It was yet another one day work week, and it was a great day with an old friend, John Zedde, of Harrison Township, Michigan, whom I hadn't seen in some six years. John brought along his lovely wife, Janice. Back in September of 2004, John participated in the Hurricane Fund after hurricane Charley, and sent me an advance deposit. We were finally going to get to use it!
We met Monday morning at 0700 hrs. and loaded up. We headed straight to the B span flats, where bait has been good. The wind was already howling, and it was just getting light. The forecast was for 10 to 15, gusting to 20, but it soon became evident that once again the weather boys had missed the call.
I invited Jan to help me with the chumming, and she was a natural. John said she used to pitch softball, and that's the motion we use to toss the chum and keep it from spreading all over. We soon figured out that even though the wind was at our back, the current was blowing hard right straight at the bow and under the boat. It should have been moving left to right with the incoming tide, and I don't know how we were getting such a current, unless it was being turned by the wind.
The bait was awesome. Beautiful shiners 4 to 6 inches long, and in three or four throws we were loaded up, and clearing the area. Our well was full, and we were ready to take on the day.
I decided as I rode west to take a detour to a nearby spot. Once we were there, we realized there were ladyfish busting all over the place. They were thick enough to walk on, and many of them were quite large. Jan seemed to be having a blast catching them. She also caught an out-sized founder, which went into the well.
Once John and Jan tired of catching ladyfish, we moved on. We headed up into the Sound in search of snook and redfish. The first stop, which is always full of snook, failed us. We had lots of shiners scaled by snook, but on the full moon they just weren't ready to eat. We moved on.
At the next stop it was more of the same, but John did get one snook into the boat. And, then at the next spot it was the same thing, and Jan got a nice snook. But, shortly after Jan got her snook, John tagged a nice redfish, and that was the reason I had stopped at that spot. It's almost always got reds on it. It's just a matter of whether they'll eat, or not.
As soon as John caught that first one, I switched baits. We'd kept two ladyfish for possible use later as redfish bait, and now that I knew we had redfish in front of us, I wanted to offer them one of their favorite meals. And, for the rest of the morning we had a steady redfish bite. I wasn't able to keep an accurate count, but from years of counting every fish on those big bites, I'd say we caught around fifteen before it was over. A half dozen of them were out of the slot at over 27 inches.
It was really blowing, bouncing from northeast to east, and back. I was sure we had a steady 20 or more. And, that much wind served to slow down the incoming tide, and in fact, stop it in its tracks almost an hour early. All of a sudden, the reds quit and the catfish took over the ladyfish. A sure sign the tide has stopped.
We were all hungry, and knew we were going to have a somewhat exciting ride once we round the point at York Island and faced square into the wind and waves. So, I put Jan between John and me in an effort to keep her from taking any water over the port side. It was very awkward for me to operate the Talon, but we made it work, as we made our way to the Waterfront Restaurant.
After a great lunch, which for Jan and I was the awesome shrimp and blue crab quesadillas, we headed home. We had timed our ride to hopefully catch the tide laying still on the way back to the ramp, and it was a good plan. Although the wind had not laid at all, the chop was not nearly as bad.
It had been a great day, and really neat to see John after so many years, and meet Jan. John said he may be back in the area in February. I hope to take him out for some winter pattern fishing, then.