I'll take what we had over GALE FORCE winds on a weekend any day! With this being the first Saturday without GALE FORCE winds in the last two weeks. The boats/fisherman were out in force.
My idea was to take advantage of the early morning 9:30am high tide and go hit some shallow areas. Areas that in the GALE FORCE winds, we even caught Trout in past weeks.
(A "gale" as defined by the National weather service is 34–47 knots, or 39–54 miles/hour of sustained surface winds.)
But, it's really unusual that the Trout bite was better when the winds were honking. So bad I couldn't stay anchored in 3 feet of water.....compared to today, and this past Wednesday at high tide. With light to no wind.
Go figure, huh? Must be a barametric pressure thing....
Between Jason and I we caught Trout. And many were small ones. Little skinny "buck" males.
The nice ones caught were beautiful fish:
As the tide flood tide slowed, we headed straight for the jetties. In search of a Black Drum or over sized Redbass.
I have not seen the end of the jetties for weeks, because of the winds. So I was really excited to get anchored up and fish hard out there. This should be the time when my Drum friends start showing up really good.
Well, Jason and I were in for a BIG suprise. Anchored up perfectly, in a great spot (at least it used to be) we fished "cut ladyfish" on the bottom for a big Redbass, and also fished LIVE shrimp at the edge of the rocks looking for a fat Black Drum.
Of course because of the full moon tide conditions, we had to be patient and wait it out till the brown water at least flushed on through. Hours went by, and we never had as much as a SNIFF! Yeah, Jason caught a few small Seabass. But right there was a "HERE'S YER SIGN". When you're not even getting bit by small Sea Biscuits, SOMETHING is w-r-o-n-g!!
I believe that the quick drop in water temps, the extreme winds, and water roughness of the last two weeks has had the jetties all messed up. About every boat that was even near the end of the rocks, left after awhile. We used the power of observation to determine, they were probably having the same action we were. And that was NIL to NONE.
I've experienced this before after weeks of 10 foot seas out at the inlet. So after waiting for the brown water, and fishing really hard for a few hours. We also took off, and headed up river. Back to Float-rig fishing for Trout.
We pulled up on a spot, and right away the Trout had Jason's shrimp jumping across the surface. Trout were jumping out of the water for his shrimp. Then he caught two nice 17 inchers back to back.
But, that quickly ended. It became a "flats boat" parade coming by us, as the sun got low in the sky and the tide became dead low. It must have been a parking lot of boats up in the marsh behind where we were with all these little boats coming by. And as they did.....our bite of Trout stopped as fast as it started.
I've never ever seen a bite of Trout start so good, and end so abruptly, because of boat traffic. The Trout were jumping out of the water, chasing Jason's shrimp on his float-rig. He and I looked at eachother and thought..."we're in the meat!!!" And then after two nice fish it ended.
So we too packed it in. Jason had a 4 hr. drive home ahead of him. And I think I may have a new and future "Float Freak". Jason enjoyed the ANGLING aspect of fishing a live shrimp on the float-rig. As most people do. No having to feel a bite, just pay attention to that float, and it'll talk to ya.
NEXT UP, PRE-BOOKED:
Saturday and Sunday with the same husband and wife fishing team from Chicago.
So that means "weekdays" are wide open. And hopefully devoid of heavy winds.
Let's go Float-riggin'.
