Full week of trips. Guided Jon Merchant and his son Zak today for some redfish and trout. The guys wanted to catch some to take back to Destin for a fresh fish dinner at Harbor Docks. Started at 600am and ran to a shallow flat where we immediately got on some great redfish and solid trout. Topwaters and Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads were both popular baits and we targeted schools of mullet and baitfish near the surface. Made an even further run east and found huge amounts of speckled trout that crushed topwaters and Gulp! Jerkshads again. Every cast produced a 14-19″ speckled trout. A bit further down the bank, we found a nice school of 24-27″ redfish that pounded some topwaters and Jon actually picked off a great redfish off of Zac’s topwater hooked fish. A few double hookups and more quality fish to follow. Then it was off to the west where we found the bull redfish laying around in 4-6′ of water on some clear flats. Stuck some of those and then headed down the beach for some more redfish and pompano. Not much happening down there and only some a few redfish and zero pompano so we came back inside to hit some more redfish on the flats. The guys took only what they could eat this evening and we tossed the rest back. Fun trip! Booked all week so more reports soon. E Holstman
Please click an image to enlarge.
