Guided the Pluths this morning from Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. They departed Destin in a taxi at 500am and met me at the ramp in Pensacola. The Pluths are experienced bass anglers and have done some tarpon fishing in the Keys but have never caught speckled trout or redfish. I was hoping they came to the right place and the fishing was better than the last few days. Got on the water at first light and started with some good numbers of quality speckled trout in the 1.5-3.5# range and even got some on topwater Sebile Bongos. Great start already! Most were legal with a few in the 13-15″ range but only kept what they could eat in Destin this evening. Ran to a shallow flat with lots of mullet and took another quality trout on topwater but had a few legal redfish drop the hook. Solid bites and short runs but just dropped the hook. Cruised to an area where I’ve been seeing small schools of medium-sized redfish but just couldn’t draw a bite in there. With the three schools pretty blown out, I asked if they’d like to catch some over-sized redfish in shallow water in the 30-40″ range with the slight possibility of sticking a legal fish. Lots of smiles so we opened up the SHO and travelled seven miles south. Found large redfish to keep us busy for the last few hours and even I was surprised by some the massive redfish in the area. Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads were pounced on and festivities were on. Ended up with some great redfish in the 9-12# range and a beast for Mrs. Pluth at 21#. These redfish are shadowing small groups of menhaden and small mullet in 3-6′ of water. Quite an exciting way to be introduced to Florida shallow water red fishing. Since they were staying in Destin and they wanted to do some flyfishing for these big redfish, I hooked them up with a boat rental and a few areas in Destin where they could find similar redfish in shallow, clear water. I’m really looking to seeing their report. The Pluths left with some speckled trout for a small fishfry and all other fish released healthy. Taking a nap now. Thanks, E Holstman
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