Salt Water Fishing Report...

Sometimes an old dog can learn a new trick. He made need to. Especially if he's doing something he only does once a year and he really wants to make good at it.  That's me and salt water fishing. I've had some great luck over the years but it's a fine line of wind, tide, maybe moon and of course this year there was a big old storm and then there was a deluge of fresh water river run off. My luck this time was not so great. 

Fresh caught was plentiful the first few days. Here you see Matt make a fine cast new throw. I think I had bait on my first throw, nice finger mullet. Bait got hard to catch after a few days but we caught bigger baits which we thought was going to be good for big fish.  

Surf rods set on the beach. It's a good time of the year for red drum and shark. I think Matt had one bait that was shark bit. First couple of days we caught hard head, a lady fish that Coraline reeled up and this sting ray. Remember a few years ago I stung by one of these boys wading the surf. Not fun. I got off light with only a small wound that drained for 9 weeks. I did the good manners Gulf Coast thing and snipped his barb before release. 

The surf got rougher for several days and made bottom fishing with big rods harder. Last day we fished we bought fresh dead shrimp and started catching red drum 14"-18" inches long. Those, while about the size of a redfish fillet you might get in a restaurant and so a bit hard to throw back are undersized fish. They gotta be 20-28 inches long and you can keep one fish over this.  A good thing to go by the law. If you recall in the 1980s Cajun Chef Paul Prudhomme invented blackened redfish and the population took a severe nose dive.

The trick I picked up is I should have gone to the shrimp earlier. I don't mind buying live shrimp if the fish are really on. I'm slower to spring for shrimp if conditions are bad but we might have lucked into a big red on lighter tackle and we did catch quite a few small whiting. They are a pan fish type of critter and while you won't read any fishing reports detailing the glory of whiting fishing they are tasty and there is no restriction of any sort. A couple of days and we could have cobbled together a fish fry. 

I think me and Matt had 8 or 10 of these reds. That's my fishing shirt. Makes me invisible to the fish. This photo is a ghost red. No spot on the tail.   

Matt and his fishing hat. Hat makes him invisible to fish. 

I checking right now what other tricks I need to learn.