Met up with my bud Fishaholic early for trip to shallows this past weekend. His friend purchased a new WS Ride and needed to slime it up so we loaded up the trailer and headed out.
Arrived to extremely calm conditions. It was beautiful if you like it real flat (I prefer light wind) and it was obviously going to be a real hot day. I had rigged up an umbrella and had it deployed pretty early to knock that sun off. It really makes a big difference even though my buds thought I looked like Mary Poppins and continued to bust my gonads about it. The older I get the more I concern myself with being comfortable out on the water.
Anyway I tossed a butterfly jig into some deep ICW water and landed a decent sized Gaftop on my second cast of the day. He pulled drag and slimmed me up but he wasn't really what I was targeting. I started falling too far behind my partners so I didn't get a chance to work the deep water after that fish. I've got a couple of techniques for those ICW fish but usually don't target them. One of these days I'll make a trip just for ICW techniques. I've had some pretty decent success on Lady Fish, tout and reds but haven't spent enough time to fully exploit these opportunities.
Paddled to a large lake and picked up two rat reds on a top water hanging out by a dead wood bank. Lost another after he threw the same top water (spook jr) back at me.
Moved on but didn't get another bite for at least an hour. Got my top water stuck on some wood close to the bank. Making the paddle over to unhook from the wood I noticed about 5,000 Hermit crabs hanging on the wood at the bank close to the waters edge. Re-rigged to a Buggs crab imitation and started working the bank. Caught two keepers within the next hour and lost another as he took me into a snag and popped off. The best bite came from wood that was connected to the bank but ran into the water. The points of those logs held the fish as they waited for some dumb crab to fall in. As soon as the lure bounced off the wood and hit water the fish would hit. Not all the wood held fish but the few that did were all over the Buggs.
The bite continued to be pretty slow and I ran out of bank so I headed over to a cut. At the mouth I picked two more rat reds. I could hear my partners working their way over to me so I hang out a while and found myself hooked up to a fat trout that liked my top water.
We worked down the channel but all I could muster was a rat red. Since I was trailing I figured most of the fish were either spooked or caught as Fishaholic and Brian continued to get blow ups and a few fish as we drifted the bank.
Before we knew it was time to head home. Final count for me was about 10 fish and Fishaholic picked up about 12 with a couple pressing 28". Brian caught a couple and picked up a whole bunch of pointers for his next trip.
Here's Jason trying out the Malibu Stealth 14
Good company, great hot weather and a few nice fish to make another day on the water a memorable experience.
