Hungry Redfish

We fished back in Centipede Bay today and the redfish where hungry. We started out with lures then came across a small school of mud minnows. The mud minnows seem to have moved in to the back of the bay.
The weather was perfect, so as you guessed, there where lots of anglers playing hookie on this Tuesday. There where a couple of places I wanted to fish, but there where boats in all of them. There was one area that I have seen several redfish, but I would need to be in stealth mode since the water is shallow and exits are narrow.

It took about 10 minutes to sneak in to this area and about 5 minutes to catch 3 redfish. I think we could have caught more fish but we only had 3 baits.

Redfish #1

Redfish #2

When I use live bait for redfish I always use circle hooks. The only draw back to circle hooks is that you never get to set the hook. But the upside is that most of the time the hook sets in the corner of the jaw.

Redfish #3
Almost to the boat
And the release.

Overall it was great day,

Tide : Raising
Water Clarity : Very Clear
Moon Phase: New Moon
Temp: 79F
Water Temp : 76F
Wind: N 8mph
Bait: Chatter bait, Mud minnows
Results: 3 Redfish

Fall Fishing is heating up

After Sunday's one redfish day, I thought we would go for round two. We left out of Jenkins creek to pick up whitebait. We hit the turn marker and the bait was thick. One cast and I could feel the extra weight of the bait fish in a 10 ft net. Which means I now have more bait than the live will hold. Skimmed off the larger baits and tossed in about 100 small baits (for live chum) and headed over to the Hernando Beach Channel.


We started at marker 5 and caught about 10 bluefish and jacks. While this was fun, we where looking for dinner. So we started moving in one cut at a time. The second turned out good. We had a double hook up on trout 25 and 26 inch trout, which filled the limit on 20+ inch trout.



We also caught a 12 inch mangrove snapper. I have seen bigger snapper around the rocks and I am thinking that it might be worth a shot to try to chum up the snapper.
We had a small bluefish on and this little cobia was chasing the bluefish trying to eat it. Clearly the cobia's eyes where bigger than it's mouth. So I tossed out a bait that would fit and he took it.

For those who have never caught a cobia, this is a baby, 40lb cobia are not uncommon. If you do catch one, they pack a big surprise, not only do they fight hard, once boated be very careful of there spines just behind their head. A typical place you would hold the fish when removing the hook.Much to our surprise we caught a 21 inch grouper. I've caught 10-16 inch grouper around the rock, but never one this big. A little bigger and he would have come home for dinner....

Over all it was a good day, we had non-stop catching and pretty good weather.

Good Luck,
Zippyjr

Tide : Rising
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 13 % full
Temp: 92 F
Water Temp :84 F
Wind: 5 mph NE - 15mph W
Bait: Whitebait
Results: 4 Trout, 1 Cobia, 3 Grouper, 2 Sea Bass, 1 Mangrove Snapper, 10 Jacks, 5 blue runners, 12 bluefish.

Over Sized Redfish.

We started the day out to catch shrimp for our fish tanks, but did not want to waste an opportunity to catch dinner. Since it was dead low tide and labor day, we picked up some mud minnows around the islands.
A mid-day low tide is always a good opportunity to get back in the shallow water before the jet skis (aka power rangers) get back in to the bay and drive around in circles. Centipede Bay was about 8 inches deep so our first stop was at the oyster bar on the north side. A well known place to catch redfish. Since the water was shallow I anchored up near the south tip of the bar, to avoid crunching any of the many rocks. It did not take long before we had a fish on, and this one took out a enough drag to end up on the other side of the oyster, so the only quick option was to abandoned ship and go after the fish.
After all the work of chasing the redfish down and spooking all the other fish, it was an over sized 29 inch redfish. That was little disappointing since I was hoping to watch the fish on the grill, instead of watching it swim away.

The storms started building inland and the wind picked up. Much more than I expected, which made fishing more of a challenge. So we moved in to a more protected area.

The next fish as a Goldilocks fish (just right), coming in at 27 inches.
We had our dinner, next four fish where all over size and a couple really pulled drag and end when they found a mangrove. Funny how the big fish know where all the mangroves are... There was no mistake about when a fish it, every fish hit like a king fish taking drag out from the start. Guessing by the last couple of trips the big female redfish have moved in to the flats looking for mates and they are hungry.

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Tide : 11:30am .04 L - Incoming
Water Clarity : Stained
Moon Phase: 88% Full Warning Gibbous
Temp: 90 F
Water Temp : 88 F
Wind: 10-15 W mph
Bait: Mud Minnows
Results: 1 - 27 inch redfish : 5 Over sized redfish Releases (4 Auto)

Good Luck
Zippyjr

Snook Season Is Approaching.

