"There's more that one way to skin a cat" we've all heard that saying. And that's just what we applied in today's fishing. With a 0730 hrs departure, I pointed the Jettywolf leftward out of the boat ramp and we headed up river. I had a coffee can full of fresh giant dead shrimp and that was it for bait. No live shrimp, no float-rig rods, and no plans on even attempting to hunt up those snipe hunt Speckled Trout, amongst all the bait stealers. With a full moon rising tide. I had other plans.
We're gonna bottom fish for whatever bites, while soaking either a Mullet or small Croaker on the larger with the heavier rods. So before going too far we hit a dock that I frequent this time of year to see if there was any small Mullet around. And for the second time this week. We didn't see any. So we just moved on.....
Fishing spot to spot. Not falling in love with anywhere in particular. And each spot we just dropped down some dead shrimp. We picked up a few small Croakers and Sand Trout. The Croak's went into the livewell, and the Trout went into the fish box.
Out of the three times the circle hook rod doubled over, we caught two big RB's (Redbass' aka: Redfish.)
And each bite came when we were busy fishing dead shrimp for whatever. And that's what was so EZ and fun about it.
Randy and I caught Whiting, Sand Trout, Croakers, Bluefish, and Seabass on the light rods. Put plenty for a fish fry in the cooler. And Randy got his wish. He got to pull on two big Reds, one at 16 and the other at 26 pounds.
I didn't anchor on places that were stereo typical big Red spots. I anchored on places where we could stretch a string, with the dead shrimp baits, instead.
Of course, I was wanting a big Red to come by and suck up one of our shrimp. So we could have a light tackle battle on our hands. But each time, the Reds smacked a small Croaker on the bottom, with it's tail fin cut short, and on a relatively short leash and a 7/0 circle hook. The largest Red, even hit a Croaker after I just took a whole blue crab off that received no attention.
The flip side of our fishing today could have been an all out assault on the bottom with nothing but the heavier circle hooks rods. Where we would have been pretty dang bored watching rod tips all day long. I've done that too, this time of year....and am really sick of it.
It was fun, and I cleaned plenty of "stringer fish" when we returned to the dock.
