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

Redfish Redemption

Over the last few weeks we have been 4 or 5 times without seeing or catching a redfish. October is famous for the best month to catch redfish. So today, we decided to fish for redfish and snook in Centipede Bay. The tide was falling which that is strike one, going back in to Centipede bay on a falling tide with a late afternoon low tide, could mean the fishing trip turns in to a camping trip.

Since we where short on time, I decided not to head to Bayport to catch whitebait. Instead we could pick up a dozen mud minnows on the way back to the Centipede Bay. Fortunately the tide was just low enough to get the mud minnows of the banks of the island.

After sitting for about 20 min. one of the rods bent over. My first though was that it was a catfish, since victories have been somewhat difficult lately. As it turns out, to my surprise it was a trout. Not what I wanted but much better than a catfish. At this point I thought I may never catch another redfish.

A few minutes later we saw a snook cruising along the rock bar we were fishing. The rod doubled over and the snook started jumping. However there was one very unsettling component of this fight. While the snook was jumping of the port side side of the boat, this line was still going out toward the boa of the boat. That's right the line was caught under a rock, so the snook was fighting the rock and I was fighting the rock. I was hoping the rock would give up, but after a minute or two the leader gave up.

Fortunately, a few minutes after I lost the snook, I saw a big school of redfish moving over the rock bar. Finally my redfish redemption! The first fish must have trained for triathlon, and I thought the fish would be over slot. After several long runs and a couple passes under the boat (the water is only 6 inches deep) the fish was safely in the net. Lucky the fish measured a solid 26 1/2 inches. Yeah, redfish for dinner!
After that we caught a 29 redfish and released it. The next was a 20, since the bite was on we decided to release that one in hopes of a redfish a little bigger. The next one was 26 3/4 and it went in the box.

The little 20 inch

Over Size Redfish.. by 2 inches...
And away it goes....
Our second dinner guest.

To top the day off, as we headed in the Hernando Beach Channel, I saw a large school of whitebait, just be for the turn marker.

It was nice to have a day of redfish redemption!

Good Luck
Zippyjr

Tide : Falling 0.04 5:01pm
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 34% full
Temp: 92 F
Water Temp : 85F
Wind: 5-10 mph SE : 10-12 mph W
Bait: Mud Minnows
Results: 4 Redfish, 1 Trout and an auto release snook.

More Bluefish, trout and cobia.

We had such a good time yesterday that we decided to do it again. I was hoping the whitebait was still bunch up. They where not and I had to through the net about 10 times to get about 50 baits. The whitebait was still in the same area around the turn marker in the Bayport channel, but they where scattered around due to the birds. Also to note the whitebait was thick in Centipede bay. While catching whitebait a small cobia was chasing the bait around the boat. This kept the bait at a distance from the boat. So the only solution I could find was to toss out a bait with a hook.

While the cobia was short, it did put up a nice fight and once released it left the area.

Once we had the whitebait we ran over to the the Hernando Beach channel and started at marker 5. We used 20# fluorocarbon leader, which proves to be inadequate for the teeth of a blue fish. We lost 4 hook within the first 5 minutes. So I switched out the leaders to 30# which cut done on the hook loses. We caught about 10 bluefish and decided to move and look for some trout. If you want bluefish the cut between markers 5 and 7, I caught them there for the last week. The next couple of cuts we caught 4 trout, but none as big as yesterdays, but all in the 20 inch range. We also picked up an assortment of jacks, lady-fish, blue-runners and a bonnet-head shark and a few small grouper. It rained on and off most of the day, so we did not get many pictures


Next stop was Centipede bay. We started in the back and saw a few fish cruising the rocky area. Tossed out some whitebait and the redfish swam right by it. This was a bit odd, but I think I figured out why a redfish would pass up a whitebait. A few minutes later we heard a crash in the water about 100 yards behind the boat. As it turns out is was a pelican diving on a big school of whitebait. So my guess is the redfish that I saw where coming back from dinner, I though I heard one of them say "I can't eat another bite". We did manage to get a a little 18 inch redfish to bite and he looked like he just got back from an all you can eat buffet.

Next week we plan to head out to some shallow rocks for inshore grouper fishing.

