Guided my friend John this morning over in Blackwater and East Bay. John is an accomplished billfish angler and quite an inshore angler as well. Well, I guess it’s bound to happen every once in a while. Today was the second worst Redfish University trip on the year. On trips, I like to fish as well to demonstrate retrieval techniques and to help locate fish. This was the first trip ever where I didn’t catch a single redfish!! We covered some normally very productive areas and started out with two quality trout. John, who caught all the redfish, followed with two very small redfish. From there, it was all downhill. Ended up traveling way south where John scratched up a few more small redfish and an undersized trout. Then he completed his Grand Slam with a decent flounder. Headed back north to cover some areas at dead-low tide and saw some average-sized redfish on muddy bottom where we had already thrown at five or six times. John stuck the biggest redfish of the day(around 23-24″) and it spit the hook at the boat. That is the way the morning went! The highlights of the day were: 1. A pretty pathetic Grand Slam. 2. Seeing a bald eagle grabbing mullet. 3. John being an absolute pleasure to fish with. All fish caught on Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads in camo rigged with Marsh Works 1/4 Bull Red jigheads with rattle inserts.
Although John and I caught some fish as guaranteed, it really was a disappointing day. I invited John on a make-up, prefishing trip with me next week in either Panama City or here locally. Please pick Panama City, John!! Look for the next report to be off the hook!
I remembered my camera this time but nothing exciting to photograph except the bald eagle.