In a week snook season will open for the Gulf and it could not come soon enough. Earlier today my neighbor reported 3 nice size snook cruising past his dock. Almost every trip I took out to the Hernando Beach channel I ran across several snook, some over slot size. Over the past summer we encountered a great snook feeding frenzy. Based on the reports this should be a pretty good fall for snook.

Bait:

• Live bait: White bait, pin fish, sand perch, ballyhoo and shrimp work well
• Lures: Long A boomer, Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow, D.O.A. and MirrOlure.

Live bait of course is the best bet for snook fishing. Lures work well but are a lot of work.

Finding snook:

The easiest place to find snook would be the Hernando Beach channel. Day time fishing is best early or late in the day. You really can not fish on weekends, due to boat traffic, unless you fish at night. Night fishing is not for everyone and if you are not an avid boater and have good night vision, then you really should not attempt night fishing. At night the Hernando Beach channel becomes a very different place and at times pretty spooky. The best nights to fish is Sunday and Monday since many of the shrimpers take those day off. When I fish at night, I start out near market 3 then work my way back in. This way I have the back drop of the Hernando Beach lights to provide me with shadows of the cuts and islands help guide me. I also have every cut marked on my GPS and night vision goggles help out too. The snook tend to hang around the north side of the channel near the cuts and on the backside of the cuts at marker 23 out to marker 3.

Other good place for day time snook fishing is Centipede bay, its more of a challenge to find them, since there is a lot of area to cover. The snook tend to stay in deep in the creeks or in where the water runs fast and they are very spooky. Most of the time they start to move out before you can even get close. The way I solved this problem, is when ever I see a snook, I make a mental note of the location and tide phase. When I go back out to fish for snook, I first look at the area and see if there is anyway to keep the grass or a small island between me and the area I want to fish. This way I can see the fish from the casting platform, but the fish can not see the boat. One important note, if you move around they will see you standing, so when you make a cast make sure it is with as little movement as possible. Most of the time a simple pitch works. When sight fishing for snook live bait is a must. With the amount of effort it takes to sneak up on snook you don't want to risk your one shot with a lure that may spook the snook as soon as the lure hits the water.

Going south around dinner point is also a good place to look for snook. The water is very shallow, so don't venture there on a falling tide. Unless you packed a tent. The snook tend to hang just inside the many creeks in the area. White bait works great in this area, anchor up near the mouth of the creek a chum with live white bait. If the fish are there you will know it with in a few minutes. Typically if I fish that area, I also plan on fishing Aripeka. From Aripeka south you can find plenty of snook, trout and redfish.

Tackle:
You will want to use a 7 ft med action rod and matching reel. A good drag system is a must. I use a Shimano Stradic 2500 spooled up with moss green 15# power pro. I use about 3 feet of 30# fluorocarbon tied to the power pro with a uni to uni knot. Depending on the bait size will determine the what size live bait hook I use. I tend to use the smallest hook I can. If you plan on bait and wait fishing, you should use a circle hook. Only use live bait hook when you know you will be able to set the hook when the fish hits. This will reduce the number of gut hooked fish.

Even through I use 15# power pro, I typically only use 2 or 3 lbs of drag. Snook have a soft mouth (not as soft as trout) and many anglers lose fish due to the hook pulling. Take your time, wear out the fish and enjoy the challenge. Just make sure you properly handle and revive the snook before you release them. Take a look at the Floida Sea Grant web site on proper fish handling


Good Luck
Zippyjr.

Whitebait Report 08/12/09

With limited time, I decided to head out to the Hernando Beach Channel where we caught a lot of over sized redfish last time. Since it was late we decided not to work to hard too catch bait and use lures. I checked all the normal places and the only place I found the white bait was at the tri-pod. Millions of them, the only draw back was that they we about the size of my thumbnail.

That makes it official the white bait have spawned.

We did do a little ornamental fishing and caught 5 nice pipe fish, about a dozen sea serpent (starfish), about 50 ghost shrimp and about 25 stick shrimp. The seahorse and pipe fish really like to eat the stick and ghost shrimp.

If anyone knows what kind of shrimp this is please post a comment.



Tide : Incoming 1:04pm 0.6 L
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 54 % full
Temp: 94 F
Water Temp : 86 F
Wind: 6 mph W
Bait: None
Results: None

Great Weather and Fishing in the Hernando Beach Cuts.

