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Call it better late than never....but I just didn't have it in me to write up a report last night, expecially when I knew that I was going to be up at 4 am again this morning.
Me and DPop fished a hard 10 hour day, which started off fairly slow. I had located a few reds on an open stretch of shoreline on Friday afternoon. They were working over mud and shell in 1 to 2 feet of water. We started there in the dark on Saturday morning, without a single fish to show until the sun started putting some light on the little shrimp that they have been chasing around. Tried to get them to eat tops early, but they weren't having any of that. Switched to the spinner baits and a small crank bait, and it started improving. probably around 6:45 we were seeing the shrimp flying. We landed a couple of little cookie cutters at about 3.5 pounds. The next school that popped up was looking the same as the previous, but when I dropped the lure on them, I chanced on one of the better fish in the school. She put up a hell of a fight and when we got her in the boat, it was scare time. This fish just barely looked legal, just barely brushing the edge of the 28 inch mark on the Check it stick. We loaded her into the livewell and agreed that we would have to check her again later in the day.
The little schools kept coming and we kept catching. Daniel made a good cast to a passing school and hooked up with another cookie cutter about 30 feet from the boat. As she ran towards us, the school followed. he could clearly see the big fish were under the little more aggressive ones. I put a cast into the school and got a great hit, but she came unhooked. The schooling slowed over the next hour as the wind picked up and we caught a few more smallies ramdomly across the flat. It was time to hit flat number two.
As we started trolling up onto the flat, I was talking nicely to my lure and asking it to please find me another 8 pound red. About the third cast I was rewarded with a good bite, unfortunately not an 8. She would have been just over half of the weight we needed. We worked the rest of the flat and missed a couple of bites and got another 1 or 2 cookies. On to flat number 3. Flat 3 looked a little lifeles, but we still proceeded to find the cookies. Probably 3 or 4 here and missed a couple of bites. On to flat 4.
Flat 4 didn't look much different until we got tight to the shoreline. We immediately started missing little bites, but weren't even sure that they were what we were there to catch. About 15 minutes into it, we start sticking the cookies again. By this time, it was about 10:30 and we still only had one fish. A fish that we were worried might grow as it relaxed. We worked our way down the shoreline, and caught a few more good one, and had a bigger fish chase the bait and miss.
We pulled back around for a second pass, as this flat was at least producing. About midway down, I stick a nice red that did everything she could to get into the shoreline grass. On the third run to the grass, she got there, and I couldn't move her anymore. I cranked the troll motor hard not sure if she was even on anymore. As we got close to the grass, Pop got into position to net the fish and a wad of grass if needed. Then she shook loose from the grass. As she bolted out again, I could see that the lure had come out of her mouth and was now stuck on the outside of her gilplate. It was clutch time so as soon as we got her near the boat we took a swipe with the net. It was pure luck to hold onto this one, and she was worth every bit of the fight. At right about 27, she pulled 7.12 on the digital.
We fished out the remainder of the day until 2:45, with plenty more cookies, and only one more big fish on that got off trying the same run to the grass move as the second big one. We never measured the first fish again, not that there was a choice. Got to the weigh in with only about 10 minutes to spare. I pulled her out, closed one eye and put her on the check it stick again. She was between 27.5 and 27.75, so I grabbed the weigh bag and loaded them up. I didn't mention that the second fish went belly up in the livewell not long after we put her in. We tried to to nurse her along but she just kept rolling belly up. By the time we got the weigh in, she was toast.
We weighed in at 15.60, which had us tied for weight with Clint and Brian of Team Bad Marine. With the .5 pound penalty for the dead fish we ended up in 4th with 15.10. We had a great day, landing probably 40-50 reds, just couldn't ever get another good fish in the boat. The only 2 we caught over 25, went to the weigh in.
Congrats to all who fished and weighed, especially Mickey Eastman Jr and Wayne Webb who won. It wasn't an easy day to find big reds, there were only a handful of teams that broke the 13 pound mark. We will be back for round 3 in about 3 weeks.
