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Tampa Bay Redfish…Finally!
I took the day off on Good Friday to do a little fishing with a great friend. A year had passed since we last went out and we had been skunked. So the day of, I’m calling, texting, and trying to re-validate what was confirmed on the phone the previous night. So a text comes through fifteen minutes before my friend and I were supposed to launch the boat. A cancellation text. He broke a major “man code”. Cancelling a planned trip fifteen minutes before departure is a major man law infraction. It’s almost as bad as not showing up. On a scale of one to ten his code violation a seven, and that’s being lenient.
What do I do now? Well, as a last resort, I called my father in-law, Gary, and he was ready to go in thirty minutes. Off to the bait shop, then the ramp. My father in-law wanted shrimp, I didn’t, and buying bait is not for me. Mr. Weatherman called for little to no wind, so trout drifts were the plan, hoping to locate a school. The wind was kicking pretty hard, so that was out of the question. With the outgoing tide being so high, I opted to fish the mangrove lines with some live shrimp and a few arties. Hoping the fish were in their normal haunts, the boat was anchored in the backcountry, ready for the tide to move out with some speed. The water temperature read seventy one degrees in the back-not bad. Armed with artificials and the shrimp I did not want to buy, (Gary bought), the fishing started. We caught a couple of short reds on jigs and a few rat reds on shrimp; fishing was slow, with about four short reds to the boat. Knowing the tide would be moving soon and a major solunar was coming up, I made a move to a mangrove line full of mullet and glass minnows. I even saw some snook and reds crashing these minnows; not many but a few. What a great sight to finally see again!
Little rat...
This mangrove line had a shallow area with not much cover, but was parallel to a large trough; the fish were hanging right on the edge of the deeper water, ambushing bait the mullet were kicking up. The tide started moving faster and the major kicked in. The bite was on. We boated about fifteen fish in an hour and had a blast.
First keeper redfish ever...
A straggler found near an oyster bar, caught on a soft plastic.
Don’t get me wrong, these reds were not monsters. Most were under slot, but fun to catch nonetheless. The plan was to leave after the major. Time was running out. With my mouth watering for some blackened redfish we kept trying. Looking behind me I saw glass minnows being hammered. One of Dave’s lures was already rigged up and I hadn’t used it all day. I decided to throw it out near the commotion, trying to get the retrieve perfect. Finally, after a few tries, paydirt! I brought in my first respectable redfish of the year at twenty three inches, and on a new lure to boot! I was stoked! Blackened redfish was in the near future.
My first slot red of the year, I am way behind!
No more fish were interested in that lure, and the major feed was slowing, so I started with the shrimp again, (that I didn’t want :p). After boating a couple more shorts, I was prepping the boat to head in. My father in-law pitched a piece of dead shrimp deep in the groves. I told him to hold on and wouldn’t you know it, he lands a twenty one inch red. He was happy with his first keeper redfish ever, as this is his first year in Florida. After catching a couple more rat reds and photos, the ramp was the destination.
What an awesome day. Having a few beers, laughs, and catching fish can definitely be a stress reliever, and the day on the water was a great start to the holiday weekend.
One last epic battle for 2009
There are moments in life that we never forget. These moments can be moments of days, hours, minutes, or even seconds. A short day of fishing or even one fish caught that day can sometimes be more memorable then a day filled with catching a boat load of fish. When time has slowed and you begin to break down one of these moments, the short minutes can feel like an eternity. Here is a very recent experience I had that would be a memory to last a lifetime.
It was an afternoon of fishing in Biscayne Bay with my buddy Capt. Frank that I assumed would just be a scouting trip to check water temps on different flats. The first part of the day started off rough with very limited visibility and a few fish blown out due to the lack of light attention.
Our hope came later towards the end when the sun finally broke away the clouds that were looming over our heads. Capt. Frank pushed the skiff along while we both scanned the deeper water waiting for a bonefish to materialize. We finally spotted the sign of a faint mud almost fading away in the strong current. As we looked further, we gazed upon the sight of a familiar shape that our eyes had been trained to distinguish from the rest. It was indeed a bonefish; green back glowing in the sun, an unmistakable shadow underneith, and face burried in the short grass digging up it’s prey. The fish seemed to notice our presence and started to swim off, bringing a partner in crime along with him. Armed with a 9wt canon, I punched out a long back cast giving the fish a lead and letting my fly sink into the grass where I had hoped to be part of this fish’s path. As the silver denizen of the shallows approached my crab fly, I gave it a bump to get the fish’s attention. This would either spook him or turn him into a raging druggy searching out his crack-pipe. The fish caught sight of the tastey morsel that had just hopped into his path and turned towards it with a mission in mind. I gave the fly another bump and the fish sped up deploying it’s pec fins like a stealth bomber swooping in for the kill. A third bump drove the fish nuts and the fish pinned the fly right into the grass. A long strip and I came tight to the result I was hoping for.
The fly line streaked sideways across the bow of my Maverick skiff leaving a roostertail in it’s wake. Capt. Frank and I couldn’t help but watch as this veteran bonefish ran right towards the shoreline and into the thicket of mangroves like a scathed k9. The fish had plowed his way into the forest of mangroves but was still running fast, without any sign of slowing down. I thought, “how deep does that forest go?”. Frank poled the skiff up to the shoreline and thats where I realized that the fish had me wrapped up and tangled on several downed trees, around and under a few mangrove roots, and under big stump, before it had run back out and made a bee line towards Bimini. I did what I could… took off my hat, glasses, and shirt and I jumped into the chilly water to attempt to unravel this mess. I completely backed off on the drag and waded through the forest of mangroves and stumps, threading my fly rod through every entanglement this bonefish had run me through. After 15 minutes of cussing, I had finally threaded my flyrod through all the entanglements and jumped back on the skiff, which Frank had to pole around and through a narrow opening in the mangroves.
We finally landed this bonefish a few minutes later and found a sigh of relief that a shark or cuda hadn’t gotten to it before we did. High fives were due and a few photos were shot before we carefully released this hard fighting bonefish back into the deep where he would someday try again to twart another angler’s attempt at catching a big Biscayne Bay bonefish. This is to be my last bonefish I’d catch in 2009. We had gained another bit of experience and more respect for Abula Vulpes as we enter 2010 with even higher expectations for a good fishing year.
Happy Holidays to all. Wherever we may be tonight when the clock strikes twelve; let us toast to new beginnings, challenges, and triumphs ahead in 2010. From all of us at Saltyshores, we hope you have a great New Year.
-Capt. Honson Lau
The hard fought victory
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