6/8 - why do tides matter?
Had Curt & Butch out yesterday at 1:30 in the afternoon. They were staying at the Ritz-Carlton, and of course had meetings in the morning. So we left out at that time which was 2 hours before high tide.
Not what I'd call any where near "primo" conditions. But I had a spot or two to go and float fish, and that was about all.
Spot #1 - zero current, and zero fish. We were there a whopping 8 minutes, before we packed it in.
Spot #2 - Now, I'm way up river chasing the tide.....and we now had it PERFECT! Immediately, Curt is into Trout. Not large ones as I'd like, but 15-16 inchers. Butch......well he caught a few.
So we plopped it there and I didn't move. And I really didn't have any other choices. "High & Incoming late in the afternoon with the sun blazing overhead....."not a whole lot of choices at my disposal." And after a while I could tell the guys were getting restless. But this is the same place I fished on last Friday with Scott Williams, and they too were restless after an hour or so but we stayed, and boated more fish up to 5 pounds!
It's very hard for fresh water fisherman to realize how important the tide is.....or just plain water movement is. And on many spots it's water movement in the right direction.
Curt seemed to understand what I said to him on the phone...."leaving at that time of day leaves me a bit limited." The important part is remembering what I said while we're out there fishing. I didn't pick when we left.
The guys caught/hooked and lost about 15 or so Trout on that one spot.
So as the tide died and even the commercial "hook & liner" Trout fisherman left, that we accompanied on this spot, we moved across the river to another area.
And as I pulled up, I knew we were about 3 hours too early to have big success here, The tide was high and with barely any current, but we gave it a try. A few bites, came off a jig-n-shrimp combo meal I tossed on the bottom as they drifted their float rigs behind the boat.
So we decided to pack it in and head on back to the boat ramp.
We had a good time shooting the bull and catching some fish, and learning the ways of the float-rig that neither of them had done before.
It was a beautiful day. I can only imagine how good it would have been with a 7am departure. And fishing the falling tide early in the morning with lower light and cooler temps.
This is the time of year that if I have my druthers; we will leave early, and get back early. No sense sitting out there in the blazing mid day sun. 6 hours of fishing, intense fishing!! Getting on them fast. I like a 6:30 departure, if we can. And back and done at 12:30pm.
No photo's were taken today. I didn't want to jeopardize where I was fishing to a photo. I can be that good on some days!! And has been.
But ya know, no matter what the ole float rig and live shrimp sure can catch some fish. And everyone loves it and has a good time.
On 6/7 I went out by myself for a lil' R&D for a few hours. Float rigged the jetties and had a big Bonnethead shark on the float-rig, but just didn't like what I saw so I ran up in the river a little ways and caught some Trout...mostly small ones, and a 29" Redbass on my 9 foot heavy duty G. Loomis "whoopass" Float-rig rod. And I was glad I was using it, too. Because I pulled that big red from under a dock, next to a pile of rocks, with a raging falling tide. Man, I love that rod and reel. But it's only for Heavy Duty structure fishing or really big fish.
It's gonna be my Tarpon/Shark Float-rig rod also.
Here's the pic of me and the tackle and the fish.