This was one of the better days fishing in the Hernando Beach cuts. Based on the recent trips to the cut, I thought it might be a difficult day fishing. But it was nice to be wrong.

We stopped at the Hernando Beach channel turn marker on the way to the cuts and the whitebait was plentiful. At the time I was hoping that there was not too much bait around. Last week when I fished the cuts there was so much bait that the fish did not try very hard to chase the bait.

The first cut we fished was marker number 21. After about 10 minutes I was about to move and just happened to look along the edge of the rocks and saw a couple of redfish cruising toward us.

The first redfish was 29 inches, just a little too big. I saw two other redfish chasing this one as I brought it to the boat. This one looked to be the biggest out of the group.

I released this one an grabbed another bait.

About a minute later I had the another redfish on. This time it was just over 23 inches and coming home for dinner.



I tossed out another bait and as soon as the bait hit the water I saw a fish come up from the bottom to hit the bait. Typically redfish do not do that and as it turns out it was 25 inch snaggled tooth trout.

After the trout things slowed way down. I could not see any more fish cruising the sand edges of the rocks. I was about to move when we hooked up with big sting ray. It pulled the boat through the cut, so I decided to move to the next cut to the west. The first fish was a decent trout about 23 inches.

I watched for redfish along the edges and not long after we got there I saw 3 redfish laying in along the edge. The next redfish came in at 26 inches and filled our limit. We had plans to have grilled redfish for our guest and did not want to disappoint our dinner guest.


After I caught that fish a school of over sized redfish moved in to the cut and it was no longer fishing, it was catching! We caught big redfish non-stop for the next hour. The best part about this was that I could see the redfish stacked up on the east side of the cut. So this was sight fishing while anchored. You do get to do that very often. There was a small school of whitebait and a school of redfish chasing them. I added couple of split shots to the line to get the bait closer to the bottom and slow the bait down so the redfish would have no trouble catching my bait. Everything bait that hit the water was greeted by a hungry redfish.

I took care of releasing each fish making sure it was revived

We had plenty of rod bending action

At this point we where getting tired, my wife hooked that last fish and it was the biggest fish of the day. She decided it would be best if she fought this fish marlin style...

The redfish put up a great fight.

After about a 15 minute fight I revived the last fish. We decided it was time to go swimming and relax after a great day fishing. When we left the redfish where still chasing baits and I'm sure we could have caught many more fish. However it is important not to over stress too many fish, especially in the same school. These fish will lay millions of eggs that will ultimately produce many more fishing/catching days like today!


Good Luck
zippyjr
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Tide : Falling 0.7 3:28pm
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: Third Quarter 45% full
Temp: 92F
Water Temp : 85F
Wind: 5-10 W mph
Bait: Whitebait
Results: 10 Over slot Redfish - 3 Redfish 23-26 - 3 Trout - 1 Jack - 1 Big String Ray.

Sight Fishing For Redfish.

One of my favorite types of fishing is sight fishing. Fishing the shallow water offers a great opportunity to sight fish. I fish a lot in Centipede bay where there are many winding creeks and redfish. But if you look at most of the west coast of Florida, Centipede bay looks about the same as most other areas. So this sight fishing methodology would apply to almost any shallow water area in Florida.

The number one thing you have to remember when you are sight fishing, is that you are really stalking; not fishing. This means you have to be very quiet and stealthy. So before you begin, take a look at your boat and see what you can do to make it more stealthy. Some things you will want to look are;

• Where you keep your tackle. Your tackle should be easily accessed with out having to open any hatches or move anything to get to your tackle. I use a small divided box with a lid that will hold everything I need and keep near my casting platform.
• Tools should be kept in a safe but easily accessible area. One thing that many anglers will do is to toss their pliers down on the floor. This will spoke most redfish that are near by.
• Where you stand while fishing, you will want to make sure that there are no creeks when you move around in this area. You may need to tighten screws or put down a foam mat. I built a casting platform and attached the deck using rubber cushion to limit any noise.
  
• Rocking the boat, this is almost as bad as bang the side of the boat. Fish are pressure sensitive and when your boat rocks it sends out pressure waves that the fish can pick up. While they may not take off running, they may spoke enough to make them wary of any bait you offer them.
• If you are going to use live bait, make sure you can get to the bait easily without making noise. Also make sure you have a net near the live well. On my live well I have a latch that will hold the hatch door open and out of the way.
• If you are using lures, have a couple of extra lures in a small box to keep with you while you are fishing.
• Keep the deck clear, you will want to be able to move from bow to stern without having to step over or on anything besides the deck.
• Your landing net should be out and ready to be used.