Me and DPop fished a hard 10 hour day, which started off fairly slow. I had located a few reds on an open stretch of shoreline on Friday afternoon. They were working over mud and shell in 1 to 2 feet of water. We started there in the dark on Saturday morning, without a single fish to show until the sun started putting some light on the little shrimp that they have been chasing around. Tried to get them to eat tops early, but they weren't having any of that. Switched to the spinner baits and a small crank bait, and it started improving. probably around 6:45 we were seeing the shrimp flying. We landed a couple of little cookie cutters at about 3.5 pounds. The next school that popped up was looking the same as the previous, but when I dropped the lure on them, I chanced on one of the better fish in the school. She put up a hell of a fight and when we got her in the boat, it was scare time. This fish just barely looked legal, just barely brushing the edge of the 28 inch mark on the Check it stick. We loaded her into the livewell and agreed that we would have to check her again later in the day.
The little schools kept coming and we kept catching. Daniel made a good cast to a passing school and hooked up with another cookie cutter about 30 feet from the boat. As she ran towards us, the school followed. he could clearly see the big fish were under the little more aggressive ones. I put a cast into the school and got a great hit, but she came unhooked. The schooling slowed over the next hour as the wind picked up and we caught a few more smallies ramdomly across the flat. It was time to hit flat number two.
As we started trolling up onto the flat, I was talking nicely to my lure and asking it to please find me another 8 pound red. About the third cast I was rewarded with a good bite, unfortunately not an 8. She would have been just over half of the weight we needed. We worked the rest of the flat and missed a couple of bites and got another 1 or 2 cookies. On to flat number 3. Flat 3 looked a little lifeles, but we still proceeded to find the cookies. Probably 3 or 4 here and missed a couple of bites. On to flat 4.
Flat 4 didn't look much different until we got tight to the shoreline. We immediately started missing little bites, but weren't even sure that they were what we were there to catch. About 15 minutes into it, we start sticking the cookies again. By this time, it was about 10:30 and we still only had one fish. A fish that we were worried might grow as it relaxed. We worked our way down the shoreline, and caught a few more good one, and had a bigger fish chase the bait and miss.
We pulled back around for a second pass, as this flat was at least producing. About midway down, I stick a nice red that did everything she could to get into the shoreline grass. On the third run to the grass, she got there, and I couldn't move her anymore. I cranked the troll motor hard not sure if she was even on anymore. As we got close to the grass, Pop got into position to net the fish and a wad of grass if needed. Then she shook loose from the grass. As she bolted out again, I could see that the lure had come out of her mouth and was now stuck on the outside of her gilplate. It was clutch time so as soon as we got her near the boat we took a swipe with the net. It was pure luck to hold onto this one, and she was worth every bit of the fight. At right about 27, she pulled 7.12 on the digital.
We fished out the remainder of the day until 2:45, with plenty more cookies, and only one more big fish on that got off trying the same run to the grass move as the second big one. We never measured the first fish again, not that there was a choice. Got to the weigh in with only about 10 minutes to spare. I pulled her out, closed one eye and put her on the check it stick again. She was between 27.5 and 27.75, so I grabbed the weigh bag and loaded them up. I didn't mention that the second fish went belly up in the livewell not long after we put her in. We tried to to nurse her along but she just kept rolling belly up. By the time we got the weigh in, she was toast.
We weighed in at 15.60, which had us tied for weight with Clint and Brian of Team Bad Marine. With the .5 pound penalty for the dead fish we ended up in 4th with 15.10. We had a great day, landing probably 40-50 reds, just couldn't ever get another good fish in the boat. The only 2 we caught over 25, went to the weigh in.
Congrats to all who fished and weighed, especially Mickey Eastman Jr and Wayne Webb who won. It wasn't an easy day to find big reds, there were only a handful of teams that broke the 13 pound mark. We will be back for round 3 in about 3 weeks.
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