By: Chasten Whitfield
Cooler weather sometimes means windy weather as well. My family and I planned quick fishing trip in the back country to stay out of the wind. We found a good school of bait right off the sand and as we proceeded into the back country we could see a lot of other boats fishing the grass flats and mangroves. We decided to fish the docks where not a lot of people were. I dropped the power poles into the current and we were ready for some redfish. My dad caught a red almost instantly and I landed a snapper. While we are fishing, we were all talking about our week, when my brother started talking about his plans to change from football to trying out for track. My mom was talking about her running as her sport in high school and my dad chimed in with how running track would help him with football next year as he cast another bait underneath the dock and hooked up on another red. Thinking back, I always wondered about some conversations we have had while fishing. If we weren’t fishing would they have come up? Would my brother have talked about wanting to run track if we weren’t actually out fishing? We decided to go and find some grass flats and catch some trout. I pulled up to a well-known grass flat that I used to fish all the time where the water is crystal clear but absolutely no grass was left so we continued on to fish some mangrove islands that didn’t have any boats near them and threw some chum out (live bait) to see if anything would eat it. Almost immediately we saw some snook busting on the bait and each of us threw out our lines but no bites. We were just about to call it a day, when my line took off in a slow strong pull. It’s got to be my redfish! Unsure, I put the hammer down on this fish, as I’ve been waiting for this fish all day. I could see the red flash under the water. Yup, that’s my girl! She was a nice size redfish and once I get her dehooked, I spent some time reviving her to make sure she was strong enough to swim away from any predators. We’ve seen some pretty big sharks up in the back country lately and she was a really nice size fish. There wasn’t a ton of fish caught, but that day was more about the conversation, and talking with my family. I do wonder if we didn’t have those 4 to 6 hours on the water as a family just straight up talking, would the conversations still have come up? Guess I won’t really know, you know what they say, a family that plays together, stays together!