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After suffering with gout attacks first in my left, and then in my right knee for three weeks, I was finally able to venture on to the water. I wasn't real sure how it would go, as my right knee was still giving me a lot of pain. But, I was going stir-crazy and desperately wanted to get out on the water, and there was no one better to get back on the water with than my good friend John Hitt. My main concern was whether I was going to be able to negotiate repeatedly the big step up onto the front deck.
We shoved off just before 7 AM on what was promising to be a gorgeous day. We headed to Chino Island, where I was sure there should still be plenty of bait. And, there was, along with big trout and mackerel busting the bait all around. John had wanted to try to catch some keeper trout, so this was looking good. With John chumming, it didn't take long to get our well plenty full enough with beautiful bait. All those net pluggers from a couple months ago are now all grown up.
Once we were cleaned up we decided to fish the still busting trout. But, we soon found that it was hard to get those bigger trout that were popping the bait to eat one of our offerings. We caught plenty of trout and were cut off a couple of times by mackerel, but only managed two nice keeper trout, and a nice 13 inch mangrove snapper for the well. We decided we'd go check out the now open Blind Pass.
The tide was pretty low by now, and we made a wrong turn getting in there, but we got in. I hadn't been back in there in many years, and was shocked at how changed everything is. All the rocks just east of the bridge on the north side are covered over with sand. The water under all the remaining docks is extremely shallow.
I know that snook will still be there in droves, but we'll have to learn how to fish it all over. At least it's a much shorter route to the beaches now, for those who can get under the bridge. We fished the area for about an hour, and had several baits scaled by snook, but no bites that we could feel. We decided to check out Redfish Pass.
Last time I fished the Pass it was full of snook. They were still there. Everywhere! But, we were at the end of the outgoing tide, and they just didn't want to eat. We worked several spots until the tide was coming in well, and could see hundreds of snook milling about in the water back and forth, in and out. But, they frustrated us and our efforts. I did hook one snook, the only one that actually hit a bait, but quickly lost it. It was now late in the morning, and we decided we go see if we could round up a few more trout.
At our last stop we did manage to catch a few more trout, but nothing big enough to keep. John caught a nice blacktip shark about four feet long, which bit through his leader next to the boat. Good release! From there the bite seemed to just go away as the sun got overhead.
We headed toward home, and decided to stop at a nice snook spot in the river for a quick last shot at some snook, or maybe jack crevalle action. The area was covered with big schools of large mullet milling back and forth on the flat. We tossed bait after bait into them, expecting to find redfish cruising with them, but never got a hit. Chumming did get one small snook to bust along the shoreline, but we couldn't get a snook to eat, either. It just wasn't in the cards.
But, it had been a beautiful day, and my knee survived, probably thanks to the fact that John's boat has a Tee-top which allowed me to grab hold and use my arms to take the load off my knee when going up and down off the bow deck. It was good to see John again, and spend the day with him. If the fish had just been hungry it would have been a textbook day.
Be sure to check out www.BestFishingBooks.com, Books and gifts for fishermen from my friend Jim Dicken!
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