Guided Mr. and Mrs. Sims this morning in search of redfish and speckled trout. The Sims are pretty experienced bass anglers from up north so their techniques and presentations were spot-on. Met with high winds, fast falling water and a little cloud cover. Naturally, the first few hours were going to be best so we moved fast. A few casts in, the anglers stuck some quality speckled trout and a 24″ redfish. Continued to find more of both down the bank but the fish were pretty tough already. Ended up switching to a light drop-shot rig which really increased the strikes. Found that most of the bigger trout and redfish were mixed in with mullet so we only fished areas with big numbers of mullet. No flounder today. The Sims graciously took home only what they could eat tonight and the rest was released. Definitely slower than yesterday. Not fishing tomorrow then 7 days straight and more reports to come. Happy fishing and Merry Christmas. E Holstman Please click an image to...

Postponed some trips this week due to bad weather. Playing catch up. Pretty difficult conditions the last few days but really found some huge numbers of speckled trout, redfish and flounder. On Thursday, I guided a local angler who called me and said he’d like to fish with live bait in the areas where I’ve been taking all three species. I informed him that I never fish with live bait and Redfish University is an artificial bait only guide service. He returned with, “I will bring my own live bait and I will catch more fish than you with those silly Gulp! baits you’re always writing about.” So I laughed in the phone but heard dead silence on the other end. This guy was completely serious and quite confident I must say!! Well, I can do some solid trash-talking as well and love a challenge so I said “bring it!” To add to the excitement, I assured him if he outfished me with live bait, I’d hand HIM $400. We met at the ramp yesterday morning and he dumps six dozen live shrimp and a few dozen bull minnows in my livewell. 14-2 in the first 30 minutes so he switched to Gulp! Ended with over 40 speckled trout, 7 redfish and 4 flounder. Really nice guy and we had a great time ribbing each other. He took some trout, redfish and flounder home for dinner and I packed 5 dozen shrimp on ice for him for a shrimp cocktail appetizer. He’ll be back in a month for an artificial only trip! Today, I guided a fella from Texas and his son-in-law, Eric. Eric had never been fishing before and needed some in depth instruction and the absolute basics. Second cast, a really nice trout, then 2 awesome redfish and he was off to the races. He ended up sticking over 15 trout, 3 redfish and had a great flounder to the boat but dropped it at the end. Almost a Grand Slam on his first fishing trip ever! Today’s total was 30+ trout, 5 redfish and 3 flounder. Kept a few fish for a fishfry and all others...

For the last four days, we’ve guided local anglers and very experienced, vacationing bass anglers at Redfish University. A little instruction and a little pure catching. From our local bayous, in Pensacola Bay, Escambia Bay, Blackwater and East Bay, we are finding very good numbers of redfish and speckled trout. Late last week, we found nice numbers of speckled trout in the bayous and over the weekend and today, we found both redfish and speckled trout on warmer flats and uneven bottom. The most productive baits have continued to be Gulp! 5 Jerkshads, some Sand Eels and the Gulp! 3″ Shrimp in camo and rootbeer. Light Ultracast braid in 6-8# and light fluoro in 10-15# will increase the strike and catch rate most certainly. The fish are in very few specific areas but my best advice is local bayous, Blackwater and East Bay for the best concentrations of redfish, trout and flounder. We’re also seeing more striped bass as the water temperature drops. We’ve also switched over to my highly successful drop-shot rig in appropriate areas with silty, mud bottoms, numerous stumps and wood and even some deep, grass bottoms. Perhaps this week I will include a photo of the drop-shot rig that I like to use in these areas. It will produce twice as many fish!! An interesting short trip this morning with a local angler! Got a call late last night(10:00!) from an angler having some difficulty finding legal redfish and trout over in Escambia Bay. He just wanted to meet for breakfast or lunch, for me to bring some productive baits and techniques, and mark up his fishing map with a Sharpie. Instead, I talked him into going to an entirely different location, to jump on my boat for a few hours and actually make 10 casts in each location that I circled on the map. Just wanted to make sure he was happy and found value in each location. Found plenty of quality speckled trout, of course, and redfish in most areas and even a few flounder on a consistent bank. The fish were biting extremely well this morning ahead of the rain-front(thankfully!) and it...

