I was fortunate enough to be double booked on this particular Sunday, so I knew I had my work cut out for me to put my clients on action. My morning trip consisted of two business guys from the northern US, who's only experience on the water was catching an occasional walleye on the great lakes. What a better way to spend a business trip to Pensacola than hooking up with some monster bulls!
We started the morning catching bait but they were few and far between. We were not able to find the normal 4in pinfish in the grass beds, so we had to make due with the cut mullet and live shrimp we had on board.
Our technique was drifting the Pensacola Pass on rocky bottom. The tide was extremely strong so we had to use 8oz lead in 50ft of water which is not the norm. Our first drift we hooked up with a nice 38in bull.The action continued throughout the morning. At around 12:30 I took my happy clients back to the dock and began to prepare for my afternoon adventure.
I hurried home at 1:00 p.m, cleaned the boat, ate some lunch, then drove back to the launch at 2:30 to pick up my clients for the afternoon trip. By 3:00 p.m. the wind had died and it turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. The only problem was the tide quit moving so the bull red bite turned off. Bull Reds are one of the most tidal fish in the gulf. They can be on fire one minute and pull a disappearing act the next.
With no reds to be found in the pass, we decided to go with plan B. Our plan was to ride the beaches looking for diving birds and hope that a large school of reds would be underneath them. A few miles outside the pass we found our goldmine! My clients and I came upon a school of over 500 redfish crushing bait on top of the water. My excited clients rushed for there rods hoping for a quick double hookup! It took one cast a piece to get hooked up and then the two 20 minute fights on 10lb test began. We followed the school for several hours fighting reds all afternoon. I headed in at dark very pleased with how the day turned out.It was a very successful two trips. There is nothing like happy clients!
Stay tuned for more reports. The bull red bite is just getting started!
Tight lines,
Capt Brant