Good Luck
Zippyjr

Tide : .02 11:32am Rising
Water Clarity : clear
Moon Phase: 13% full
Temp: 92F
Water Temp : 84F
Wind: 5 mph NE - 10 mph W
Bait: Whitebait
Results: Trout, bluefish, jacks, cobia, bonnet head shark, ladyfish, rat red, grouper.

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

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.

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

Perfect Day - Tuff Fishing.

The day started out perfect. We got an early start, found bait quickly and had plenty of water to run with out too much worry about hitting rocks or running aground. Since today was going to be the hottest day of the year, I wanted to catch a few fish then spend the rest of the day swimming.

The first stop is a very dependable redfish area on an incoming tide. I had the boat in the perfect position. Given the perfect conditions I thought we would have our 2 fish within the hour. Normally when there are predatory fish (like redfish or snook) in the area the bait will let you know, by trying to swim back to the boat. But today the bait swam around like they where swimming in the hotel pool. That's a big warning sign, so we sat around for about 30 minutes as the bait remained lackadaisical. The tide was a very high tide, so I thought maybe the fish will be further back in the creeks. So we moved back a little more with the same bait reaction. Finally one of the baits swam all the way to back of the bay. Where I noticed a wake coming out of the grass.
While there where no fireworks or thrashing around, the line slowly pulled tight and the hook set. They was not too much of a fight, so I figured it was a small red.
Just barely legal size, I decided to release the small red. I typically keep fish that fall in the 21-25 inch range, since they make the perfect size meal for two.
The tide continued to rise and I move further and further back. Finally we where as far back as we could go, I tossed out a few live baits for chum and hoped to see a reactions, but nothing happened. I saw the baits I tossed out swimming around like they did not have a care in the world. Which again is a bad sign. After about 30 minutes I finally hooked a redfish that took drag with ease.
After a short battle the fish was in the boat. And a perfect 25 inch size.

What made today so strange is that the redfish where nowhere to be found. Every place I stopped, I know very well and I know where the redfish will stay when they are in that area. After fishing for about an hour at each stop (7 stops total) , I used the trolling motor to investigate, if the redfish where in that area. If they where there, I would have to think about why they did not feed on the tasty whitebait. Each place I looked there where no redfish, I did not spook any out of the grass nor see any on the run.

The only unusual thing about today was the upper atmosphere high pressure system over the area. This caused the heat index to reach about 110 degrees inland. Which leads me to believe that the redfish must move to a different type of location. I guess I will need to do more sight fishing during the next upper level high pressure.


Good Luck
Zippyjr

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Tide :Raising, 11:32am 3.6H
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 14% full
Temp: 95F
Water Temp : 86F
Wind: 5-10mph W
Bait: Whitebait ( bayport near the two poles )
Results: 2 Redfish

Summer time fishing

Today I took my wife fishing. While I usually fish alone, it is always very enjoyable to watch the excitement of someone else catching fish.

We fished the south side of the bay, where I have seen several small schools of over sized redfish. It took only a few minute to hook up with a ~30 inch redfish, after the first 50 yard run I knew it was over sized. My wife fought it for about ten minutes. With a couple of good runs out in to the bay. She lost it on a single mangrove shoot about 20 feet away from the boat. After 5 or 10 minutes of fighting a fish, it takes a lot of effort to keep the rod tip high. After the fish broke off, I was not sure who was more tired, the redfish or my wife. None the less it was exciting to watch the battle play out.

I decided to fish the north side of the bay, so we could get a redfish for dinner. The interesting thing about today, was the trout. While catching trout is not rare by any means, it where we caught the trout. There is a small area that usually holds redfish and occasionally a snook to two. This is an area I like to sight fish and I have fished this area about 10 years. Which I have never caught or seen a trout. This would lead me to believe that if the trout are moving this far back in to the bay, I would guess that this could be a really good year for trout.


After losing several other, prime dinner guest, we finally where able to get a redfish in the boat. This redfish looks like he was recently in a fight, you can see there is a bite taken out of a couple of it's fins. Even with the battle scares it was still outstanding on the grill.

Good Luck
Zippyjr

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Tide : Falling 9:50am 3.2ft
Water Clarity : Hazy
Moon Phase: 23% Full, Waning Crescent
Temp: 93 F
Water Temp : 85F
Wind: 5-7mph WNW
Bait: Whitebait
Results: 1 Redfish, 1 trout, 4 redfish auto release.