Now that you have stealtherized your boat, you are ready to sight fish. The best bait to use is shrimp. They are easy to keep and redfish love them and you do not need a live well. You can put them in a bag or small bucket with some ice and they will keep for hours and still be lively a few minutes after you take them off the ice.

The best place to start looking is in the creeks.

View Sight Fishing in a larger map

As you start to move in to the creek, take you time and go slow. If you rush through you will only see the redfish running scared. If you have a trolling motor set it to the slowest speed, or if you're lucky and can find someone to pole you around, make sure they are quiet. Typically I look for areas where there will be grass between the boat and the area I want to look.
This is an area that is not too far in and will typically hold fish. Once hooked the redfish will run out of this cove, so you will need to be ready to move which ever direction the redfish takes you. Other areas are much larger and still offer a protected spot you can peak in and see if any redfish are home, with out the redfish seeing the boat. You do have to be careful they can see you and if you make any fast movements and the redfish will run.

Next time you have a few hours to fish, pick up some live jumbo and give sight fishing a try. Once you experience sight fishing it's hard to go back to the bait and wait method.

Good Luck
Zippyjr

Trout fishing in the cuts

The weather has been bad, for the last week or so. This morning we had some big thunder storms then it cleared up nicely, so I decided that I would go trout fishing around 10am.

Live well full of bait.

Since I knew the whitebait was in the Hernando Beach Channel, I figured it would be a quick stop for bait then hit the cuts. I found bait at the first turn in the channel.

Whitebait on the other side of the cut.

On the way out just before the first turn, I saw two big snook laying in against the bank. I thought about going back and fishing for snook, but there was a bit of boat traffic in the channel.

I saw more bait at marker 19 and decided to make that my first stop. I had a couple a strikes and lost a few hooks, I would guess is was Spanish mackerel. So I move out to the marker 3 and saw a couple of tarpon about 75# each chasing bait. I tossed out a bait but the where not interested. Of course I was not really too interested, since I only had 10# mono and 20# leader, it would have been a short fight.

I fished each cut back to marker 9. I saw trout and redfish swimming around and tossed out some bait. I lost on bait on a rock, which the only redfish I saw went over and ate the bait that I just broke off. So I'm sure the redfish felt the hook and headed out to try to dislodge the hook. A short while later I caught the first trout. I fished there for about an hour and picked up 4 trout and couple of catfish and ladyfish. The trout did not hit the bait aggressively, rather they slowly nibbled at it. I had several trout pop the top of the water only to allow the bait to get away. I also saw the tarpon rolling in the channel near marker 10.


Over a good short day fishing....

Storms Brewing Inland

Turned out to be a very nice day.

Tide : Raising 3.5H @ 2:57pm
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 89% full
Temp: 88 F
Water Temp : 82 F
Wind: 0-5 v mph
Bait: Whitebait
Results: 4 trout

Tough Day Fishing, Great Day Snorkeling.

We went out today to continue to test the full moon theory, that the redfish tend to feed more at night than during the day. Since I had expected a slow day fishing, we did have a back up plan, we brought our snorkeling gear along, just in case.

We picked up whitebait near the two poles off the bayport channel. Over the last month I have really have not check any other area, since this area is very convenient. However each time, the whitebait numbers seem to be less and less. Today I could only get about dozen big baits, bigger then I wanted. The whitebait will spawn in August, and we'll have lots a little (too little) baits.

Fishing was a bust, we had two strikes both missed the hook. so I can not even call them and auto-release... We did a little lure fishing and had a couple of redfish follow the lure but no strikes. So it was time to go snorkeling.

We motored out to mark 21 in the Hernando Beach channel and I noticed what looked like glass minnows. As it turns out they where whitebait, the perfect size for redfish. Since we where done fishing we swam with the whitebait for while. It was really very interesting to see how the bait behaves. The bait seem to use us for shelter. Off in the distance I could see a couple of Spanish Mackerel cruising around the bait. While I do not recommend swimming in schools of bait fish, it was very interesting. And at least I now know where to find the right size whitebait.

We moved to a couple of other locations along the channel and found some green, red and white shrimp for our fish tank. As well as a sea horse, pipe fish and some scallops.

The seahorse is holding on to the and pipe fish.

Scallops, Pipe Fish and some grass.

Scallop and all eyes are on you...

One other interesting thing to note. Since this was a Sunday, I expected plenty of boaters on the "flats". When we got there there was only about 20 boats, I could here the motors while we where in the water. Once we got out of the water, it looks as if the boat parade had arrived. There must have been at least 80 boats...

Good Luck
Zippyjr