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.
Dec26
Guided a very talented angler and nice fella from over on the Pensacola Foolish Forum this morning. He just really needed some new areas to catch redfish and speckled trout. Started at first light and in the first few casts, quality speckled trout were flying in the boat. As always, we found the better trout inside groups of mullet in 3-5′ of water. Slowly bounced Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads continue to be the best choice of bait. Our trout ranged from 1.5-3.5#. Speckled trout accomplished! Next, we hit some areas where there has been plenty of redfish in the past few weeks. Hooked a few quality redfish that dropped the hook. We checked some deeper areas and then traveled way north to a bank famous for tailing redfish in the Winter. Slowly moved down the bank and found a handful of medium redfish. Some were tailing, most were sitting and with very low light and cloud cover, we found it extremely difficult to actually see the redfish. Looking for small “rings” and disturbances is the key to finding these very...
Dec24
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...
Dec23
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...
Dec19
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...
Dec14
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...
Dec13
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...
