Friday, November 2nd, 2012

I got out on the water late today after dropping the girls off at school. I launched around 9:00am, just thirty minutes before low tide. Despite the bad timing, the weather was ideal. Clean, glassy water, blue skies and 75 degrees.

I fished the channel right at the launch all the way down to Tampa Bay Watch, and after a good hour, had only one topwater blow-up to show for it. The bite was simply off. I did get visited by a manatee, which was cool.

Eventually, I would catch a couple of ladyfish and three lizardfish. I was so pissed at the third lizardfish that I brought him aboard and turned him into cut bait. By then the water had started to fill up the flat I chucked the cut bait out under a float and started to drift the flat. While drifting the flat and throwing the Spook Jr., I started to get blow-ups on nearly every cast, and soon brought to hand about 10 trout, ranging from 10" to 18".

By the time I hit the ATZ, the bite had died down again, and except for a lone catfish that took the cut bait, the bite was dead. Not the best day of catching, but a gorgeous day to fish.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Kelly and I met up at 6:30am at the Bunce's Pass launch at Ft. Desoto. I was surprised to see at least a dozen other kayakers loading up their gear to paddle out. I can only assume there was some sort of tournament. That said, Kelly and I were able to launch first, and headed straight back to Snook Island to catch the last of the high tide.

The air and water were crystal clear. You could see stars in the sky and bioluminescent plankton in the water. I took the photo below just as the sky was starting to lighten up. You can see the Skyway in the distance.

We tried a few casts at Carrabas on the way in, and though Kelly had a few blow-ups on topwater, there were not connections. (I should pause here to say that Kelly's topwater Skitterwalk out-fished my topwater efforts at least 6-0.)

Out past Snook Island, there was little going on. There was very little activity, and what activity I could see was masked by the waves on the water. We fished the Snook Island area for a good 45 minutes to an hour before giving up. I managed a trout on a jig head/rootbeer shrimp tail combo. Kelly, to this point, was skunked.

We paddled back out via Carrabas and began paddling toward a big school of mullet that was jumping out of the main flat. Once we reached the school, Kelly was able to land a trout on topwater. A short time later, I caught a 22" red on the same jig/tail combo. We continued our drift toward the ATZ (Angry Trout Zone), and Kelly continued to pick up a trout here and there while I managed just a pinfish (which I kept for later).

I did spook a small school of reds on my drift, and Kelly, on a different drift, was able to bring one to the yak with the Skitterwalk.

We continued to drift and anchor intermittently, with Kelly adding another few trout to his tally. I was struggling to get a good hit on anything. We tried the main flat adjacent to Bunce's pass, but the wind was making it difficult. We finally anchored up over by some potholes and Kelly chucked his topwater while I tossed out a half a pinfish under a cork.

A short time later I got a good hit and hook-up with a fish that was zig-zagging crazily across the flat. I called it a Spanish Mackerel, but as I got it to the yak I saw that it was actually a juvenile Barracuda at about 15". I didn't really want to boat him, and thankfully, he shook the hook just as I reached for the leader.

We paddled back a short time later, ready to get out of the wind. Considering the weak tide and windy conditions, we did fairly well on the day.