The is actually a combined report for two days, Saturday the 9th and Monday the 11th. On Saturday the wind was going to be strong out of the East and there was a falling negative tide in progress. I decided to launch on the East side of Sarasota Bay from a launch I had never used before. It was an easy launch and the water was definitely going dropping fast. Launching in a new location is always a mixed bag of emotions. I like the idea of investigating a new area while at the same time hating not knowing what I am doing. I spent most of the morning prospecting and managed to catch a few small trout and a jack. Late in the morning with the water on the flat so low it was unfishable I came to the North edge of the flat where it dropped off into deeper water. On my first cast along the edge I got a big hit. As I got it close to the boat I could see it was a big trout. My personal best trout to date is a none too impressive 23 inches and this one looked like it was going to increase that mark, but it was not to be. The trout took one last jump and came unbuttoned. After yelling the required expletives I made another cast to the same are. Again a big hit. The one stronger than the last. After a fun fight which included some wonderful screaming drag runs this nice 28 inch snook came to the boat.
Here is what my jighead looked like after landing that snook.
After releasing the first snook I managed to catch three more snook in the 20 inch range and a couple trout all from the same area. By now there was wet sand and grass showing up through the water everywhere and I called it a day. The trip back to the launch was a combination of paddling and hiking dragging the kayak.
I was out of town on Sunday and Monday so Tuesday was my next chance to fish. I headed back to the same launch I had used on Saturday, but this time the tide was coming in and going to crest out in the middle of the morning. There was plenty of water everywhere, but not much movement. Seemed to be able to catch trout everywhere, but nothing else. After being on the water for a couple hours nature was calling. I was near a nice little island that actually had a little sand beach. I pulled up on the island and was standing their taking care of business when I heard something behind me. I turned and there to my surprise where 4 peacocks looking at me. I went back to the kayak and got my iPhone and took these pictures.
Probably caught a total of 20 trout and one more jack, but no snook and no reds. The magic spot from a couple days ago was not magic any more with this much water.
That is one of the great things about this sport, on any given fishing trip you never really know what is going to happen.
