Guided Capt. Skip Barry this morning. Capt. Skip was down from Michigan and is a salmon and trout guide up on Lake Michigan with his charter service Terminator Sport Fishing. Skip has fished all over the world and I was very pleased to show him how to catch redfish on artificials here in NW Florida. Started out on some shallow water schools at first light. Stuck a few quality fish but mostly bottom slot fish with some decent trout mixed in. As the water rose, we concentrated on some deeper uneven bottom and picked up many legal trout, redfish and 7-8 small stripers which were fun. Caught fish pretty much all morning but the quality redfish were difficult today with the exception of one 26-27″ fish that was boat-side only to split the leader. Crap!! Anyway, the total for the day was 20+ small-medium redfish, 20+ quality trout and 7-8 small stripers. 2 redfish and 5 nice trout were kept for the grill. All fish caught on 3″ Gulp! Shrimp in New Penny and Lime Tiger as well as 5″ Gulp! Jerkshads in Lime...
Read MoreInvasion of the little redfish at Redfish University-December 22, 2009
Guided Mr. Brad Barber this morning. Brad wanted to learn about shallow water redfishing in our local upper bay areas. Started out at first light and cruised to the first area. Immediately saw wakes everywhere. Push poled at first and then switched to the trolly to bump up fish. Found large groups of lower, mid and upper level redfish but found it very difficult to entice the larger fish to bite as they were very unactive and basically laying on the muddy bottom in extremely dirty water. Stuck a few decent fish and then proceeded to absolutely hammer 20-25 lower slot redfish. Only a very slow tap-tap retrieve would produce fish and the big fish wouldn’t even take a dead-stick stinky Gulp! Not really used to that frustration! Anyway, much was caught and much was learned. Hopefully Brad will return to produce lots of fish for himself and his family in the future. All fish taken on 3″ and 4″ Gulp! Shrimp in whatever color you’d like. All fish...
Read MorePrefishing-Day 2 at Redfish U.-December 3, 2009
Fished from 1000am-1130am this morning in the upper bay areas with friend and my web designer, Mr. Randy Hamilton. Lots of reschedules and recent bookings so I needed to take a look at some areas after this drastic weather change. Found dirty water and some very clean water. It was windy and cold but manageable. The water was low but not as low as normal with the water pouring out of the rivers. Went to the Marsh Works Big Poppy cork today with a Gulp! 4″ Shrimp in natural. Found some decent redfish and boated three fish pretty quickly. Also missed some heavy bites, so the fish are there, you just have to find them. Looked for some speckled trout to end the morning but came up empty. Lots of freshwater, a full moon and dropping temps may be the culprit but I expect the trout to be more aggressive in the coming...
Read MoreRainy and high water. Prefishing at Redfish U.-December 2, 2009
Checked out Blackwater Bay today after the weather cleared. Found the water very high and dirty as expected but did catch some fish. Checked some productive areas and caught a few trout and redfish but overall, the two hour expedition was pretty slow. I will return tomorrow in preparation for several scheduled trips in the next week. See everyone...
Read MoreWest Bay again at Redfish University-November 20, 2009
Guided Mr. David Williams this morning in West Bay, Panama City. Basically, the same results as yesterday. Plenty of uncooperative fish but it wouldn’t be as fun and gratifying if every fish jumped on the bait, now would it? Concentrated on some of the same areas as yesterday and then a few different ones. Zero tailing fish today which indicates they just weren’t terribly hungry but we did fool a handful of quality redfish which fell to long and very accurate casts. Ended up with 4 fish in the 25-27.5″ range and then a few 22″ fish that seems a little more aggressive. The wind helped us today with long casts and some added distraction from the boat. Slick, windless conditions can be a nightmare in Panama City’s clear waters. Gulp! 5″ Jerkys did the trick and we used a little more weight on the Owner Twist-Locks because of the wind. Back in West Bay on Tuesday, hope the fish start to bite a little...
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