Executive Details:
Water temps upper 60's to lower 70's, winds 0-2; 55 degrees to start - 85 when done; sunny; +15 trout, 3 snook, 2 reds, 2 flounder, and a personal best on a lady fish (woo hoo!!)
Details
As I normally do on Saturday's on my way to the launch, I was listening to Mike Anderson on the radio. He pretty much called it by saying "Today is going to be a great day to be out there on the [Tampa] Bay. The colder weather has pushed in the bigger trout and it will be on fire."
Or as the guys on ESPN like to say "El Fuego".
I pushed out onto the flats and pretty much bypassed the usual holes - but on the way out I did see one nice red tailing. Course everything I threw at him was not was interesting. With the cooler weather perhaps I was fishing it to fast. Regardless I pushed out onto the flats chucking a white Badonka Dong (I'll figure out this top water stuff yet.) Soon enough I was on upper teens trout, and I figured trout would be the theme. Hoping for a bigger one for dinner I release him.
Pushing towards one of islands where I was seeing a good bit of mullet action, I tossed a live pinfish aqaudream spoon and for the first time in quite some time I brought in a trout on the spoon. I took a couple action shots, but with the ISO set too low for the light conditions I didn't get the clear results I was looking for, but I liked these two action shots.
A couple trout later I decided to go find some reds.
With no winds paddling today was much easier than normal, and spotting fish was a bunch easier too. I saw that a bunch of birds were in "knee deep" water and I opted to pass on that area. There wasn't much fish action. Pushing towards where I had hooked into some snook before I figured I would try my luck. With a slow outgoing tide I wasn't sure what my odds were, and looking at 6" of water things didn't look terribly promising. I decided to stand up and as Heywood told me many moons ago, "If you can see the fish, they can see you." Sure enough I spotted a about 5 reds. All of which had seen me and pushed out to deeper water. Figuring I would give them some time to calm down, I stayed standing up and let the tide take me out. After drifting about a hundred yards (and 10 minutes - it was a slow tide) from where I spotted the fish I began to see mullet. I wasn't very confident in the water as it was more stained than the skinny stuff, but after switching the trusty rootbeer riptide mullet I managed to get this guy in.
Pushing 20" it wasn't a beast, but I was on my way to a slam.
Still seeking out some reds I managed to bag two smaller snook - call it 16-20". Seeing a bunch of activity 50-100 yards away I passed on the photo opps, but soon saw why the snook were there. Bait was to be found everywhere. They were hard to see in the tainted water, but drifting over the white patches you could see bait for quite some distance. I opted to pass on snook as I was on a quest for reds, and in my haste I spooked out at least 3 more snook. One was in the 30" category. With that lesson learned (by now I had spooked at least 8 good fish) I opted to drift again, but stand.
Over the starboard side I could make out some sailcats, but oddly they were facing away from the direction of the tide - so was the solo red I saw. With that in mind I switch my casting direction, but it really didn't make much of a difference. They weren't biting what I was throwing. I even had two upper 20's reds swim just off the bow and refuse everything I threw at them. [sigh]
I opted to start heading back and on the way I managed to see another angler having better success wade fishing. At first I thought he was on a crab trap, but I then realized that he had taken the puffer out of the water and left him fill with air. Clearly he had done this before as he just watched the puffer hang around. Seems the meal was "to go" and he took off to enjoy his meal elsewhere.
Figuring I would try that drift line again, I paddled towards shore and managed to pick up a flounder on a fire-fly riptide flats chub. As usual the flounder's camouflage was spot on (no pun intended). He looked a bit to small for dinner, but I did have the recent thread about cooking flounder on my mind. Figuring the flounder was a one-off I released him. A second flounder later I regretted that decision. Regardless both were set free to get bigger.
Working my way back to the launch I hit a trout hole that I tried last week that had brought out a big goose egg. This time around it was catch 'em until you were tried of it. After about 10 "schoolies" and not finding a gator at the bottom of the hole I decided to see if I could bag a second red to round out a second slam.
Finding another deep hole and faster moving water I switched to a gold Aquadream. Right at boatside this smaller red rounded out the slam and a pretty good morning of fishing - about 25-30 fish. None were huge, but the action was constant. Hole jumpers were nonexistent and stinkpotters were few and far between (or at least stayed a good distance away).
Satisfied with the morning's fishing I stopped at yea old pub. Watching FL play a very average game against an overrated Missouri team, I traded stories with some locals on how like Georgia, Notre Dame is overrated. However, a GA vs ND match up would make for a good bowl game. Two mediocre teams playing a coosh schedule and ranked top ten. 12 wings, onion rings, and a couple cold adult beverages later I made it home in time to watch GA play a crappy first half and then crush MS. Classic GA football - play to the level of your opponent, but make it interesting. The evening was rounded out with several more cold adult beverages and watch LSU snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Bama suddenly looks beatable. Regardless it wasn't a bad way to spend a Sat.
