Catching Tampa Bay's Redfish in the cold
I was with Alan and his dad Jim on the water in the south county area looking for feeding fish. The wind was 12 to 15 knot and it's a cold 53 degree. So what's new you say, about the wind and cold to day, you ask? Well for one thing it's the only day that Alan and Jim can squeeze in a fishing day during their winter vacation week in Sunny (ha, ha) Florida before returning to the chilly winter in Wisconsin. You take the day that the weather gods dish-out and go fishing as long as it's safe.
We launched at 10:00 AM, wanting the water to warm a little, we headed to some of my favorite docks. Even with the water churned up so bad (it looked very much like grey milky rivers your see in Alaska flowing from the Glaciers) I was still expecting to find lots of fish under the deeper docks with some tidal flow. What a rude awaking for this Captain, as dock after dock we found nobody was home, not even pinfish. Changing tactics I then selected only docks with a southern exposure and something to break the force of the wind. Bingo that was the secret, sheepie after sheepie were finally filling the fish box. It took over 2 hours of searching before the first fish came aboard and the pattern was established, hang-in there and just keep looking. With their fill sheepie's and only 2 hours left of fishing we decided to devote the balance of the day searching for some redfish. I explained to them that this was a hit or miss situation and there was only four places that due to the wind that we would even have a sleight chance to find some red's. With their agreement off we went to one of my key spots. After making a stealthy approach and searching for 20 minutes we found no fish. The next two spots were not holding fish either. On my final "hell-mary with only 35 minutes to fish" we visited a spot that I had not fished in six months. As we approached the area I thought I saw fish milling about a sandbar. I then heard Alan say "wow there are over a hundred fish on the front edge of the sandbar" I thought to myself, they may be mullet but it was worth a cast or two. When I turned around to give instructions as to where to cast their baits, I found Alan standing on top of my poling platform rod in hand pointing to the fish. He made a perfect cast, in the path of the fish but not too close and did not scare the school. As his bait lay quite on the bottom and I cast his dad's bait to the same general area, the wind had blown us a few yards closer to the school and I could tell it was a big school of "rat reds". Not big summer time bull's but the little rats reds that today were a very welcome site. Within a minute of Jim's bait settling to the bottom I saw his rod load-up and it was fish on. In the short time we had left, before I had to deliver them back to the clutches of their wives, fishing was good. Jim caught 3 and his son Alan caught 1 redfish all on shrimp.
This was a terrible day for a boat ride but if you hang-in there and keep changing strategies you can have a successful day on the water.
None of us would have traded any part of this cold fishing day to be home warm and cozy inside watching the Olympic games on TV and cursing the weather gods. We all had a great time on the water no matter how cold and windy.
Yes, there are still fish to b caught, not every fish in our waters were killed during January's freeze. Get out and go fishing.
P.s. Take a kid (young and the young at heart) fishing!