Redfish shock treatment

[capt hoop]

I was to have 2 people for an inshore trip. One of them had to change his flight so I only had one guy from the Dallas area. He had never been to Venice and never in his life caught any redfish. On the way out I asked him about the fish he caught. He caught stripers and I explained to him that these fought a lot harder and do not give up or get tired. Seeing he did not want any fish to keep I figured I would give him the Bull Redfish Shock treatment.

Once in the area I show him how to work the bait. I did not have the setups I wanted to use so I told him to use a Vu Du shrimp under a cork till I could get something set up. On the first cast all hell breaks loose and he is into a drag screaming battle. Unfortunately the first one came unbuttoned. I do not have any of the weaker hook Vu Du first came out with but the stronger hook was no match for the big guy we had on.



I now had a setup for him to use while I changed out the setup he just had. Before I even cut off the straight hook he was hooked up again. This fish also is showing Richard what a bull red does best. This one comes in for a photo op and is released without any problem.



On the fourth cast of the day he is hooked up again. This one is noticeably bigger. Fighting these freight trains in 4 to 6 feet of water is something you never forget. Once this one came in he had me hold it for a picture. His arms were feeling it a bit already. Heck he only battled 3 bulls so far. This one was right at 30 pounds.



Now we are batting 500. Time to pick up our average and that we did with a good fish hitting the deck on almost every cast he made.



This continued for over 2 hours as the fish were wearing him down. He said his arms felt like they were down by his ankles but he was not about to stop at this point. this was one of the best times he ever had fishing. He had me hold the bulls for the pictures while he rested with the camera.



As soon as I released the fish he would make another cast and BANG! We had some break offs which kept me busy retying setups. After over 2 hours of this things slowed down a bit. He was glad it did because he had a chance to get a drink of water. As he was relaxing I make my first cast of the day for me with different type of a large bait I wanted to try. Fish On! I told him "Here it's your trip". He puts his water down and gets back in the game. This one was a solid fat boy and bounced the scale 35 pounds.



It was very hot and I had over a dozen waters and a few diet cokes in the cooler before he added to the cooler with the few drinks he brought. Even with those I soon was looking at this.



UNCLE!!!!!

From there we eased our way back fishing the edges and points picking up one here and one there. On the second slot sized one he caught he made the comment that his arms were still burning from all the fighting earlier.




I was using the I-pilot and letting the trolling motor run the bank by itself while I got into the fishing. We found Hard head cats, Sail cats, sting rays, and an occasional keeper redfish along with some rats and one small flounder. A few gators came out to visit us and one of them decided to attack my cork. He and I did battle for a while until he decided to spit it out. I tried to get it in the background of the picture of the cork it ruined but it went down before the shutter clicked. It was about 7 feet long. No monster but a good one.



We only had one water left and he was more than satisfied with the day so we were back at the dock about 2:00. Our box totaled 8 keeper redfish. He did not want any fish to keep so I kept them and cleaned them for my neighbors and gave the bellies to a neighbor for her crab traps. Definitely a trip filled with many memories.



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

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM