TUPPERWARE NAVY
Welcome back yak fans. Here we are in February already, and it looks like our Florida winter has finally arrived for real, which means the winter patterns may finally be here to stay.
The black drum are in, and the big trout are showing up where they should be, as well as way over-slot redfish. All this leads me to believe the next few months ought to be a lot of fun. They will probably more fun than my last trip up to a Ozello, with friend, and longtime client Susan Perry. Susan an avid fisherman, or I guess that should be fisherwoman, or should that be fisherperson? God knows I’m the least politically correct person you probably know! Anyhow, we put it at Pirates Cove, and worked our way across, and went back in by Bear island. The tide was going toward low, and I’m thinking this is going to be great. I love fishing that area on outgoing tide. Bear Island has lots of lime rock and structure, so it’s definitely a redfish happy spot. There seemed to be only one small problem with my plan, and that was the redfish weren’t there. We threw out in front of us with both bait, jigs, and top water lures, to absolutely no avail. Finally getting frustrated, I decided to paddle forward and see what was going on, and at this point, I figured out the situation. I won’t say it was a shining moment of clarity, or the lightbulb came on, but you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure out you can’t catch fish who aren’t there! We got out of there before we lost all the water, and then headed back toward Char island. While Susan continued to catch fish, picking up a couple more nice trout sitting in the holes, I continued to find nothing. I mean, this was starting to get embarrassing . I guess to call a spade a spade, my job as a guide is to put my client on fish, but while I’m scouting for that next spot to have them fish, I usually pick up a few myself. Hey, this is why I love my job, but this was not to be one of those days. The trout were hitting nicely on the mirror lure gold red Littlejohn, matched up with a Charlie saltwater jig, a blowfish ate mine, so I switched over to the old standby gold brim, and of course they wouldn’t touch it. On another note, this was my second trip with my new Tarpon 140, that I had to buy to replace the one stolen a while back, and this one came equipped with a rudder. I’ve never used one before, but I definitely will have one from now on. Doing a drift with the tide along the narrow creeks, I didn’t have to use my paddle once, leaving both my hands free to be able to work the points, and out ahead of me having been doing this for multiple decades. This was a new experience, one that I have to say,
I liked. It stayed out of the way in the shallows, and they’re quite easy to control with foot pegs. So, if you’re looking to get a kayak, I’d have to say that this one is an option that’s worth getting!
We ended the day with a mess of trout, as well as a nice mangrove that Susan caught, okay, actually Susan just about caught everything, and headed straight for the Island outpost on Ozello trail. John and Diane, who are the proprietors of the Island outpost, are great people and Diane’s always ready with the current fishing report for the area. Maybe I should talk to her the day before, but be that as it may, after Susan plied me with a couple of the island brew beers. I went out and cleaned the fish, and John went to work frying up the trout and sautéing the mangrove. We shared our bounty with everyone at the bar, that is except for the mangrove, which Susan I split, and by the way, John did a great job with. I first met John and Diane a few years back, shooting a TV show with Glen Pla, and now, try to get back any chance I can. If you’re not lucky enough to come in with fish, John makes a killer barbecue sandwich, and there’s always the island brew to drown your sorrows, or toast your luck, as the case may be.
I’ll be heading back that way soon. If this cold weather holds, I’ve gotta make a trip up to the end of the barge canal and see about looking into some of the monster black drum, who show up there this time year.
As always, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next month.
Bruce