Welcome back yak fans. Well, 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 where it rained for this many days straight. The waters have been like dark tea. That 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. That means they have a lot of places to go hide. 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. Fish 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 of the incoming tide has been productive. I did notice the most consistent bite was on the last of the outgoing to the low tide 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 tide had been more active on past trips. The last trip out, we hit the water in the morning on a high tide. 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. 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. We probably 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. I was using my trusty Zara Spook Junior (medium size in bone). One fish must’ve blown the lure 15 feet into the air and came nearly a foot out of the water itself. You gotta love that stuff.
What I don’t love is trying to figure out where all our trout went. I’ve hardly seen any trout this year. 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.