I met John at his dock Tuesday morning at 7 AM. We had no moving water in the Sound until almost 9 o'clock, so we weren't in a big hurry to get started. John wanted to be in fairly early, though, so we had to make our time count. Our problem would be catching anything of merit before 9 AM.
We got to the Chino Island flats around 7:45, with not another boat in sight. As we approached the edge of the bar bait was flicking everywhere, and I had a feeling the bait catching portion of the trip wouldn't take long. And, it didn't. With John chumming, we loaded the Coastal in 3 or 4 throws. As we populated the baitwell, I saw that the bait was not doing well. I forgot to mention that I had difficulty with keeping my bait alive the previous Friday, and wondered if we could have a red tide outbreak sneaking in on us. As soon as I saw that the bait was not doing well, we stopped. We had plenty, and I didn't want to shock what we had.
John loves to trout fish, as do I. And we still had an hour or so of dead water to fish. He also wanted to take some meat home, so with snook season closed, trout was the place to begin with trying to fill our meat order.
We headed to the flat where Scott Nelson and I had caught a bunch of nice trout on the previous Friday while we were stalking tarpon. We'd seen some nice fish, including a triple free-jumper, but couldn't get one to eat. We left the trout biting to chase snook and reds.
John and I had immediate action as we arrived, and wound up putting an anchor down because we were drifting too fast. We caught a ton of trout, including quite a few that were right on the 15 inch mark. Neither John nor I are comfortable with keeping fish that are right on the line, as it leaves too much open to interpretation. So, those fish went back. Still, we had six nice keepers in the well once the tide began moving, and we switched gears to redfish.
We hit a flat that has been working well for big redfish for several weeks. Although the tide was moving, it was moving very slowly. What I call a groaner tide. John struck first blood on a nose hooked shiner. It went into the well. John caught 2 more reds, and let a third one get away, but they were over the slot. By the time we'd caught our 3 reds John was about ready to head in. And, still not fully recovered from my fly, I was beat! It had been a good morning, and John had his trout and redfish limit. We'd do it again on Wednesday.
=
The tide was a bit later on Wednesday, laying flat until nearly 9:30 AM So, we delayed our departure to 7:30 AM. We arrived at Chino Island at around 8:20, and once again the bait was nearly jumping in the boat without the benefit of chum. I had decided not to load the well as much as we had on Tuesday, as we'd wound up loosing almost all of our bait before the morning was over. But, we'd caught our fish, so it didn't matter. But, I didn't want to risk stressing our bait. I threw John's 8 ft. net three times, but only because my second throw was a kidney because of a tangled braille. We had more than enough bait.
We were going to follow a similar pattern as on Tuesday, with trout fishing first, and then redfishing to finish off the day. I decided to hit a different flat for trout, because we now had an easterly breeze, as opposed to the northeast to northwest breeze that we'd had on Tuesday. It took a few minutes to find a school, but once we did, we had a great trout bite that was occasionally interrupted by a ladyfish. Again, we had many fish that were right at the 15 inch bottom slot limit, and they all went back. We did manage our limit of 8 keeper trout, with two of them beautiful fish of around 22 inches. Once the tide began to crawl, we turned our attention to redfish.
It's hard to argue with success, so we duplicated our Tuesday pattern. The wind was now in the opposite direction, but that was more desirable, anyway. We had what we thought would be a decided edge on the day before, because we'd kept 3 ladyfish to use for bait, along with our minner dinners. But, Mother Nature seemed to have other ideas. We couldn't buy a redfish! Hell. We couldn't hardly buy a catfish! There just wasn't a bite. We traveled far to the north in search of redfish in places that always have fish, but drew goose eggs! Finally, with a 50% chance of thunderstorms, and the sky rapidly becoming threatening, we opted to head in, and forgo stopping for fuel.
We went home red-less, which didn't thrill me. But, we had caught plenty of nice trout, and had a good morning.
The tides the rest of the week were pretty much awful in terms of catching. And, I often don't book those days because I tell my prospective customers the truth about how they affect the catching. Sometimes, folks aren't concerned totally with catching, and I book those days. But, more often than not, once folks know that the catching will be minimal on those tides, they opt for following their wives around in a mall all day long!
The tides next week are tough until around Thursday, when they are much improved. I have three trips on the books. One on Monday, that I know will be tough. But, it's with a great couple I fished with during the winter, and I know we'll have a great day, regardless. Fishing in the latter part of the week should greatly improve.