The Gulf Coast's Ultimate Angling Experience!
Best Rates on the Gulf Coast!! $600 (1-2 anglers) for 5 hours. $50 for each additional angler up to 4 total anglers. Includes Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, Navarre and Pensacola Beach. Call (850) 748-4368 or email ericholstman@hotmail.com. *(Adjusted for fuel prices on July 1, 2022)
Welcome to Redfish University in Pensacola, Florida
Redfish University is a unique opportunity for beginner, intermediate and advanced level anglers to improve their skills in the art of shallow water fishing for redfish, speckled trout, pompano and flounder. Redfish U. specializes in the challenging realm of sight fishing for redfish with the use of artificial baits. Redfish U. also targets speckled trout, flounder, pompano and bull redfish on traditional guided fishing trips. Our extraordinary curriculum insures that no detail is overlooked. From bait choices and line selection; to casting presentation and approaching your target, you will receive unsurpassed angling instruction. Challenge yourself, broaden your angling knowledge and invest in your fishing future at Redfish University.
Feb03
Two great trips today and one yesterday. All three trips focused on redfish, speckled trout and flounder. Sticking with the Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads since they catch the most fish. The trout in the bayous ranged from 15-18″ and the ones in the northern bays are much bigger with many in the 3-4# range. The redfish were also biting very well and we found lots of fish in the 24-27″ range. Flounder are a bit of a bonus but there are certainly a few areas where there are quite a few fish. Over 100 trout in three trips. They’re biting very well. Two catch-and-release trips and this afternoon’s outing was quite different with a limit of quality speckled trout, redfish and one flounder. Superbowl cookout! Tired and my apologies for the very short report. Taking a few days off since the new boat is coming very soon. Thanks, E Holstman Please click an image to...
Jan31
Guided my longtime family physician and a family friend today. They had been hearing about the huge catches of redfish, speckled trout and flounder and wanted to get in on the action and have a fish fry. One angler was very experienced and the other was a true beginner and needed extra guidance. Very, very windy today but the water was moving very rapidly which helped tremendously. Started with quite a few very nice speckled trout(one 4# fish) in the 16-22″ range and a 26.5″ redfish right off the bat. Travelled south and found a bunch more speckled trout, quality redfish and some flounder. Fished both wind-blown and protected banks where there was an abundance of mullet in all sizes. The guys did a great job of focusing on technique and casting in between beers and cigars. We actually had 5-6 nice flounder to the boat today but only one hit the deck which turned into a Grand Slam for our new inshore angler, Dr. Bill. Bill also stuck the largest speckled trout I’ve ever seen in our target...
Jan30
Guided Mike and Shawn today for some inshore redfish, speckled trout and flounder action. Mike’s last Redfish University trip back in December was an outstanding experience with a rare Super Slam(redfish, trout, flounder and stripers) and tons of quality redfish and speckled trout so the pressure was on to do the same or even better. Well, not so much but a pretty decent display of how to catch extremely uncooperate inshore fish. The upside of each extreme trip may be the recognition of how easy it can be and how difficult, but not impossible, our local fishery can be. Nonetheless, we always expect a high quality catching trip. Started out with a 4# speckled trout followed by some more legal trout with many short-bites and misses. Next, we covered an area infested with huge amounts of mullet of all sizes and could only stick the short redfish and dropped a very big speckled trout on a shallow flat. Poop. This meant the redfish were going to be a pain all afternoon and the statement stood true. Ran into some...
Jan29
After a quick four day break, I was very excited to get back on the water. Guided a fella stationed here for a few weeks that wanted to get out and catch some redfish and trout. We chose this afternoon since the water was coming in and the forecast indicated diminishing winds. Met with a pretty decent breeze out of the north and water that wasn’t moving in as fast as anticipated. Found plenty of really nice speckled trout in the 16-19″ range on our first stop and these fish were pretty particular about bait movement. Slow taps and deadsticks drew the most bites. Second stop produced some nice redfish in the 23-25″ range that were found inside small schools of mullet. At the third stop we found lots of flounder in the form of mud-trails and on our hooks. A few flounder were in the 3# range which was a pleasant surprise. We continued to plug away at the redfish and speckled trout as the sun fell and even had a few good topwater strikes right before dark....
Jan25
Sunday’s instructional/catching trip at Redfish University was a real drag. Met with extremely foggy conditions, calm winds and slow water. Instruction, techniques and areas is simple but we like to see some solid results and instill a high level of confidence in our valued clients. Started fishing at first light and found it shocking not to catch a fish in the first five casts. I let that go on for about 15 minutes before I opened the rodlockers and put a few sticks in my hands. Cast, cast, cast, cast, cast…. nothing. Switched areas and same result. Wow. Went to an area littered with redfish and found a few that seemed annoyed by our topwaters and got a couple nose-pushes from some sizable redfish. Hit a deep water area and no bites. How can I expect clients to catch a fish when I can’t? Not even the drop-shot rig worked! Instead of struggling all morning, Matt was gracious enough to reschedule and wouldn’t have been charged either way. It seemed impossible to us both especially with the huge numbers...
Jan21
Guided Kurt and Jim today for some inshore redfish, speckled trout and flounder. The guys are from Oregon and do some fishing there for steelheads and salmon. Our inshore fishing requires some very different techniques but it only took a few minutes for them to get very comfortble with sticking big numbers of fish. Very windy today so boat positioning was incredibly important. I did my part and they did their part by hammering the fish. Started with some very nice redfish on some shallow, wind-blown flats. Found redfish in the 15-31″ range along with some quality speckled trout in the same area. It didn’t take Kurt long to secure the prized Grand Slam with a nice flounder in the mix. Moved to a different area and found a speckled trout on nearly every cast. We probably got 40-50 trout with several being legal-sized including a great 5# fish. Today we stuck to the Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads in camo with 1/4oz Marsh Works jigheads because of the high winds. We also had a few really nice redfish and big...
