The wind was down today so we spent a little more time on the water. Altogether, John Terry and I caught over 60 fish and 7 species (I think.) But today truly belonged to John "The Golden Rod" Veil. We may have combined to catch more than 60 but he had over half of them.
Here's John hooking up with one of his 28 speckled trout catches:
A.JPG
The game plan today was similar to yesterday. Find the specks, and cast to them.
Here John and Terry are off to a new location:
F.JPG
Then once we got there the guide (Neil Taylor) placed us in different spots so that we could cast into them or surround them. Here we had a good school of specks circled:
C.JPG
Despite the distance from shore we were still in shallow water -- 2 to 3 feet deep.
This kind of fishing required light 1/4 oz. jig heads and making long casts to keep your lure in play as long as possible. Sometimes the specks hit it as soon as it landed and other times they toyed with it all the way back to the boat before attacking. Here is what we threw for most of the day:
B.jpg
In addition to specks we each caught lady fish. They are called "the poor man's tarpon" here and they're lots of fun to catch. The ones we caught today ranged from 15 to 24 inches they pulled like a son-of-a-gun. Plus they go airborne when hooked. I personally stuck 6 of them, watched their acrobatics and was pleased to get three of them in boat. They're extremely active and almost impossible to photograph because they go crazy on the bottom of the kayak. It's best to get them back in the water fast.
John added sea bass, lizard fish and pin fish to his species count today and probably some others I've forgotten. We saw redfish tailing but got no strikes from them.
One other point of interest is that a dolphin swam in front of us on our way out to our fishing area today. At one point it went right under my kayak. Terry, however had another companion for a lengthy period. A manatee basked behind his boat for a good 20 to 30 minutes. It would come up and exhale noisily and then go under again. That was at one of the areas where we catching lots of speckled trout.
On the way back to our launch we stopped at the deepest water we fished in all day, perhaps 15 feet. Here we jigged for silver trout. Here's one of two I caught:
D.jpg
And here's what I caught it on:
E.jpg
I'm not particularly fond of jigging but I thought this lure was very interesting.
So that ended day two. We each contributed fish to the cooler for a fish fry we're having tonight.
We have one day left on the water here before heading back to Maryland.
Here's John hooking up with one of his 28 speckled trout catches:
A.JPG
The game plan today was similar to yesterday. Find the specks, and cast to them.
Here John and Terry are off to a new location:
F.JPG
Then once we got there the guide (Neil Taylor) placed us in different spots so that we could cast into them or surround them. Here we had a good school of specks circled:
C.JPG
Despite the distance from shore we were still in shallow water -- 2 to 3 feet deep.
This kind of fishing required light 1/4 oz. jig heads and making long casts to keep your lure in play as long as possible. Sometimes the specks hit it as soon as it landed and other times they toyed with it all the way back to the boat before attacking. Here is what we threw for most of the day:
B.jpg
In addition to specks we each caught lady fish. They are called "the poor man's tarpon" here and they're lots of fun to catch. The ones we caught today ranged from 15 to 24 inches they pulled like a son-of-a-gun. Plus they go airborne when hooked. I personally stuck 6 of them, watched their acrobatics and was pleased to get three of them in boat. They're extremely active and almost impossible to photograph because they go crazy on the bottom of the kayak. It's best to get them back in the water fast.
John added sea bass, lizard fish and pin fish to his species count today and probably some others I've forgotten. We saw redfish tailing but got no strikes from them.
One other point of interest is that a dolphin swam in front of us on our way out to our fishing area today. At one point it went right under my kayak. Terry, however had another companion for a lengthy period. A manatee basked behind his boat for a good 20 to 30 minutes. It would come up and exhale noisily and then go under again. That was at one of the areas where we catching lots of speckled trout.
On the way back to our launch we stopped at the deepest water we fished in all day, perhaps 15 feet. Here we jigged for silver trout. Here's one of two I caught:
D.jpg
And here's what I caught it on:
E.jpg
I'm not particularly fond of jigging but I thought this lure was very interesting.
So that ended day two. We each contributed fish to the cooler for a fish fry we're having tonight.
We have one day left on the water here before heading back to Maryland.
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