We have all uttered this phrase more than once if fishing is our passion: “One more cast!” Seldom is this taken literally, but it’s a gesture of winding down the day with high hopes of landing just one more fish. This reminds me of a particular trip I had with my two boys, where I wanted to try one more spot with hopes of salvaging an otherwise slow day of catching.
During September, the fish have every type of forage available and can eat at will; for that reason, it makes sense to use live bait over lures, especially in the afternoon. It was about 3:00 PM, and my boys were ready to head home and stop at our favorite island burger joint. It wasn’t easy to convince them to stay, but my persistence prevailed as I explained my plan. I showed them how to study the satellite overlay on my Simrad and found an area with some old meandering channels that led to a dead end, resembling a neighborhood cul-de-sac surrounded by grass flats and potholes. This would be a great place for reds to corner and ambush an easy meal.
We slowly eased into the cul-de-sac and positioned the boat so we could cast with the light breeze at our backs, making it easy to place our shrimp at the edge of the sea grass and sand border. We had been fishing an area where a Carolina rig with a live shrimp appeared to be our best method, so we continued that process here. After some time had passed, I switched my youngest son over to a popping cork, primarily to keep him active and interested. On his first cast, he caught a nice red. His 2nd, 3rd, and 5th casts all accounted for slot-sized reds! My oldest still didn’t have a bite. I was trying to switch another rod over to a popping cork since the second fish, but between tying knots and landing fish, it took me a while. Finally, I handed him a rod with the cork, and he started landing reds of his own.
Thankfully, I switched the presentation. Had I not switched, we might not have caught a fish all day. But here’s the kicker: the water was about two feet deep, clear, and the live shrimp was sitting on the bottom with both the Carolina rig and the cork. Logically, both methods should have worked, but they didn’t. Maybe it was that little pop off the bottom created by the cork. While fishing, if the bite is not there, always change something up, even if it has worked 100 times in the past. Often, it can be the little things that make a difference, even if we can’t figure out why. Also, never forget: one more cast, and take a kid fishing!