Bubbie fishes Empire

[capt hoop]

We Had storms this morning that produced up to 3 inches an hour.



It got real boreing hanging around all morning.




It let up after noon so I got Bubbie and took him out on the water while his dad worked on the Ameracat. Being from Florida he only gets to fish salt for snook and snapper and grouper. At 8 he has never caught a redfish or a trout. I say this because he is an expert fisherman. He was matching me cast for cast and told me he won a junior cast net competition.



We had a few short strikes but nothing to the boat. I made several moves untill we found a spot with some life. I loose a good trout almost to the boat. He and I keep getting hits and missing them. He finaly hooks up and lands this nice 16 incher.



This was his first trout ever. Nice way to get on board. He gets a second and I have nothing in the box. We had to play with a few 11" - 11 3/4" fish. As we move along the edge of an oyster lease he finds a good redfish. This fish has his release lessons down pat. it paid attention in school. It started zig zaging through the oyster lease poles and eventually was able to break the line on a barnacle or oyster shell. It made some strong runs and kept finding something else to curve around. The elusive redfish still was on his bucket list. We hit a few other places and at one point the redfish came aboard. Only a rat but he could cross off another type of fish.



I moved into a back corner where some pools empty out and found some trout The tide was slowing down but we had a steady pick of mixed sizes for a while. When the trout bite dropped off we trolled the shore line looking for some redfish. He did manage to hook and land some more redfish but all were under the 16" size limit. About 4:30 we headed back for the fish cleaning party.




It was a pleasure fishing with him. He could pinpoint his casts well. He only took one break for a drink and only had a
sip before getting back to fishing. This was our biggest of the afternoon, a 17 incher.



Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM