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Whether official, or not, it seems winter is here. The story this week is cold fronts. There were two! The second one that came through Saturday, brought the coldest weather of the season with lows in the 40's by Sunday morning.
I managed one trip this week, after the passing of the first front. It was my first trip with Chris Chang and Sylvia Herzog, of Berlin, Germany, who were referred to me by our mutual friends Roland and Shannon Hartich. We had a very tough, slow moving tide with barely more than half a foot of movement over six hours. We also had high pressure and an east/northeast wind from the passing of the previous front.
There were only a handful of guides on the flats at Picnic Island that morning casting for bait. They had all been there since before sunup, and that told me that bait was going to be tough. And, tough it was. I threw my 1/4 inch net way more than I wanted to, yet we were still one of the first boats to leave with bait.
This was Sylvia's first ever fishing trip, and Chris' first flats fishing trip. So, I thought the place to begin would be with trout. From there we'd work our way up to fish that are bigger and pull harder. We headed to a good trout hole, and by the time Sylvia and Chris had caught about 20, they were pretty well checked out on the spinning equipment. It was Chris' first time ever to use a $1,000 light tackle spinning combo, and he was absolutely amazed and how light and strong the rods were, and how wonderfully smooth the Stella reels were.
From the trout hole we went looking for some gag grouper action, and we found it. Grouper like deeper water with rock bottom or pilings to use as cover. The problem is that a 19 inch grouper has unbelievable horsepower, and can pull you into the rocks in a heartbeat if you don't win the battle at the rocks in the first few seconds. Chris and Sylvia did well, though, and managed to drag 8 or 9 grouper of varying sizes out of the cover. Of course, they lost several as well, and also caught a jack crevalle.
The water was getting about as good as it would get for redfish on the flats, if we could find them, and we elected to try to do just that. As I made my approach onto our chosen flat, I did see some reds, but they weren't about to eat anything we were offering. There weren't a lot of fish there, as I believe most of the big boys have already migrated offshore. But, there were enough that if they had been eating, we could have caught a few. We chummed, waited, and moved across a fertile piece of flats with nothing but a catfish. Time to move on.
We turned our attention to snook and a nice hole not too far from where we were. We were running out of time and tide, and I hoped I could get a snook or two to eat. I chummed the hole pretty hard, and finally got a pop. After more chumming we got a major crash on one of the fleeing shiners, and I knew we had a big fish in the hole. Not long after that we had our first snook in the boat, and shortly afterward Chris and Sylvia were both hooked up. Chris' snook was a beautiful 8 pounder, and Sylvia's was just under keeper size. Another snook and a jack rounded out the action, and that was it for the day. We stopped at a couple more spots, but it was nothing doing. We finished the day with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant, which the guys really enjoyed.
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With the passing of this most recent cold front it's hard to say what we'll see this week, but I suspect it's time to begin stopping at Danny's Bait and Tackle for shrimp on the way to the water. Shiners might be hard to come by now that the water temperature is below 70 degrees, and it's a sure bet that snook will be. Stay tuned.
If you want to be able to continue to fish Florida waters please follow this link, "Manatee Zones: How You Can Help" and please take the time to become involved, even if you don't live in Florida. Let the politicians know WHY you come to Florida on vacation!
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