The Hable family joined me again this year for a morning of family fishing. As the tide fell, we worked grassy banks with mud minnows under popping corks and quickly found consistent action. A mixture of trout and acrobatic ladyfish kept the the corks dropping. Somewhat torn, we left the bite to go in search of redfish under docks. The gamble paid off when Eric muscled a big red into the boat to end the charter!
Found a few seams of calm weather in an otherwise windy stretch of days. We were able to pole on the flats and the redfish clearly did not mind the bouts of choppy water. Schools of redfish could be seen flashing their bellies in the sun as they fed. There were no takers on artificials so we switched over to cut mullet. It sure did the trick as we caught redfish up to eleven pounds. The bite stayed on for a solid two hours until the water got up into the grass.
A day after a new moon, we were faced with a ripping tide that would drop over six feet in four hours. Started out by working docks with mud minnows on jigheads and caught redfish up to seven pounds. Moved over to the flats and threw out cut mullet. The current kept the lines taught so when a fish hit it was violent! Landed several nice redfish including a thirteen pounder.
Last night, Tim looked at today’s forecast and knew he needed to get out on the water. The day turned out to be brilliantly sunny with highs in the 70s. We fished the falling tide in hopes of intercepting the reds as they came out of the grass. Even with a ripping current, cut mullet still did the trick. At the first spot, one of the rods in the back of the boat snapped over and a few minutes later Sam had the redfish of the day, a 29″ beauty.
At the landing, I told Allie and Stephan that the heavy rain may continue for an hour or more and tomorrow had a sunny forecast if they would like to switch dates. They looked down the barrel of some daunting conditions and said let’s do it. The rain did let up but more importantly the bite turned on and made us forget about our soaked clothes. Had redfish eat both cut mullet and cracked blue crab. With water temperatures hovering in the mid 40s, the fish were still finicky. Countless times the rod tips would bend over in the rod holders only to go slack after the fish dropped the bait. Lots of respect for Allie and Stephan putting nice redfish in the boat on a challenging day!
Caught a break in the weather and had a morning full of sun with little wind. No problems seeing the big schools of redfish circling on the flats at low tide. Found groups of reds literally a hundred strong who wanted nothing to do with our artificial lures. Once we staked up and put out cut mullet, it was a different story as we would hook into a redfish every time the school drifted over our way. As noon approached and the water warmed, artificials began to work and as we poled down a bank we put another half dozen fish in the boat.
My clients had clear cut instructions for our charter. After catching lots of smaller reds on their own, they wanted to target big redfish. We left the dock at first light in order to fish as much of low tide as possible. We stopped where I had been catching good sized reds and started casting popping corks while fishing cut mullet out the back of the boat. Non stop action for two hours ensued with reds hitting both kinds of bait. Will landed a handsome 26″ redfish, his biggest fish ever, but Lacey stole the show by reeling a sweet 10 pound redfish, her biggest fish ever as well. Great job!
Jake and Kim booked me again almost exactly on the same date as last year. They knew to expect some great Fall fishing. As it turns out, that’s exactly what they got! Tons of smaller reds, trout and ladyfish with the occasional bruiser in between. Kim’s red was the biggest of the day and it fought so hard it pulled us off anchor! A truly beautiful ten pound red…….hopefully the duo will be back next year!
With a very low tide to start the trip, it was the perfect opportunity to fish for sharks in the inlet. Once set up on a ledge, the rods started whipping over as soon as the cracked blue crab hit the bottom. Got to the point where we couldn’t even keep two rods out at one time. Everyone on board was into the hot action. Fantastic way to start a charter!
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