TALES FROM THE TUPPERWARE NAVY
Welcome back Yak fans. This month, the story is about the art of fishing backwards!
As some of you know, I have a favorite spot that I always head to at high tide, and it’s called home, but due to circumstances (a trip to Ozello got cancelled) I had everything loaded, and nowhere to go, so I went fishing!
I suppose an explanation is in order as to why I don’t like high tide fishing. The area I was fishing is about 20 miles of salt marsh and flats, and as the tide comes up, the fish move in, making them way harder to find. Whereas on the outgoing tide, I set up, and let them come to me.
The day called for a mid-morning high tide, at about 3 feet, but it went way beyond that! If you’ve ever fished the marsh and grass flats, then you know that your buddies can be on the other side of the grass line, and you can hear them but not see them. That wasn’t the problem on this day; the water was within inches of the top of the grass. I could see the other kayak, nearly a quarter of a mile away; there was that much water. So, I figured, if the fish move in, so will I, and we worked our way back in further than I have in years. The little foot wide creeks, were now three to four feet deep; it was awesome. The deeper we paddled, the more movement we saw. We were getting back into the actual tree line places, that you can only paddle to a very few times a year. To give you an idea; you know how the snails will work up the grass to stay out of the water at the high end of the tide, we were so far back in that the critters were at the top of the grass, we’re grasshoppers. LOL
As we got all the way back to the forest tree line, I asked my buddy, “When we’re this far back, do we need a fishing license or a hunting license?” We turned at the tree line and I immediately caught a couple of nice black drum, and then ran into a school of big reds, and therefore, I call it fishing backwards. We were so far in, that the fish following the high tide were coming to us. Well, I’m not going to change my habits or my preferences for an outgoing tide, but it was interesting to be able to paddle around a half a mile back in from the outer mangrove line.
By the end of the day, we had landed some nice reds and then we saw some big snook, but they didn’t want to play that day. The other benefit of fishing a super high tide, is that you can explore your favorite marsh area and pick up details for later trips, I learned a lot just being able to see over the salt grass, so give it a try. Hope to see you out there, and to my Tampa Bay readers, come on up, our water is fine.
Till next time, Bruce