I went to tighten it down before he headed to the mangroves. The loose drag did me in when the snook made a nice jump and threw the hook. @%#$^!

Just missed that back-to-back slam.

A few minutes later a big blue crab swam by and I took a chop at him with my paddle and took off a claw. I used the claw meat to catch a few pinfish, and Kelly and I put the pinfish to work under a popping cork. A short time later Kelly caught a big ladyfish, and we cut up the ladyfish for some redfish bait and settled in. Kelly brought out a bottle of Stone Vertical Epic '04 to pass the time, and from then on out, all we caught was a buzz.

Sunday, July 8th, 2012

Kelly and I had an unusually smooth transition from pick-up to coffee to launch. We were on the water by 6:15am in anticipation of a 6:45am sunrise. We tried a couple of quick shots along the way, but mostly focused on paddling to our new spot, "Carrabas." 

We paddled until we found a few mullet schools, then started casting. I was throwing my SheDog early on, and after a few blow-ups, hooked up with a 20" trout. Kelly picked up a trout along the way as well.

We fished the mullet schools pretty hard until they dispersed into smaller groups, then started blind casting around the activity.  I worked a spot to the east while Kelly fished a spot to the west. I was able to hook up with a ladyfish on topwater, but the area I was in was too weedy, so I paddled over to Kelly's spot. He said he had caught a nice red in the area he was in, and was in the process of cutting up a big pinfish he had caught on his Spook.

I started pitching a gold spoon in the same area, and a few casts later got a big hit and hooked up with a nice red. He tried to drag me toward a piling out in the channel, but I tightened down my drag and used a free hand to paddle backwards away from the obstacle. Soon I had the red boatside.

A short time later, Kelly caught a big old stinky catfish on his cut bait. After freshening the bait, he got a big tug and had a solid fight on. A few minutes later he had a true slobberknocker of a redfish in his hands, a 28" behemoth.

At that point we decided to move, as we were running out of water at Carrabas. On our way to the channel I saw some commotion and threw my badonk-a-donk topwater toward it. The lure got slammed and a fish jumped out of the water. On the second jump I knew I had a snook on the line, and jumped out of my kayak to finish the fight. A few moments later I had the snook and hand and had completed my first every saltwater slam. It was a long time coming...

We finished the afternoon on Bunce's pass throwing everything we had at some bait schools. Kelly and I both picked up a trout or two and Kelly tried to pick up one of the bonnethead sharks cruising around, but by then it was 90 something degrees and it was time to get off the water.

We were due to have an epic day, and today proved to be the one. Great weather, wind, and a decent tide produced a good bite. I've the the fishing bug something fierce now.