Been a while since I posted, but mostly because I went in the kayak or the canoe the last two times, and it's difficult to get photos. Anyway, here's the last couple of reports. Last week I went out in the kayak, solo trip. I caught quite a few fish right away, but mostly rat reds. I did manage a couple of nice trout. For some reason, they were in a marsh pond about 10" deep...where I typically fish for reds. The reds I caught were beautiful, one of which had 11 spots. Unfortunately, they were mostly only about 14" long. - I left that area and went deeper in the marsh, but the wind was kicking my arse. I finally wised up and tucked behind a little marsh island...and anchored. For my anchor, I built a spear type mud anchor out of PVC, with a 'T' handle to stick it with. Works great for the kayak or the canoe. I was able to catch one nice red while I was anchored, but didn't stay long. I decided to start paddling back, since the wind was gonna make it a long paddle. - I wound up back in the area where I started, figuring catching small fish is better than catching no fish. Turns out I was able to pick up a couple more nice reds in there, and a couple more trout. Nothing great as far as numbers of keepers, but I did catch a bunch of fish. --------------------------------------------- Yesterday, I decided to head back down to Reggio to paddle around. I thought the wind was bad last week, but yesterday was absolutely ridiculous!! I knew I would be stupid to get very far from the launch, so I just went back to the place where I caught the little reds last week. - The first two fish I caught were trout, both solid keepers. Then I caught a bass...er...green trout. I moved around as much as I could, but most of the day, I wound up out of the canoe, as keeping it in one place was absolutely impossible with the wind. I just stood in the marsh grass fishing all morning. One spot I got out on was absolutely loaded with bass, and I caught a bunch of 'em. I only caught one red, but it was a beauty! A small gator watched from a not so distant distance...but never bothered me...except I did get a little worried when he went under every now and then...and I couldn't see him. He always resurfaced in the same place, right next to an old upside down boat that Katrina deposited in the marsh. - I caught every fish except for the first trout on topwater. The first trout was on a Gulp! shrimp on a flutter hook. Last week, most of this pond was hard to fish because of the grass, but that wasn't so bad yesterday, because the east wind had pushed 2 feet of water in there, and the grass was submerged. That's why I was able to fish topwater. I've got a couple of pics, but they were taken with my cell...and are not the best quality. My friend Brian was with me from about 10am til we left at 1am. He took the pics. I'll post them in a bit. He also took a one minute video of the redfish fight, but he hasn't figured out how to email it to me. He's from MS, so he gets a pass on lack of technology sense. Chunky green trout... The gator just to the right of the boat, right against the shore... Redfish... Redfish before I unhooked him...look at the tail!!
Nice! Damm I can't wait to get home! I'm really enjoying the detailed reports FH. I appreciate the efforts. It's fun to be living it through your writing. Maybe a moonlighting career in the making?
well Fishy, you're way ahead of me on the year so far. only took a couple of trips, but haven't had much luck. 1st trip was way too windy, so I really couldn't go in the places I wanted to. Yesterday was good weather, but I only found a few nurseries (nothing but small ones)
