A Perfect Day to be on the Water

My buddy and I headed out on Friday in pursuit of a few inshore Redfish. All of our rods rigged for live bait, our first task was to find a school of finger mullet. Low tide was to be at 11:50 a.m. and we were in the water by 10, giving ourselves plenty of time to find bait, or so we thought. After about an hour of paddling around a few of the bait hotspots and resorting to blindly throwing the castnet into the middle of the creek, all we had to show for it were three 15 inch mullet. Figuring we would have to settle for using cut bait, we made one last-ditch effort to find the fingerlings. We paddled all the way up into the back of the creek, not far from where we put in. As we rounded the bend I saw the telltale signs of a school of what we were looking for. I eased up close to where they were, stood up in my Ride, and made one of the most perfect throws I've ever made with my castnet. Sure enough, it was full of exactly what we needed! We threw the three fatties back, filled our minnow buckets with about fifty finger mullet, and began the 1/2 mile paddle back down the creek to where we knew the Redfish would be when the tide turned. Little did we know that everything was falling into place perfectly.

We arrived at our honey-hole at exactly low tide. We positioned ourselves where we needed to be, dropped anchor, baited our hooks and made the first casts of the day. The rest is somewhat of a blur. From noon until three o'clock we never stopped catching fish. For three hours it was us against the Redfish. When it was all said and done, twenty-seven Redfish were landed and released. Of the twenty-seven, only five were within the slot limit; the rest were bigger. Three of the fish broke thirty inches, the largest being thirty five.

Out of bait and tired from our three hour battle, we began the paddle back to the landing. As we made our way up the creek, we passed two other guys fishing (the only other people we saw all day). As we said our hellos, one of the gentleman commented, "Perfect day to be on the water, huh?" And as my buddy replied, "Sure is," I thought to myself, "You have no idea!"