Awesome story1 We do the same thing this time of year. You can see one waking and chunk a bait right over the top of them and they will hit. One day we were in water that was too shallow with the trolling motor....I had the trolling motor full blast frothing water and mud. Well, here comes this wake, right up to the friggin trolling motor. Well, I put a live mullet in front of his face. Didn't even have to pay out line. He eats it and sits right there. I set the hook and Pop! Line breaks. We keep frothing and here comes another one. My buddy gets the red to eat and Pop line breaks......We figured it out later. When the line is that close to the bank there is zero stretch to it. It will pop every time. We corrected by lightly setting the hook, or waiting for the fish to swim off a little before setting the hook.
Another thing. Pretty much all tidal water flats have the same soft clay mud you are talking about. Find the channel, which is always hard bottom and stay in it. You can get a lighter aluminum tunnel hull or flats boat that draft less water and that you will be able to get up on plane in shallow water....It is scary getting a big boat stuck on a flat. There is almost no getting it off.
We stuck my flats boat in about an inch of water one time. I made a big time boo boo and by the time I had realized what happened we were on a flat. I tried to turn the boat and came to a nice skidding halt on a mud flat. Me and my buddy had to anchor our arms off of the transom like the motor and kick with our feet to get the boat off. That whipped my butt. I slept that night.
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