Fish Catching Travel
Trip 5 of the 5 different places in 6 days.
One of my goals in this stretch was to fish multiple places on the Gulf and catch trout in all of them. It worked out fine. Over the last month I have fished multiple places and never repeated any of them. The trout have cooperated every place I went. As they say in real estate, location, location, location. Right now it is simply a matter of covering water, and when you find them, they will bite. So don’t get hung up on some secret spot, fish where you like, and stick with it. The fish will come where ever you are if you keep on pluggin. Of course it helps when I am to stupid to go home. Amazing how many times the good bite has been later in the day.
I was so happy when I saw the weather report for today, another day of 5mph winds. There are not many times when I fish consecutive trips on the Gulf that the wind does not blow. And today did not disappoint.
The topwater action is just starting, and I wanted to catch a few trout on top if I could. I started in the area with the high bank on the same side as the ramp, about halfway back in Keller. It was dead calm, and there was bait moving everywhere. I stayed with the topwater for over an hour. I got about 10 hits on topwater, most from small trout of which exactly none hooked up, when this guy hit. Notice the Super Spook Jr in his mouth.
The first red of the day.
Since the trout were just not getting it, I decided to switch to plastics on a popping cork. That resulted in the old good news bad news thing. Over the next hour or so I caught trout, and lots of them. In fact, maybe as many as I have ever caught in one place. The bad news, maybe only 3 or 4 were keepers, the good news, if that is the year class we have coming look out, it may be a banner year. One thing that has held consistent everywhere is the number of small fish. Just like POC the other day, you just have to work through those little ones to get a limit. But that is not all bad.
After a while I got bored with that. They were cooperative, but it was time to do some redfishing. All the reports I am hearing on reds have been good the last month in our area. Lots and lots of reds are being caught. So since I caught the one above, and I had not targeting them in a while, I decided to give it a go.
I headed to the bank at the mouth of Keller to throw a little spinnerbait. And right where there were supposed to be I caught one on my second cast.
First on on that bank on a Redfish Magic, time to get the video camera out.
Now lately it seems I just have not managed to get the good trout to bite on camera. It seems I would start catching them, put the camera on, and run out of battery before catching any good ones. So today I did not use the camera early. Looking back on it, while trout can be caught all day, the better bite for the better fish has been late in the day. But after catching this guy I put the camera on, and they did not disappoint.
It was a typical Redfish Magic moment. Just throw it to the bank and keep it just off the bottom with a steady retrieve. And when it is right, they whack it. I ended up catching 5 on that bank, and missed a couple. A rare thing on that Redfish Magic. One of the things I really like about that bait is how well they eat it, and how well they are hung. One of the few baits that when they get stuck, they stay stuck. But now it was time to test my theory that the better trout bite late in the day.
I headed to the channel in front of the park at the ramp. I just drifted out in the middle throwing popping cork. That channel is an oyster filled, bait eating stretch. There were some keepers there and I boated several. Nothing big, but at least some of them would have gone in the box. Most of the better ones came on the muddy side in about 2 foot of water.
A nice average keeper out of Keller today.
Even though there were some nice keepers like this one there, it was still a matter of wading through a bunch of small ones. I want to take the time to talk about the popping cork this time of year. When you are fishing more open water it is one of the better search baits around. You can throw it all around the boat as you drift, letting you cover a lot of water. That has been critical in some places. A plastic shrimp has been best, and either a pink one or white one will do the trick. My best results have been with a 1 1/2 foot drop and a 1/8 ounce head. Some days they want it fast, some slow, popping it hard on windy days, easy on calm ones. So it may be bobber fishing, but it is a useful tool right now. And once you find them, switching to plastics on a jig head is the way to go.
As it was getting later, I decided to end my day on the first bank which was just loaded with smaller trout. Being the fishing genius I am, I figured if I went back there and throw the Corkie I might be able to catch that big one. Wrong again fish face. I caught one on my first cast, and over the next hour caught 10+ on it, with only a couple being keepers.
But what a fun day. How many trout did I catch over the day? Lots and lots like everywhere else I have fished. How many were keepers? Since I did not keep any fish today I can only estimate, but it was clearly a limit, but not to many more than that. But it played out just like it has in the other places I have fished. Find them, figure out what they want, and then wade through the little ones. I guess that is what I like about winter trout fishing, they are bunched up.
And it was nice to catch a few reds. It had been awhile since I fished for them, and it reminded me how much I like doing it. So the last week has been fun. I am lucky enough to have the time to mix my fishing up. Fishing something different each time keeps it interesting, and overall it makes me a better fisherman. So even though I did not get to fish all 5 days, I got 4 of them done. And since I am headed to Coleto tomorrow, it has just turned into 5 different places in 7 days.
So thanks for reading my stuff. I consider days like this an adventure, and it keeps it fresh. So keep stopping in. Maybe that DD (double digit) bass will come over the side tomorrow. That dream is what keeps us fishing.
Good Luck and Tight Lines.
