Posts Tagged ‘redfish’

My friend Doug from Floridafishandhunt.com called Saturday afternoon and wanted to know if I was free for a little afternoon fishing action. Well, YEAH!!

He had a new super secret spot in Sebastian that he wanted to try, but “it is a bit of a pain to get to”. I was surprised because Doug is not a fan of wading, but I’m always up for a challenge so away we went.

It turned out to be about a mile from where the truck was parked to where we could get in the water through a mangrove swamp. Did I mention it was very hot, but we hit the water and I hooked up a nice redfish in just a few minutes.

A little while later, Doug hooked up to another red. I have to apologize for the video on this one, I nearly fell on my face in the mud.

While we were fishing, we had a couple of Bonnethead Sharks that kept getting to within 10 ft of us or so.  They don’t really worry me, but we were both vigilant for any other species.

We spent a couple of hours in the water and managed to work our way about 1/2 mile from shore, so we decided to head back to the truck before it got dark that’s when it got tough. I was pretty sure I was going to die while wading back through the soft mud to shore.

This pretty much sums it up.

I always have a good time when Doug and I hang out. I laugh a lot at the dumb stuff we do chasing fish. Actually catching fish is a bonus. In the end, Doug was right though, it was a beautiful flat. Lots of clean grass, plenty of potholes and all kinds of bait. I think if we get the tide wired, it could be very productive.

Life had been conspiring for a long time to keep my buddy and I off a boat at the same time. It had been more than a year since we both had time to hit the flats together.

May 20th, my daughter and son had school things during the day so I took the day off. I wrapped up kid stuff early afternoon and made the call to Doug to see if he was still on for later in the day. Doug says “Dude, I’m ready now!”

Sweet–out the door I went. We hit the water around 2:30 and started catching fish almost immediately. Trout,redfish, jacks and ladyfish for about 5 hours. We didn’t catch any snook, but did see an upper slot fish and one monster snook. We ended the day with about a dozen trout, one red and several other fish.

On a side note, it was hot. Not just the air, but the water too. I haven’t had the temperature sensor on the boat calibrated, but, as you’ll see in the video, we were getting water temps from 86-92 degrees. Even if the sensor is off my a few degree, that is pretty warm for mid-May.

Here is the video from the trip. I had a great time. It was good to bend a rod with one of my best friends.

I wish I had something good to say or a lighthearted comment, but unfortunately, the news is bad. The extended cold has cause a fish kill of historic scale.

The damage may be catastrophic. I have seen the snook cold before, but I have never seen the cold leave so many species dead and dying. In one small area, we saw snook, trout, tarpon, redfish, ladyfish, pompano, mullet, pufferfish, triggerfish, grouper, snapper and multiple types of baitfish lying dead in the water and on the shoreline. Frighteningly, this is a scene being repeated from one end of the state to the other and on both coasts.

We are currently waiting for this video to be vetted by CNN, so hopefully, it will be on CNN very soon.

It looks like the weather will  be warming over the next week. Sadly, many of the fish that are dead are breeding stock females. Those loses are not replaceable. This may have long lasting effects for generations to come.

For more information and current updates visit the folks at the Snook Foundation.

As another year comes to an end, it is always a good time to reflect on the events, both good and bad, for the year. So bear with me while I stroll down memory lane.

The economy tanked, corporate bailouts, a new president, wars on multiple fronts and too other bad things to itemize captured the headlines day in and day out, but in my world, one of the most important events was the completion of my little fishing boat (finally).

For those of you that don’t know, the boat was going to be 6 month project at most—5 years later it actually hit the water on it’s maiden voyage. I built it from the hull up, learning as I went. It’s not pretty, it’s not fancy, but it’s mine and I love it.

This is what it looked like when I started

What it looks like now.

The family and I spent many hours on the water fishing, cruising, photographing, filming and generally bonding. Here are a couple of videos we made of our time together:

My son has caught  redfish, trout, flounder…just about everything, but he had never caught a “large” snook. Well we solved that problem within a week of the boat hitting the water.

33" snook

I may have perfected my slow-cooker pulled pork and sauce…….I like it at least, lol

Pulled pork sandwich with slaw and sauce

I started a new website project. We still aren’t sure exactly what we are going to do with it, but it is a great URL.

FLORIDAFLATSANGLER.COM working logo

The family and I went on our first spoil island camping trip. We will be repeating this very soon.

This didn't suck!!

I got the time to do my Halloween thing. It really is my favorite holiday. We made this video of our yard.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were marred by a health scare on my part. Happily, I think we have the issue solved and I am looking forward to my annual New Year’s Fishing Trip with my kids.

Well, there you have a brief rundown of 2009 in my world. Hope you enjoyed.

My daughter and I decided to brave the rain Thursday afternoon and try to catch a few fish.

As some of you may have read, I had a slight mishap with the boat trailer the last time we tried to go fishing. Well, I scored some replacement wheels that were just a little bigger than the ones I had. As you probably guessed, the wheels rubbed on the fender wells once we started down the road. I made a few modifications on the way. The kind of modifications I am speaking of involved a hammer and a pry bar, but it worked.

I have started feeling lucky when my kids want to spend time with their doddering old dad. Unfortunately, the weather and the fish didn’t cooperate very well. It poured rain almost the whole time we were out, but my daughter handled it like a trooper. We had some good strikes, but nothing got hooked up. After about an hour, another storm rolled in with some heavy lightening, so we loaded up and came home.

No fish pictures, but here are a couple of pictures of the storm.