FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 1/6/07
It was another unseasonably warm weather week, even for southwest Florida. Of course, it was the holiday week, and I wasn't on the water until Friday. It was a beautiful, albeit windy day for my old friend Dave Adair to do his first winter fishing in Florida. Dave comes down every year in June for a week of vacation, and we always have a blast catching the summer snook with some redfish as a chaser. Of course, we're always fishing live shiners, then. But, during the winter most of us abandon the live bait in favor or slow moving baits like jigs and other artificials. Shrimp are also a popular winter bait, but most of the time when I do have them in the boat, we still outfish them with plastic. This day would be the exception.
Dave brought along his good friend and coworker Tom, who hadn't fished since he was a kid. He'd never used the open face spinning gear we use here. He'd also never caught a fish big enough to make a reel squeal with delight. Some training would be in order.
We were scheduled to have a big low tide at around ten o'clock, but I knew the strong south wind would alter that to some degree. So, I hadn't laid out a definite mental game plan, instead opting to see where the tide actually was when we got out there. Once we got up into the Sound, and I was able to survey the situation, I chose my first spot. I was happy to see that there were no other boats in the area.
I had stopped and bought several dozen hand-picked shrimp as a backup. It wasn't long after we got to our first stop that I was wishing I'd bought a whole bunch. For, the place was full of snook, and they were loving the big shrimp hooked under the horn and freelined in the current. Tom quickly got his first experience with a snook when a nice one inhaled a shrimp and took off for parts unknown. Tom didn't know what to think, as he had both me and Dave, who is a veteran of many snook wars, coaching him on what to do to keep the fish from cutting him off in the mangroves. Tom managed to get the snook, which weighed around ten pounds, to the boat, but during the process of learning how to pump and reel the fish he had dropped slack line to the fish repeatedly, and the fish was able to swim free from beside the boat. But, we'd all gotten a good look at her, and I was ready with the Boga grip, so we gave Tom credit for a catch.
WINTER FISHING FUN!
We were tossing the shrimp and the trust Exude RT Slug, which is usually all you need. But, on this day they weren't interested in anything but those shrimp. I tried rigging them for surface, suspended, and bottom fishing, but we just couldn't get anything to eat them. It didn't take us long to run ourselves out of shrimp as Dave and Tom caught and released half dozen nice snook, a couple of big speckled trout, and several snapper. They also had lots of bait stolen and missed quite a few fish. We continued to fish the area well, hoping the fish we knew were there would eventually accept our offerings. But, they were being picky. Finally when the tide was about done, we used the slack time as travel time to our next adventure.
I had mentioned to Dave that we normally catch plenty of grouper in that previous spot. We'd seen none. But, Dave was quick to tell me that he'd love to take on some of those inshore grouper he'd been reading about on this ultra light tackle. It's great fun. So, that was my cue. We were going inshore grouper diggin!
By this time the wind had really kicked it up a notch, and was gusting to the mid-20's! Long casts were now very easy. We had immediate action, and it was probably fortunate that the first few fish were smaller than the average there, giving the boys a chance to get the hang of pulling them out of the rocks before tangling with a bigger fish. Dave and Tom had a blast catching those fish. We lost track, but reconstructing the action we came up with 13 to 15 gags.
WINTER FISHING FUN!
As fun as those fish were for Tom, his favorite fish was the last one he caught; a nice jack crevalle. By the time he got the jack in he had arm burn!
WINTER FISHING FUN!
My plan had been to top off the day with a redfish or three, but as we approached the noon hour Dave told me he needed to be back dockside by 2:00 PM. He had a plane to catch. And, he wanted a detour to the Waterfront restaurant, so we packed it up and headed to lunch shortly after the noon hour. As always, the food was great, and so was the rehashing of the day. It had been a good one, and it was a nice treat to see Dave this time of year.
Although we will see some cooling off next week, it looks like the weather will remain unseasonably warm. I'll definitely be carrying more shrimp, and might have to go catch some shiners just for fun. Be sure to check out www.BestFishingBooks.com, Books and gifts for fishermen from my friend Jim Dicken!
