by Capt. Mike Grispo
Everyone knows that the wind can be and cold fronts create very inconsistent fishing trends. When the water temperature is below 70° the fish all tend to congregate in slightly warmer water that is very shallow and hard to access. I had a client, Alan, who understood these inconsistencies. He booked me for three straight full days of fishing. He has traveled in the country and abroad to check fish off his bucket list and he always books three days to ensure he gets it done.
On the first day, we fought hard in the 25mph wind to catch a few ladyfish that we would use for bait. I then took us to an area that I had a hunch would have slightly warmer water. The tide was very low and I positioned the boat in a very shallow, wide, creek mouth and pitched four cut baits out and waited. It didn’t take long and we had a 32″ redfish boat-side! As we saw the tide level start to climb we moved a little further into the creek and had to wait awhile before our second hit, which was another nice upper-slot red. Once the tide was up, the fish seemed to disappear on us and we only managed to catch small stuff the rest of the day.
On our second day, the wind was worse! I decided to change the game plan a little and try our luck with live bait. The wind was blowing about 30mph on us, but I still managed to catch some pilchards and we set out chasing snook and trout, but the bite was tough! We caught a dozen or so trout and a couple small snook. Then I poled us around out of the wind for a while and Alan tossed the artificial as we listened to his favorite band, The Grateful Dead. After 8 hours we were beat, but optimistic since the wind was laying down for us the next day!
On our third and final day, we were welcomed with very light winds and blue skies! We again went with the cut bait approach in the creek, where we had found reds on our first day and they were ready to chew again! We caught some in the slot and some over. The water temperature on my depth finder was reading 74° in a foot of water and that made the difference. We even managed to land a small spinner shark!
I had a great time getting to know Alan and I’m glad he knew that the best way to get to know an area is to fish it at least three times!