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Saltwater Smackdown
Well I know this is a Crappie forum but as this was my first saltwater trip in several months I thought I'd share my day with u guys, so here goes...5:00 am Saturday morning I wake up, it's tournament day!! I go to the circle k in Hastings and get me 2 buiscuts and a chocolate milk to wake me up. 25 minutes later I arrive at my friend/rivals house where I left my boat the night before. He is already hooked up and ready to roll when I pull in his yard. I say " what r u still doin here?" He says" my first mate had a little to much fun last night and missed his alarm, got dawg I tell ya I don't know what I'm gonna do with him!!" After a moment of low laughter my fishing partner pulls in the drive and unloads the 6 dozen mud minnows he trapped the day before. We all shake hands and wish each other good luck and we head to the ramp right up the street.
We launch the boat just before 6 and it is still pitch black out. Nav lights on we start heading south. With the boat loaded down and bait tank full we just managed 33 knots wot with the 50 Tohatsu down to the flats I planned to fish. The incoming tide was just starting to ebb as I started to see my surroundings come into focus. Once I was confident I could see clearly across the river the trolling motor was deployed and the top water lures hit the water. We were working the grass line in the back of the flats, throwing around submerged oysters beds with trout and redfish pattern skitterwalks looking for that big trout. We did not get a single blow up for about 45 minutes. Right before I was about to switch out the topwaters for my Slayer Inc paddle tails I ease by a feeder creek and Bam, two 15.5" trout in the boat. Not what we're looking for to place in the tournament but a good ice breaker. We mess around there for 30 minutes more with no success, and we decide to head back north to try another spot.
On our way back north, I see my friend/rival anchored up off a shell bar on the edge of the main river. I quickly notice he's got a pole doubled over and pull up about 30 yards on the outside of him and watch the fight. 5 minutes later the net hits the water and a nice redfish hits the deck!! When I saw the size of that fish I yelled " he's too big!!" He says" I think u might be right!!" A minute later the stick reveals 29.5 inches. Dangit man!! So we continue to our destination which is a Y in a small creek with a big sandbar in the middle that trout and flounder will stage up on during the high falling tide. We anchor up and deploy 8 poles with Carolina rigs and mud minnows and start fan casting. Right off the bat a pole doubled over and my buddy grabs it and turns the crank on a 1.2 pound whiting!! We were shocked that a whiting ate the giant mud minnow, as well as how unusual it was to catch one in the back of this creek. After burying it in ice we fish there for a while the clock hits 10 am and we decide to move further up the creek where it opens up into the flats. We spend a little time to catch a netfull of finger mullet on the way to cap off the bait tank and we anchor up at our new spot. We put lines out at 10:30 and wait. As we watched the flats slowly drain out it started to sprinkle rain, then bam! Rod bent over, bluefish....3 minutes later bam, catfish. We were starting to to doubt our choice of spot to fish when we hook up on a 25" redfish. After netting that one it was followed in quick succession by 2 17" reds and a 21" red. Then the big dawg hit. With 20 lb power pro peeling off the reel and a big swirl I grabbed the rod as my buddy cleared lines. We battle the fish up to the side of the boat. It comes up to the surface and it is a hefty upper slot red!! I guess when we saw it, it saw us cause it said "oh no u don't!" And he pulled back out into the current and peeled off 20 yards of line and then ran right back to the boat. That split second of slack line was all it took cause once I tightened up again 10 seconds later the hook pulled.....[emoji45] Ohh well, dang it....After a few moments to get over out loss we redeploy the rods and notice one in particular getting bumped here and there. I figured it was another catfish. I pick up the rod and feel the fish camping on the other end. I start feeling it up and it started shaking the top just like a cat fish. I don't alert my buddy to get the net cause it didn't feel big. As it comes to the boat I see a nice flounder rise out of the depth like a submarine and I almost crap my pants. GET THE NET!! It was a desperate 10 seconds as flounder are notorious for spitting the hook boatside but we net it and start dancing around the boat like fools. 17.5 inches!! Most people don't know but flounder are pretty much non existent this time of year here and if there are any they are small, usually around a pound. This was not a giant flounder by no means but this was a great fish for the tournament. My scale put it close to 2 pounds. We looked at the clock, 11:08....we fished out that spot till low tide with no further success and fished the incoming till 3 o'clock with only 2 knockdowns. We load up the boat an drive to the weigh in at Mike's place bait and tackle on vilano beach and this was the result. My flounder was 2.07 pounds at first place!! And even more unexpected was we got first place whiting at 1.19 pounds!! Winnings was $520 ? definitely a fun and rewarding day I'll remember the rest of my life.
Sent from my E6810 using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app
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Nice day. We fished a good bit south of you yesterday and caught upwards of 50 trout but only 1 in slot. Rest were all cookie cutters at 13.5" to 14.5" .
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Good outing....think I'm ready for a box of chocolates like that, as the Salt goes "Never know what your goin' Get!
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Nice report, I really enjoyed it.
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Did better than I did! I fished the Gandy area of Tampa Bay Saturday and only managed to put one sheepshead in the box.
