A short report this week as I only fished two days, Monday and Friday.
Monday I started out in some deeper along the edge of a flat hoping to see some tarpon or bigger redfish. It was a bit windy and the chop on the water made it tough to see anything in low light. I could see trout popping the schools of mullet. A lot of floating grass made it difficult if not impossible to use a topwater plug. I rigger a DOA Chug Head on a five inch green CAL tail with a 5/0 worm hook. This bait is totally weedless yet still spits water like a topwater plug and allows me to enjoy surface bites. I spent a few minutes using that rig to catch some trout and ladyfish before taking off to find a shoreline out of the wind.
With the extreme high water we now have in the Mosquito Lagoon, I was able to go into areas that I have not visited in many months. I fished close to the shore using a green jerkbait and caught several slot reds in and around sand holes. As I moved away from the shore, I began to see more slot sized reds in about 15" of water and landed several more with the same green jerkbait. Around mid morning, I went in search of some bigger reds. I located a nice school of 27-35 inch fish and switched over to a gold flake DOA baitbuster. Some of the slot sized reds have been very picky lately about what they will eat but the large fish have been very receptive to a mullet imitation. The first cast yielded a nice 32" redfish which was quickly followed by another similar sized fish. Working the Baitbuster on or just under the surface with a slow steady retrieve resulted in some voracious strikes. After catching two fish, I switched over to my 7wt flyrod and caught one more on a black and copper fly with beadchain eyes tied on a 3/0 circle hook.
Friday, the first few spots I checked yielded no reds but did produce a few trout on the DOA Chug Head/CAL tail combo. Again, I went closer to shore to an area I had not visited in over a year. The flat was full of redfish but many of them were lying motionless in the grass as if they were sleeping. Presenting a lure to them only served to startle them and send them fleeing. The fish that were not sleeping did not seem to have much of an appetite either. Cast after cast resulted in the fish running away or totally ignoring the lure. I moved out to some deeper water and located a school of about 75 fish all upper and over slot size. Using the gold DOA Baitbuster, I was again able to quickly catch and land two reds. When targeting these fish, I smash down the barb to not only make the hook penetrate easier but to provide for a quick and easy release with minimal harm to the fish.
After I caught and released two fish, I called my buddy Mike Pollock who was on a nearby flat with his girlfriend Jackie VanLooven. They had been experiencing the same thing I had seen earlier in the day with the reds not wanting to eat. I told them I had found some hungry fish. I met with them and they hopped onto my boat. We found the school again but we were unable to get close enough to them to get a shot. We stayed in the same area and began to see some single reds cruising the flat. I tied the gold Baitbuster onto Jackie's pole. She made a perfect cast to a lone redfish and landed a top of the slot fish.
We saw a few more reds, a couple giant trout, and a tarpon in the 50lb range but did not get any other decent shots at fish. By mid afternoon, the wind had picked up and the fish thinned out so we called it a day.
Capt. Chris Myers
http://www.floridafishinglessons.com
