This afternoon I fished my normal spot for a bit and caught a couple of small fish and decided to move on.  I won’t say where I ended up because there are too many local guys fishing this tourney that might “discover” my spot.  Man the fishing was incredible!  I caught 30 plus Trout, 2 bluefish and one was 24”, two Snook with the biggest going 23”, a 20” Gag Grouper, several jacks, ladyfish, and a redfish that was 24”+ that got off at the boat.

 The biggest excitement came just before dark when I was thinking about heading back to the dock.  All of the sudden my topwater lure was destroyed and drag was screaming from my reel.  At first I thought it was another Snook because of the way it ran… but then it jumped!  Holy crap it was a giant Sea Trout that looked like a 15 pound largemouth bass.  It had to be the fattest trout I’ve ever seen.  I fought it for about ten minutes making sure that I kept the drag just right to not break the line (20lb Power Pro with a 30lb fluorocarbon leader ).  I fought him perfectly and got him along side the boat and I figured he was 28” or more and went to grab my net.  As I turned back to the fish the lure came out of the water and hit me on the shoulder with a thud.  Bye bye giant Trout…

 After a few choice words that I can’t repeat here, I looked to my shoulder and saw the lure is stuck to my shirt and I thought, great I’m hooked good.  (By the way I just spent 4 hours in the hospital two weeks ago getting an infected thumb taken care of because of a fish hook that lodged in my knuckle and I just finished the antibiotics yesterday).  After getting over the thought that this giant fish was a goner I studied the lure to find out that I was not hooked after all.  I removed the lure in amazement to discover that the front hook was gone.  The eye that is mounted in the lure is in tact but the hook and split ring were gone.  All I know is I had that fish hooked good and if it wasn’t for a tackle malfunction I’d be an easy winner this week.  Oh well this is just day one, six more to go…

Tight lines everyone…

Tuesday’s Fish…

 

This week I lost both of my Okuma spinning reels to defects, one on Thursday and one on Friday.  I dusted off some old Shimanos and put them on my St. Croix rods and respooled them.  Today I had to respool one of them again when a wind knot from Hell ruined my PowerPro line.  I also lost an eye insert on one of my rods this week.

I probably spent close to 40 hours fishing this week for multiple species… Trout, Redfish, Tarpon, Grouper, Snapper… and landed 3 trout and one Mangrove Snapper.  I have had a terrible time finding the trout and redfish this week.  I fished from 8 inches of water to 16 feet of water offshore, where one of my keepers came from.  I waded, drifted, trolled, you name it, I did it with little luck.  I’ll post a picture of my trout once the tournament close tonight.

Tight lines…

But this morning was totally different.  The water was alive with bait fish and big explosions on the surface.  I got out this morning and had a DOA Shrimp in the water about 7:45 AM.  The first cast I lost a 20″+ fish at the net… the very next cast I landed an 18 incher.  A couple of casts later, as my DOA Shrimp was falling, my pole was almost pulled out of my hands.  It took drag for about 10-15 seconds then allowed me to get some ground on it.  At this point I couldn’t tell what I had only that it was BIG.  After another few seconds it blasted the surface… it was either a small Tarpon (20-40 Pounds), a giant snook, or the biggest Trout I have ever seen.  At just that minute I was watching in amazement as my DOA Shrimp is hurling back at me.   He spit it out and I think tried to threw it back at me.  Just like that… GONE  #%?^&!

I ended up with a couple of keepers and 2 ladyfish for Redfish bait next week.  Tomorrow I’m heading out with a fellow competitor because he is without a boat this week and is supplying beer.  I let you know how that works out tomorrow…

Catch Fish and Have Fun

I fished the incoming tide this morning and had no luck.  This afternoon I waited until the tide started to come back in about 6:00 PM so there would be enough water on the flat I wanted to fish.  The later day seemed to make a big difference.  I may wait tomorrow and go out in the afternoon once the tide switches to incoming, although that will be a little later in the evening, and see what happens.

 Tight Lines…

I then moved closer to shore in the skinny water looking for Redfish.  I had a livewell full of nice pinfish and proceeded to launch one on the flats.  After about 30 minutes I had a fish on!  It ran like a red and stayed down for most of the fight.  I got him up to the side of the boat and saw he he was a nice red on the upper-side of the 18″ to 27″ slot limit.  Just as I was about to get him in the net boom he was gone.  It turns out that he slightly straightened my hook out… piece of crap!

I put a new hook on and casted back out.  I fished for another 2 hours with killer live bait with just one hardhead to show for all that work.  Oh well I will be back out today to give it another try.

Started the tournament week off right with a nice gator trout this morning. I can’t tell you exactly how big it was (the others from the tournament might see this post and then know what they need to beat) but it was over 20″ long. This morning started off slow with a pretty stiff southeast breeze blowing 10-15 mph. It kept me moving quickly and made staying on the grassy areas difficult.

I started out around Long Bar fishing the grass humps all around it with a couple of fish in the 15″-17″ range. After a while I moved out into the center of the bay on the slightly deeper flats and had better luck. The drawback to the deeper water was a lot of Jacks wasting my time. Oh well it is better than getting skunked…LOL. I had my limit by 11:30AM and called it a morning to come home and take some pictures. I will be back out this afternoon after a little nap.

Last week was hell on the water due to 20-30 mph winds that blew just about all week.  Today is the first day since Tuesday of last week that the wind is not gusting over 20mph.  We had a fantastic month of March on the inshore flats with much of the action coming from north Sarasota Bay.  Any type of jig or artificial shrimp fished around the south end of Long Bar in the morning produced good size Trout.  Two weeks ago I was able to upgrade every day with a bigger fish.  I finished the week with a 23″ Gator Trout taking 3rd place in a tournament.  I also caught Pompano, Flounder, and small reds.

23" Gator

The deeper flats in the middle of the bay were also producing good numbers of nice Trout.  Look for grass patches in the sandy areas for fish.  As the bait pods moved close the Ladyfish got out of control and forced me to move on many occasions.  I had one Pompano chase a bait to the boat only to spook and jump out of the water right over the bow of my boat.  Those guys will scare the crap out of you when you don’t expect it.

Until next time… catch fish and have fun…

So I have taken this time to focus on my websites and make some much needed improvements.  You will start to see a big difference soon.