Friday, April 9, 2010

Trout Explosion

It was still raining when I came over the bridge at 6:30am
this morning and the wind was blowing the forecasted 13 knots, if not more, so you can imagine my trepidation as I made my way to the bait shop. But as the sun came up you could see the clouds being pushed offshore by the west winds. I met my guests, the Arnetts, David and Kim, with their two girls, Abbey and Bethany, at the City Marina boat ramp at 7:30am, live shrimp in the bait well and a "plan" to beat the wind. With other captain's launching their boats, we headed for Lanceford Creek and the shelter of the adjacent land mass, making our first stop at one of the docks, with the first of an outgoing tide. I anchored up, baited float rigs and the whole family was fishing. Abbey had a few bites then hooked up with a nice keeper sized Trout. Kim joined in with another Trout and then Abbey pulled in another. They had more hookups and even let Bethany reel in a few. We eventually moved to another dock and caught more Trout, with Kim pulling in a 19" one and Abbey fighting to the boat a 20" Trout. David joined in with a Black Drum then Abbey caught a Flounder. A few Blues were picked up in between. It was becoming more and more evident that Abbey had the "hot rod" - she could cast to spots that the others had vacated and soon would have a hookup! We moved to another spot - another Trout. As we moved on, my intentions were to go in behind Tiger Island, but the wind was kicking up white caps in the river so we turned in to Eagans Creek, idled in a short ways and anchored on the last of the outgoing tide. Before long, all were catching Trout with David adding to the "keeper" list, and Abbey, Bethany and Kim catching a few more.
Then Kim had her float disappear and knew right off that this fish was different - it pulled stronger and held to the bottom. She fought the fish like a pro and eventually got it to the net, a Redfish, just shy of the 18" mark. It had 11 spots, a possible prize winning fish in next years Spot Tournament! After catching a few more trout, we headed in with approximately 25-30 hookups for the day, another great one to be out on the water!

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