Fished for a bit of everything this morning. Started out for the some speckled trout, redfish and flounder at first light. We found the slam bite to be quite slow this morning but managed to eventually find some quality trout and some flounder but oddly, no legal redfish today. First time in weeks we haven’t produced a least one legal Grand Slam. Discovered the trout along a slight wind-rip but didn’t find any big fish. Next, we ran to the bay in search of gag grouper. Hit 3 or 4 productive spots and only found red snapper. We didn’t get any solid grouper bites in an hour’s time. Maybe we should have followed Redfish University’s motto, “artificials only”, it’s always odd having natural or live bait on my boat. Bob received detailed instruction and techniques along with every bay grouper number I have. VIP treatment!! Finally, I promised little known areas to find bull redfish in shallow water when the redfish are not visible on the surface throughout the bay. During our run through the bay, we discovered zero surface redfish and no pelicans or birds diving. Great! The perfect scenerio for our purposes. Like me, Bob has very little interest in casting into a school of 1000 rabid bull redfish. Instead, he enjoys seeing fish in clear shallow water and using his flyrod or light tackle to take these redfish. I love a skilled guy who loves the sport! Pulled up to our fish shallow water area and found unusually massive redfish milling around. Stuck some fish on 4″ Gulp! Shrimp in lime tiger. One fish pushed the Boga over 30# so we’ll call him 31 pounds, a huge redfish in general and especially on 8# Ultracast Invisi-Braid and with the same 15# Stren Tinted fluoro leader we were using for speckled trout. Continued to show Bob four or five other super sight fishing areas and ended our morning with some more speckled trout. Catching the 8.5# and 6# on Sunday at 1100am, we HAD to try to find the big one before we stopped. Only mediums today. All fish released. Thanks, E Holstman Please click an image...

My local monthly/bi-monthly clients won’t give me a break this Winter! Everyone wants to catch a Grand Slam. Fished with a great client yesterday who lives on north Escambia Bay and wanted to figure out why he wasn’t catching fish up there. I’m not a huge fan of fishing north Escambia Bay and the Escambia River during any time of the year, but we really wanted to find him some big numbers of fish in his own backyard. Fished Escambia River, another river that I don’t know the name of, Mulat Bayou(the deeper water and the ponds) and Indian Bayou. Found plenty of speckled trout in the river system but not great quality. We did find some decent flounder and some 20-23″ redfish as well. Grand Slam in 30 minutes. Moved down to the bayous and found mullet and bait in a few areas. Produced some trout up to 3#, redfish to 23″ and two more 14″ flounder. Moved back north to some coves and shallow banks to find a few more decent redfish and a few bass in the 1.5# range. I guess we got some sort of Super Slam. Threw Jerkys in camo and 1/4oz. Johnson Gold Spoons all morning. No fish released today and they’re heading to a family fishfry. He know where to catch tons of speckled trout, redfish and flounder now. Today, I fished with another awesome client that wanted to fish Bayou Grande and Bayou Texar. Started at 400am!! We fished dock lights in Grande and caught a bunch of speckled trout, medium redfish a 13″ flounder. Trailered over to Texar and decided to fish the northern reaches of the bayou. Found better quality trout up to 3.5# but no huge fish today. We also hit the shallow banks and got 6 redfish up to 24″ with most in the 22″ range. One flounder. Same baits. We’ve scaled down our fluorocarbon leaders to 10-12# and will continue with that all Winter. Better strike ratio and an increased chance for large fish in the clear water. All fish released this morning. Thanks, E Holstman Please click an image to...

Angling perfection and an inshore species beatdown with Pensacola’s best this morning!! After an ill-advised, and unfortunate(for him) guiding postponement last night by a regular Redfish U. client due to cold weather in the month of December, I assembled the Dream Team to go explore some winter areas for redfish and trout. Grabbed the two best all-around, technical anglers in the region, long-time tournament fishing partner Sonny Granger and my brother, Wesley Holstman. Lots of vast angling experience and knowledge on the boat and I was looking forward to the show and learning a bit myself! We decided to fish hard and hammer as many fish as humanly possible. Both of these guys can absolutely bring the heat and they didn’t disappoint this morning! We fished for four hours and covered areas north and south. Most areas produced very quick Grand Slams of redfish, speckled trout and flounder. Many trout in the 3-4# range which was nice. We actively looked for big stripers early but we weren’t able to find any on Bongos and sub-surface baits. We mainly fished new areas with a few regularly stellar areas in the mix to try some different baits and techniques. These guys really know how to produce fish, recognize conditions/patterns/tendencies and they did it with nearly every bait in my box. It was fun to watch and converse about the countless quality trout, over 20 redfish and a handful of nice flounder flopping around the boat. Our southern location was equally as productive. Sonny’s prize was the biggest croaker we’ve ever seen at 2 pounds and Wesley’s pounding of redfish including a 27″ 7.5# beast. Now to the biggest speckled trout I’ve ever seen in Pensacola. Before I begin, and fishing as much as I do here with Redfish University, we’ve caught plenty of speckled trout in the 6-7.75# range in all seasons of the year. Going further, I’ve had the fortune and incredible opportunity to land huge speckled trout during television shows and Redfish Cup pre-fishing in Corpus Christi, Baffin Bay, Mosquito Lagoon, etc. Some of these fish were measured at 29-32″ and weighed 9-11 pounds. I guess when you fish...