By: Dan Carns
I started writing for the Coastal Angler Magazine approximately 16 years ago and in that time, I’ve become an “old” guy. Sadly, I had some serious physical setbacks in February and have only just recently been able to return to kayak fishing. Thanks to Chuck Downs of Walk the Dog Charters, I was able to get out on his Beaver Tail Flats craft and really get my sea legs back and knock some rust off my fishing technique. As a guide for Gulf Coast Kayak (GCK) since 2013, I was also concerned that I may never actually get back to guiding. That all changed this past weekend when Bryan Stockbridge, owner of GCK called to see if I was available for a Guided Trip for three.
Bryan and I met at the Matlacha Community Park where there is a great kayak launch with free parking. We got all the kayaks squared away and met our three anglers, two brothers and one of their High School aged boys. It was on to our first stop where we threw popping corks with shrimp and some paddle tails around the old “Berts” restaurant pilings with no results. As we moved out to the “East Wall” in Matlacha one of our anglers peeled out to a cove while the rest of us moved on. The tide was dropping and the water was running nicely along the mangrove lined shoreline so we anchored up and started throwing corks with shrimp and some topwater. It’s really rare to have a group of anglers that can really fish as well as these guys were, but then I found out that they are freshwater bass anglers, so they had all the skills necessary for chasing snook and redfish. Also, there are a lot of mangrove snapper and that can be a positive if you don’t care what you catch or a negative if your targeting the bigger predator fish. It didn’t take long before one of the brothers yelled out that he had a big fish on. After landing, measuring, photographing and boxing a slot redfish the other brother came around the corner and said he had two big reds that broke off so we were obviously in the right place and the right time. It was another hour before we boated our first snook but I knew it was only a matter of time before someone did.
By this time the two brothers have already caught their big fish and the high schooler was on his tenth mangrove snapper. I moved him out to a fast moving tidal rip against the shoreline and he lands, measures and boxes his first slot red and loudly exclaims that it was the grand finally of his day! Its impossible to describe the feeling guides experience when they put a client on that memorable fish of the day but for now I’m back in the saddle!
It’s A Wild World-Get Out There!
@paddlinandfishin
Dan Carns