I did get out on the water last week, but I wasn't chartering so I did not do a report. I got out twice this week on Monday and Wednesday. Bait is still a big issue.
My Monday trip was with Dr. Patrick Reidy, who is a local eye, ear, and throat physician. I fished with Patrick last year around this time, and really enjoyed being out with him.
We began our morning with a run to Chino Island, in hopes of finding lots of bait there. I'd caught great bait there on my last trip. This trip was different. There was plenty of small bait on the flats, and lots of trout busting it, but there were very few larger baits in the mix. The bonus bait turned out to be ballyhoo, which I keep any time I can catch it. The ballyhoo will show themselves on top, usually behind where you're throwing the chum. They are extremely spooky, and very quick. So, they're very hard to catch, but I've figured out a way to catch them by staying under the radar. What I do is throw the net very hard and with a lot of spin just a couple feet off the water. That way the net is over the ballyhoo before they have a chance to react. It's nothing like a regular throw of the castnet, but with practice can be very effective.
We worked hard for our bait, and when we were done we had just enough shiners, pinfish, and ballyhoo for a morning of fishing. Having ballyhoo in the well changed my game plan. We had a southeast breeze which would allow me to fish a mangrove shoreline I like to fish for reds on a south wind. And, although I've been on lots of reds in the last couple of months, getting them to eat has been tough. The ballyhoo gave me some confidence on the reds, because they just love them cut into small sticks of about two inches long.
Once we got to our spot, the first ballyhoo Slim Jim was eaten immediately. It was a rat red. Well, that didn't take long, and established the fish were there and catchable. And catch them Patrick did. He caught 11 reds before we moved on as the tide ran out of gas around 10:30.
FEELS LIKE SUMMER
We made a move and a change of quarry. We were looking for snook, now. But, at the first stop we could only muster one fish. We had not only seen the best part of the tide, but the best part of the day with the summer sun now well overhead. Fortunately, we did have some cloud cover and enough breeze to keep up from cooking in our own fluids. We moved on to see if we could find snook on the beaches.
Once at our spot Patrick was treated to something few ever see unless they've lived and fished here for many years. That treat was the sight of big schools of snook raiding huge schools of small bait fish. The fish seemingly go crazy and blast through the schools and out of the water with their mouths open like whales feeding on plankton. It's quite a cool thing to see, and I usually see it happen a couple of times each summer. I have rarely seen the same behavior on the flats, though.
Usually, when the snook are blasting bait like that they'll smack anything you throw in the water. But, that was not the case this day. The snook repeatedly raided the bait all around us, and we tossed our shiners and small pinfish right into the middle of them. But, we only managed to catch 5 snook. Patrick didn't mind, though, as he'd been treated to quite a show.
We headed home, and had a pretty long ride that could have ended in disaster as a large leopard ray jumped right off the bow out of nowhere. Thank God, the ray realized the error of his ways just as he was clearing the water, and miraculously managed to pull his jump and disappear under the boat. Had he not done that, he could have landed right in our faces. Whew!
I'd had a chance to talk with Patrick more than on our last trip, and I'll tell you something folks. His philosophy and attitude about how he cares for his patients is wonderful. It was evident in talking to him that his patients are people to be cared for, and not just dollars to be made. If you have a need of a physician with his specialty, do yourself a favor and become one of his patients. He's a genuinely great guy.
My Wednesday trip was the second with Thomas Sciascia, over from Grant, Florida. We first fished together in the summer of 2006, and Thom proclaimed it was the best fishing he'd ever experienced. But, a lot has changed and with bait tough, I just hoped I could deliver Thom a good trip. This was Thom's first ride in the Talon. We'd been in the Maverick back in '06.
We began with chasing bait at Chino, but it was very tough. The bright side was that there were plenty of ballyhoo, which I had plans for. We got enough small shiners to fish with, but that was about it. I tried one other spot on further north, but didn't see a shiner.
In retrospect, I should have gone redfishing first! But, knowing how many snook there were in the spot I'd fished on Wednesday, I went for what I though would be a sure thing first. And, the fish were there, all right. They even gave Thom a show or two like we'd seen on Monday. But! They didn't want to eat. The shoreline was also full of mangrove snapper, which were quite willing to eat our small baits. Thom caught eleven snapper, but we managed only three snook.
Once it became apparent that the snook just weren't going to eat, we moved on turning our attention to redfish. But, by the time we got back inside I guess we were too far along in the tide and on the sun. We couldn't buy a redfish bite after fishing a number of good spots. But, while we were fishing the last one we saw a school of jacks rise and begin crashing baits a couple hundred yards away. I knew they'd sound before we could get over to them so we just stayed put and watched attentively.
Although the school didn't rise again, we did see lots of individual hits on top all over the place. It appeared to be ladyfish and trout busting bait. We moved out to them to investigate. After catching a few quick fish with bait, I realized it would probably be better to fish lures. I tied on a couple of TerrorEyez, and we went at it. We caught fish on nearly every cast, and when we didn't we had repeated hits. We were catching ladyfish and trout, and a first, a blacktip shark on a TerrorEyez. Most of the trout were undersized except for a beautiful four pound fish on a live pinfish.
FEELS LIKE SUMMER
We decided to see if we could get into some keeper trout, and returned to the Chino flat where we'd caught bait, and had nice trout busting all around that morning. We did catch a few more trout on pinfish, including one keeper, but with it near mid-day things were shutting down. It was time for lunch.
We headed to the Waterfront Restaurant, where Thom had the mahi-mahi, and I had the fabulous Cajun seared tuna salad. Oh, my! What a way to end the day! It had been a good day, even though we didn't get a redfish to eat, the snook were tough, and we didn't get the Slam. We had managed to keep something pulling on our lines for most of the day, and that was just fine with Thom. He'd had a great time, and I had thoroughly enjoyed spending another day with him.
A couple more trips next week. It's a week of poor tides. I'd sure like to see us get into our normal summer weather pattern with PM storms, instead of this AM pattern we've been in.
Be sure to check out www.BestFishingBooks.com, Books and gifts for fishermen from my friend Jim Dicken!