TALES FROM THE TUPPERWARE NAVY
Welcome back yak fans. Here we are in September, and hopefully, by the time you read this, it will have stopped raining. I don’t think I can remember a time in the last 30 years, when it rained for this many days straight. The waters are like dark tea, which on an interesting note, makes the reds turn into bright orange pumpkins. Fishing the dark water brings on a few challenges. The visibility is very low, which means the fish can’t see very far. Also, we have been experiencing some rather high tides, which means they have a lot of places to go hide, but never fear, I’ll share with you how to find them!
While Little John’s gulps, etc., have been working, I found that putting something out there they can smell, such as cut pin fish, or cut ladyfish, gets a scent into the water and helps produce a better and more consistent bite. Shrimp are working as well, but they seem to be most effective at the lower end of the tide. Fishing the cuts and potholes, where the reds and snook seem to congregate on the lower end, as usual, the window just before the low, to the first hour or so of the incoming, has been productive. I did notice, that it seems the most consistent bite was on the last of the outgoing, to the low, and slows down as the tide turned and started to come in. This is a little different than it had been, as the first of the incoming had been more active on past trips. The last trip out, we hit the water in the morning on a high tide, and I have to tell you, it was a little slow, as well as hot, but hey, at least it wasn’t raining for the first time in two weeks. I was thankful just to be on the water.
The bite stayed slow until the tide finally started to drop low enough to bring the fish back out of the marshes; the more it dropped, the better the bite. As always, it helps to know your terrain because fishing the potholes, cuts, and creek mouths are where you can find the fish at the lower end of the tide. Fishing in the back cuts north of Pine Island, we sat for about an hour and were picking up reds, snook, and sheepshead on almost every cast probably. We should’ve moved, because that hole was holding mostly just under-slot reds, but hey, we were having fun. I mean they can’t all be monster breeders. The snook were hitting both on bait and lures, which of course means my trusty Zara Spook Junior in bone. One of the medium-sized ones must’ve blown the lure 15 feet in the air, and coming nearly a foot out of the water itself. You gotta love that stuff. What I don’t love though, is trying to figure out where all our trout went. I’ve hardly seen any trout this year and of course, here I am with visions of a double, or even a triple inshore slam, except I can’t find a trout. This has been the same report up and down this coast. No matter which local fishermen or guide I’ve talked to, nobody seems to be able to find trout. If you get lucky, please let me know. I’d love to hear a good trout report from somebody! Well that’s it for this month. I’ll close as I started, with a prayer for fishable weather, and some decent tides. You give me those, and I’ll find the fish.