I had 2 redfishing trips that were a little bit of work to put slots in the box. My Friday trip was for Venice Sportsman's Lodge. To my surprise I only had John on the boat for the day. He just wanted to "catch some fish". Now isn't that a strange request for here. Myself as well as most of the other captains have not been on the water for a while due to the weather. The winds had water stirred up so the goal would be to find clean water and also moving water. I spent most of the morning around the river. The water was dirtier than the last time I was there when we found some good fish. I bounced around playing with rat reds, hardhead catfish, and lady fish.



There was a lot of action and it was all he was wanting. This was not what I was hoping to find. It was obvious the water was not clean enough to hold the fish I was looking for. After spending more time there than I wanted to I made a long move to the West. First stop there was about a 2 minute look. Dirty as heck. Moved on to a place I had not been to in about a year. Conditions were better and looked fishable. First place I worked we could not even get a sniff. Moved on and found some moving water. Conditions were much better and so were the fish.



There was some good action here with a lot of just under legal size fish with attitudes making the day better. We managed a nice pair of trout and another keeper red. Our morning was shot and we had 2 trout and 2 reds on ice. The tide was falling fast so I was expecting things to pick up. Instead some dirty water moved in and killed everything. I decided to get closer to the marina and headed North.

There were some storms threatening and I wanted to get closer to the marina in case we were forced to run back to the marina. I kept moving and looking. I was running a canal when I noticed just the condition I was looking for. I shut down and put the pole down. This move was totally against common practice. No slow down, put the trolling motor out, and ease into the proper position. I just hit is and waked the whole bank with some good waves. I could see fish rolling in the waves. Figured I scared them all away. My fear of spooking the fish was negated almost at once. Something must have been just right there because it was not long before we had John was fighting a good redfish.



I invited this beauty to join our family for supper that evening. We now had a third redfish to join the 2 we found that morning. We sat there getting slots and occasionally a good keeper. The inevitable happened and the sky got dark. It was time to call it a day. Unfortunately I stayed in the pond a little too long. When I went to get out of the place the water had dropped and it was a half hour effort getting back into the main channel. I had to use a stiff bristle brush to get the mud out of the intake. I also had to run stiff monofilament up the out flow. John had to get on the bow and the jackplate and motor was up as much as it could be. We missed the rain and came in with a few for our efforts. Overall is was a pick day. We picked at them all day.



My Saturday trip was for Super Strike Charters. Both kids fished but one was a seasoned bass fisherman and it showed. I never put a bait in the water all day. I watch the both of them fish, unhooked the fish, took pictures and just ran the deck. Occasionally I would cast a line and hand the rod back to the one guy because he had trouble pin pointing a cast. Bait placement is important when running the banks and drains. I went right to where I had left off the day before. Conditions were not right in that area yet so I wasted no time and moved around the corner into a different type of place. The sun was just coming up and was just right for our first keeper fish of the day. there was a glow on the fish as well as his face.



It was not fish on every cast but it soon became evident that today was going to turn out good. I would get one here and another there. If things looked good I sat there and waited for the fish to swim through. At one such place we did manage a double.



Half way through the morning the nice bite we had dwindled . Every body started making moves and the radio chatter started. Fortunately our fish were already in the box. I was using dead shrimp. Around noon our bait was getting low. I made a stop at a "One last cast" place. We finished off our trip here adding 3 slot reds, a flounder, and 2 channel cats before calling it for the day.



We had some very good battles with 3, 26 to 28 inch redfish in shallow 1 to 3 feet of water.



Life is Good!