Sunday Fishing

Typically I try not to fish on the weekends, but a friend was down and we only had Sunday to fish.

We picked up plenty of whitebait from the Bayport channel near the new turn marker. The whitebait has been thick around Bayport, but have all but disappeared from the Hernando Beach Channel.

The first stop was the Hernando Beach cuts, near marker 5 and 9. Of course there was plenty of boat traffic but we could not get back to Centipede Bay for another hour. We fished for about an hour and caught jacks, lady fish and a bluefish. I have noticed catching more jacks as fall approaches.

FYI Jacks are god for bait, especially a strip bait for trolling, Kingfish can not resist them. Basically you fillet both sides (include the bones ) and make tear a drop shape fillet. Depending on the size of the jack you can get one or two baits from each side. If you get a big jack you can make a belly strip bait as a bonus. Also if you do not use them for kingfish, they also make great grouper bait. You can lay them flat and freeze them in pairs. Then thaw and they a ready for use. The next batch of jacks I catch I'll post a how to on the offshore blog.

We headed back to Centipede bay on a ripping incoming tide and caught some more jacks, a shark and one 25" redfish. Then headed home to beat the rains.

Tide : -.01 10:32 am Rising
Water Clarity : clear
Moon Phase: New
Temp: 91 F
Water Temp : 88 F
Wind: 10 mph NE - 15 mph W
Bait: Whitebait
Results: 1 Redfish - 5 jacks - 1 Bluefish - 3 Lady Fish - 1 Bonnethead shark

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.

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

Interesting Day Fishing for Redfish

I had the chance to go check out an area that I know holds redfish near the top of the tide. There is nothing really special about this place and it looks like a hundred other places. I went back at low tide (1.3ft L) and there was about 4 inches of water. Which means this place is dry on dead low tide (0 ft L) for years I wondered why the fish always show up here.

High Tide

Low Tide (1.3 ft L)

This is where I usually anchor the boat. The boat drug the bottom, but I got it anchored up in the same place as always.
Just as I thought there where no redfish, typically they hang in the back near the saw grass. At low tide there was a raccoon wondering around where the redfish hang around at high tide. But I also noticed there where big schools of mud minnows swimming around out in the open. And that answered my question about why the redfish always show up here when the tide is near the top. The way it looks is the red fish hang out in the back. When the tide is near the top the mud minnows go deep into the grass and that's why I do not ever see them at high tide. As the tide begins to drop the mud minnows have to leave the safety of the grass and the redfish positions themselves to take advantage of the situation.

Once the tide started moving in so did the redfish and this one wanted to come home for dinner. And it was an outstanding dinner guest.



Good Luck
Zippyjr

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Tide : 1.3 L 1:00pm Rising
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 68% Waning Gibbous
Temp: 92 F
Water Temp : 84 F
Wind: W 10 mph
Bait: Mud minnows
Results: 1 - Auto Release, 1 - 24 Redfish

Full Moon

One of the benefits of this blog is that I can keep track of my fishing trips. While my last trip was not really a regular fishing trip, I did check with a few others anglers in area. All the reports I heard where the same. We saw fish but they would need bite. This pattern seems to occur around the the full moon.

We left at the top of the tide which makes it difficult to catch mud minnows and we really did not have time to catch whitebait, but I did net a few pin fish. When using live bait you can tell when there is something close by that the bait fears. This did happen a couple of time and I did see a couple swirls around the bait.As well as seeing several redfish in the area. The anglers that I did talk where seasoned, so I would have to take them as valid reports. A few more full moon reports like the past reports and I will have to conclude that during the daylight hours the redfish and snook do not feed aggressively if at all around the full moon.

The next step will be to see how the redfish and snook feed at night around the full moon. That was the plan for this full moon but the storms are not falling into the summer weather pattern, maybe next month.

Any comments on inshore fishing around the full moon I would love to here them.

Good Luck
Zippyjr

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Tide : Falling 3.5 @ 1:19pm
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 100% full
Temp: 87 F
Water Temp : 78F
Wind: 10 WSW mph
Bait: Pin Fish
Results: Boat Ride