Lots of fishing

[capt hoop]

Had Larry from Ky. and his life long friend Ron for a hot day of no water movement and very low tides. The gators were out in force.





We had a lot of action but the sizes were not that great so although we put some in the box it could have been better.



This drove me to do some more searching the next day. I still am trying to get set in the inshore fishing so I will be out there a lot. The next day I went to a new area and it was interesting to say the least. I had one area I got to a pond but it was on the other side of the strip of land and there was no access to it. It was shallow and I could see about a 2 foot redfish finning in it. He had no choice because the water was only 6 inches at the most. I tossed a bait over the grass into the pond and the redfish went for it. He picked up the bait and just sat there. The cork was about 3 inches from it and with a 2 foot leader nothing was happening. I set the hook and the entire pond became a pool of muddy water. Once I got it to the bank I dragged it across the land and through the grass to the cut where the boat was. Once back in the water on my side the fight was on again till I had it in the boat. I also found a good bit of trout but nothing big again.



Back at the marina I was ready to bring the boat home when one of the other captains invited me to join him and a deckhand for a late afternoon flounder run. We jumped in the mud boat and proceeded to put a hurting on some quality flounder. I was high hooker with 5 of them. Lee had 4 and Kyle had 3 or 4 with his being the biggest. We waded through a bunch of rat reds and even found a couple of keepers to boot.



I only took 2 of them for me and they were the 2 smallest. The guys are going to cook the rest up at the marina for a bunch of the captains that are down there so I let them have the biggest and the rest of mine. I will be fishing up in Empire for the next few days. The 2 I took were only 17 and 18 inches.



My crew for today and tomorrow got in around 3:00 after working most of the day but we hit the water anyway. It started out slow and the light winds we had all day gave way to some 15 mph or so. The only fish picture I got was this wall hanger. Still looking foe a board big enough to mount it on.



We had 2 boats with 3 per boat and the pressure for tomorrow has been set. The other boat came in with a hand full of trout and my boat out fished them with a few more trout as well as a flounder and 2 redfish. The jaw jacking and side betting is in the works. We all got a bunch of rat reds and short trout as well as hard head and gaff top catfish. We fished right up to the end of the day.



I burned up some gas running up to 50 mph on the way in but made it in before the sun set.



The sunset pictures I took was while running in at a good speed. They came out a lot better than I had expected. Will try to get some good fish pictures tomorrow.

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

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM

[vittok]

Nice!