A 'Tail' of Redemption

   In my last post we found plenty of tailing fish, but none of them would eat. This past Sunday (1/26) my girlfriend and I set out to get redemption on the tailing redfish I had seen the previous week. The conditions we not ideal and it was a bit chilly. We arrived at the boat ramp around 10am and were greeted with a chilly boat ride to my spot. The temperature was in the mid 50's and it was overcast with a slight breeze.

   I cut the motor off, pulled my rods out from under the gunnels, and climbed atop my poling platform. The first thing I noticed was that there was only one guide on the whole flat, and he was pretty far north of me. I used the slight breeze coming from the north east to my advantage and let it push me across the flat while I tied on some lures. The water was like glass, but the fish weren't showing themselves like usual. 

  After about ten minutes of drifting I spot a school of mullet to my left. I guide the boat towards them and make a cast. They were really spooky and scattered when my lure hit the water. After some more searching I finally spot a solo red cruising the shoreline. I put the PowerPole down to stake out my position and make a perfect cast. Almost immediately I'm hooked up and the fish is peeling line from my reel. After a couple minutes my girlfriend lands the fish and we take a few photos of the 26.5 inch beauty.

  Now my plan is to push the boat along the shoreline and see what I find. About twenty feet down the shoreline I spot another redfish mixed in with a handful of mullet. This time I cast five feet in front of the school just to make sure they do not scatter. The redfish seizes my offering and takes off peeling line from my spool once again. Not even twenty seconds later the fish pulls the hook and I'm left with slack line. I reel it in to find that the hook never made it to the fishes mouth. He just grabbed my bait and held it in his mouth while running.  

   I climb back on top of the platform and notice a small creek with a ton of bait swimming in and out of it. I make an exploratory cast up the mouth of the creek and notice a decent sized red just to the right of the creek. I make another cast to the fish and it immediately eats my bait. This time I make sure to allow the fish to eat and firmly set the hook. This redfish swam right to the boat and my girlfriend once again lands the fish. This fish was only 22inches and was really beat up. The tail was all scraggly and the scales on its right side were pretty scraped up. 

  The next two hours I continued pushing the boat north. It was like the bite just completely shut off. Never the less we caught two nice fish and lost another. We did not see any tailers or aggressively hungry fish. The cloudy skies made it tough to spot them since they were basically hunkered down in the grass. So we packed up and made the trip back to the boat ramp. 

26.5"

 

Tail shot

22"

Secret bait

She looks so good landing fish

Couples that fish together stay together

Fresh and Salty

   On the evening of January 19th I received a text from my good buddy Neal Combs saying "Let's fresh water fish tomorrow." He convinced me that the Big females should be moving onto their beds with the temp warm up. Neal and I fished the FLW College series the first year he started Seminole States bass fishing team. Certain that Mr. DownToFish himself would put me on some big ladies I changed my plans for the following day. 

  When I awoke the following morning I was greeted with very sunny skies with little to no wind at all. I was excited to say the least to finally do some bed fishing. We launched the boat on the north side of Monroe and headed to one of his spots. Skipping across the water at 51mph in chilly weather isn't too exciting, but floating into an area loaded with beds quickly warmed me up. The water temp was 52 degrees.. 

   Apparently it was still too cold because not one of the beds we trolled by had a single bass on it. I look to my left and see something crush bait. I make a cast and quickly get a nice sized wake chasing my swim bait. The fish crushes my lure and its on! As I'm fighting the fish I realize its not jumping and I wonder what I have hooked. I get it boat side and see I have hooked my first Florida Pickeral. The Northern Pike I am used to catching in Wisconsin would eat this thing for breakfast but apparently the Florida version doesn't get that big. 

   I take a quick picture and toss her back in the water. Neal makes a cast to the shore line and instantly hooks up with a decent bass. He flips it in the boat, poses, and tosses her back. I started to get the feeling that maybe it would be a good day on the lake after all. I was wrong..

   We went to all corners, sides, flats, and even weed lines... Nothing! The wind started to pick up so we drove back into some canals and still not even a nibble. Fed up with the rejection we head back to the boat ramp. On the way back we passed another boat ramp and happen to see a woman standing the front deck of her boat with a remote controlled trolling motor. She was just going in circles and freaking out. At first I was laughing, but then we quickly realized she had let herself and the boat drift away from the boat dock while her husband went to park the truck. 

  She couldn't figure out how to drive the boat back to the dock. Since Neal and I are such swell fellows we grabbed onto her boat and gave her a nice little tow back to her husband who has now realized that was his wife out in the middle of the river doing circles with his boat.

  While we are hauling ass across the lake I realize I want redemption. As we are loading up Neal's boat I tell him that we should head back to my house and grab my flats boat. Neal is strictly opposed to taking his Skeeter bass boat with a Yamaha 175 in salt water so we have a deal.

  A quick stop in Osteen and off to the lagoon we go! We arrive to Oak hill at about 3:30pm. I launch the boat at Riverbreeze this time. The wind had pretty much died down from the afternoon and the air temp was around 70 degrees. The whole time I'm thinking this is going to be awwwesome! We launch my boat and head south. I have the perfect spot that I wanted to put Neal on some upper slot reds. After a 20 minute boat ride which seemed like forever compared Neal's boat we arrive at my spot.

   I hop up onto my platform and push us off into endless glassy waters that averaged about 12 to 18 inches deep. Neal takes his spot onto the bow and prepares to cast. That is when we see them! Tail after tail after tail. I wanted to get the boat into the perfect spot so Neal would have the best chance to hook up. I pushed us with in 30 feet from a school of about 15 Redfish and put my power pole down. I instruct Neal to cast just to the left and about ten feet past the school. He makes a perfect cast and brings his bait with in the school of tailers. I make a cast to the right of the school and do the same. A very tense 20 seconds goes by and that's when it happens... One of the fish runs into the line and freaks out the whole school. They all scatter and bummed out we push on. The tails reappear and we make out move to get with in distance. That's when I see it. An over slot redfish was literally with in 5 feet of the boat. I pitch my bait on his nose and he wasn't even the slightest bit interested in eating my gulp..

  Not one fish ate our baits that evening. We saw probably at least 100 fish with in a 45 minute period and none of them we even the slightest bit interested in playing tug of war. As the sun starts to crawl behind the trees I decide its time to head back to the boat ramp. Ten minutes later the sun was already behind the trees it was getting dark really fast. Realizing that I didn't grab any lights I make a last minute decision to take a short cut to get back to slippery creek. In the summer this decision would have been easy but low water in the winter had me worried. The ghost handled great though. I'm pretty sure we even coasted over water that was barely there.

  Bummed out about our full day of fishing and barely any catching we loaded the boat and headed towards home. I was happy I had found the fish and understand its not always about the catching but more about the fun times and time spent with friends. 

The Clinkers

   The day started out rough. The previous night was spent drinking and watching the Eagles lose to the Saints. When 6am came knocking on the door all I could do was hit the snooze button over and over and regret the night before. When I finally did roll over and look out the window I saw what makes every fisherman excited in the morning. No wind! Then came the realization that I had forgone gassing up the boat the night before so I could make it to kick off for the game...
    I arrived at the boat ramp around 8:30 am. I had to stop to get gas and some live bait for the girlfriend just in case. Still no wind and was getting more and more excited as I backed the boat down into the water. I parked my truck, paid the ramp fee, and pushed off into the already rising sun.
    I decided since the water was glassy and the rising sun was steadily raising the temperature into the upper 70's that I would venture over to an area that almost always holds upper slot redfish. When I first arrived at the flat I noticed there were a lot of guides working to the south. Being a respectful fisherman I moved my boat just north of them and got in line with the numerous boats steadily poling along. As soon as I climbed up the poling platform I realized I was surrounded by schools of bait to the right and a small school of reds to the left. Not wanting to spook anything I had my girlfriend ready and waiting to cast. The school casually swam the other way, but I kept poling along.
    My destination was a shoreline I had fished before. I like this shoreline because it has a point to the one side and a creek to the other. As soon as I pushed the boat within a hundred feet from the shore line I realized there was a rather large redfish laying in the grass less than five feet from the boat. I made a quick flip of the rod but just the movement of the boat spooked him. Not getting too disappointed I noticed a school of about fifty redfish were working the shore line right in front of my boat. I put the power pole down and quietly picked up my rod. I quickly make a cast ten feet in front of the moving school and tell my girlfriend to do the same. Two slow lifts of the rod and I hear the sweet music of a fish ripping drag. Fish on! Double hook up actually. I step down from the poling platform while I guide the fish from the school making sure not to disrupt their feeding. By the time I made it to the front of the boat my girl friends fish had come unbuttoned. I land my fish, take a few photos, and release him back to fight another day. It was a perfect tournament fish. 26 3/4 inch fish. 
   I waited a few moments to locate the school and we make our casts again. This time Chelsie's rod bends over and the fight is on. Being that this is only her second time fishing I make sure she takes her time and give her a few pointers. Instructing her on keeping the rod tip up, leaving no slack in the line while reeling, and guiding the fish with the rod to where you want it. I landed the fish for her and snap a few pics. Her fish measured out at 28 inches. We send that fish on its way and get ready for some more fun. 

   The water was crystal clear and we were floating in only eight to ten inches of water. Our bait of choice was the "banjo minnow." We were fishing with 7 ft medium rods and 2500 Shimano reels. The line was 10 lb power pro with a 20lb fluorocarbon leader.   
   Six fish later and we decided that was a good enough day. Every one of the fish we caught were right around the 27'' mark. All of these fish had been working a slightly deeper edge along the shore line I had decided to fish. The temperature was now in the 80's and I was still wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt. I'm not sure if the guides weren't getting any results or what because I never saw a guide stick to the flat for more than 15-20 minutes before high tailing it out of there. One guide even decided to run the whole flat right by me on plane. Not only is it a slow speed zone in that area but his angler etiquette was not the greatest.. 
    I make the long trek to push pole all the way back across the flat. All while thinking how happy I was to have a girl friend that actually wanted to come enjoy my hobby with me. With a smile on my face I climb down from the platform and enjoy the boat ride back to the ramp all before noon. We spent three and a half hours out on the water and caught eight fish while losing one. It was a good enough day for me!

Slick water

Ghost 16.1

Double hook up

Fish on!

Chelsie and her 28inch fish

Waiting for the fish to settle down

Have any questions? Leave a comment and I will answer them