Fishing Report - July 31, 2011

Location: Mullet Key

Tide: Incoming

Kelly and I launched at 6:45am just as the sun was rising. The water was glassy and would remain that way our entire session. In fact, with the heat aside, the conditions were near-epic.

We paddled out from the point toward Egmont Channel and started fishing in a few feet of water just inside the channel marker. Kelly throws his Spook Jr. topwater out and hooks up with a trout on his first cast. I followed up with a Spook Jr. cast of my own, but couldn’t get the lure to work properly as there were seagulls dive bombing my every walk-the-dog effort. Eventually the seagulls departed and we settled in to a topwater throwing bonanza.

I was keyed up to throw the topwater because I had taken the time to rig my Spook Jr. weedless with a couple of 1/0 circle hooks. The weedless Spook worked perfectly as far as keeping the weeds out, but after missing the hookset on trout after trout, I pulled out my split ring pliers and put the original treble hooks back on.

Meanwhile, Kelly was lighting up the trout. He eventually hooked into something that pulled some drag, but it turned out to be a big ladyfish. Unfortunately for him, the ladyfish also broke off his bone-colored Spook Jr. right at the side of the yak. Those bone Spooks are hard to come by. Tough break.

He would make up for it a short time later with a big topwater strike from a big trout. The way it came out of the water on the initial hookset made me think it was a snook, but once he landed it, it turned out to be a huge 24” trout.

I eventually set up in a good spot and caught two trout on topwater, one pushing 20”, and then when I felt the fish were getting wary of the topwater, started throwing a DOA Cal rigged weedless on a weighted hook and caught two more trout on back-to-back casts. I was pysched to finally catch a trout on DOA Cal. I know a lot of people fish well with them, but I have never caught anything but ladyfish.

We continued to pick up trout here and there until 11:00am, when the bite shut off like flicking a light switch. We tried the bay around the other side of the point, but nothing doing there either. We were off the water by noon, the water still as glassy as when we started.

All told, we caught a baker’s dozen of trout and a half dozen ladyfish between us. The water was teeming with life, with tons of cow-nosed rays, sharks, and maybe a tarpon or two. The mullet and other baitfish were thick out there as well. There weren’t many people out there with us, just a few guys wade fishing and a family of three in a canoe.

Mullet Key has turned into my go-to spot for the summer. I can imagine that the fishing will get even better as we learn the area. The only real strike against it is the wind—when the wind is blowing, it makes the spot very difficult to fish.