Night Ops 2

I have the plan worked out for another night trip this week. The tide is forecast to be low at 6:00pm, sunset is at 8:15pm with high tide at midnight. The lights are rigged and ready to go.

I like fishing at night. It's easier that getting up at the crack of dawn, the boat traffic is almost nonexistent, and the fish become a bit more active since the water is a bit cooler.

The question is this: should I fish where I've recently seen the finger mullet along a ditch that cuts through a shallow sand flat and cast finger mullet flies for snook? Or should I fish the oyster bar that separates the channel from the shallow grass with crab flies for redfish?

Decisions....

Photo Essay - 7/25

Sunday Keith and I paddled from Dunedin Causeway to Caledisi Island to scout new spots. I caught 3 flounder and lost a 20 inch redfish at the boat.


I need to rethink just how I put fish in the boat. Teeth on those flounder could be bad news.


How big was that redfish that I lost, Keith?


An Osprey. Haven't seen one of those in a while.

Scouting New Spots - When?

In this installment of Scouting New Spots, we'll combine the things that we learned from the first post - Where? - and try to determine when is the best times to fish and how it goes hand in hand with where.

For starters, you need to understand that I'm not a marine biologist or expert on the subject of finding fish. All I'm doing here is passing on things that I've learned in the hopes of helping other people find fish on more of a consistent basis....I'm always learning new things too. This year, I've really been putting an effort into being able to find fish.

Now...when the best times to fish is an oft debated subject. Some say the best time to go is low tide, others will tell you high tide, and of course, the incoming or outgoing tide is thrown in there as well. Going at night or the break of dawn?

I've found through trial and error that fish can be caught at all stages of the tide, night and day...you just have to know where to fish.

At my special little oyster bar spot, there's an oyster bar on the edge of a drop off that backs up onto a lush shallow grass flat. My favorite time to fish this spot is at a dead low tide with the sun low in the sky. The flat is almost totally dry, but the water leading up to it and around the oyster bar can hold fish. This area just comes alive at this time, with little shrimp, fish and crabs coming out of their hiding places. I've witnessed redfish stacking up on the edge of this flat, working their way into the grass as soon as the water is deep enough to hold them.

In the wintertime, I've seen redfish at the lowest stage of the tide, holding in pools of water with the surrounding areas completely dry, waiting for the tide to come in. A deftly placed shrimp or crab pattern will be sure to draw interest in a situation like this.

Snook, on the other hand, are notorious nocturnal feeders. The Mad Snooker, Captain Dave Pomerleau can attest to this fact. I can't tell you how many times I've seen these fish cruising along a mangrove shoreline or hanging around a boat dock, thrown everything I can at them and either spook them or they refuse EVERYTHING. You'd think they either never eat, or are smarter than your average fish.

Truth be told, they DO eat, but at certain times...and only for a short time. I have yet to figure out the formula, but they DO prefer an incoming tide at night. Lighted boat docks with moving water is what to look for. They hold in the shadows, waiting for baitfish to be swept along in the current where they can dart out and grab one.

Flooding tides give gamefish the opportunity to catch prey among the mangrove prop roots. A deep mangrove edge should be explored at this stage of the tide. If you're not hanging up on prop roots or branches once in a while, you're not casting close enough.

But what do you do along the mangroves on a falling tide? A lot of large mangrove islands have "creeks" that, if you were looking at it on Bing Maps, you'd swear it was a checker board. These are breaks to allow for tide and current flows, since the mangroves are in the middle of a current, these creeks allow the mangroves to stay put and not be swept away. Where these creeks empty out, there is often a depression or hole. Fish like to wait in and around these holes on a falling tide to feed on the prey items that are swept out when the water level drops. This is a great spot to find any of the big three year round. Combine this with a low light situation, and the fishy fireworks can be intense.

Another spot that I found that holds fish no matter the time of day or tide stage is a sand flat that drops off into a channel. The edge of this channel is grassy. What I like to do is bounce a black and purple bendback down the hill as it were.

But why does this spot always seem to produce trout?
A few reasons to consider. The temperature of the deeper water makes the fish a bit more comfortable, the eyes of the fish are sensitive to bright light and on a hot summers day, cool darker water seems to be preferable to these fish. There always seems to be moving water along this edge and trout like to lie in wait to pounce on unsuspecting prey items washed to them in the current...tide changes from incoming to outgoing, they just turn around.

So any stage of the tide and time of day should find you still able to find fish, you just need to know where to look and at which time.

Scouting New Spots - Where?

One of the most challenging things about saltwater fishing is finding fish. You may find them one day and they won't be there the next. My friend Scott likes to say "Well Rob...the fish must not have read Florida Sportsman this month."

Knowing where the fish like to hang out and feed is the first thing I consider when scouting a new area. Sometimes I see a spot as I'm driving past, other times, I use Bing Maps to find features that fish commonly use as either a highway or a hole or hill that they might use as a current break. It's similar to bass fishing - the fish relate to contours and structure much the same as largemouth bass, but you have to account for moving water, time of day, and tide movement.

Here are a few things that I look for when looking for new fishing spots...

Is there grass? This is an important factor to think about. Favorite prey items for gamefish use grass to hide, feed and reproduce almost year round, so make sure sea grasses are in the equation.

The ICW from Memorial Causeway north to Anclote Key has some of the nicest grass flats I've ever seen. The water is always clear and the grass is always thick and lush....but....I haven't had much luck in that area. There are a few spots that I've found that SHOULD hold fish, like a grassy 10 feet deep hole in the middle of a 3 feet deep grass flat that doesn't hold fish for some reason. But on the other hand, when looking at a few spots on Bing Maps near Old Tampa Bay, I noticed an absence of grass. I was assured that there WAS in fact grass there, only to find the area as bald as I am...and ended up going home empty handed.

Deep water nearby? Gamefish are preyed upon as juveniles by birds and bigger fish. This sticks with them as adults. Deeper water acts as security for these fish and it's always a good idea to look for some sort of depth variation close to where you'll be fishing. Deeper water also holds cooler temperatures in the summer.

One of my favorite spots to fish is at Sand Key. There is a grass flat that drops off into a deep channel. There are always trout holding at or close to this edge. I've also caught snook and tarpon there. Recently, I was wading in knee deep water at this edge, catching trout and I noticed that the water blowing from the channel on the incoming tide felt about 10 degrees cooler than the water I was standing in.

Other structures - Oyster bars, sand bars, docks, pilings, rocks and rip-rap? Just like bass fishing, you have to locate the structure. Baitfish use these features to hide from gamefish. Gamefish use these locations as a current break and to be able to ambush prey. I like to find docks that house sailboats because they need to be fairly deep to allow for the keel of the boat.

Another of my favorite spots features an oyster bar. It's located between two mangrove islands with deep edges. The front side of the bar drops into about 6 feet of water. The back edge sweeps into a shallow grassy area that is mostly exposed during low tide. I've often witnessed redfish following the incoming tide into the grass, but make a stop along the front of the oyster bar foraging for mud crabs that make the oyster bar their home.

In the next installment of "Scouting New Spots", we'll focus on when to go.

Advancements In Dolphin Eco-Tourism - St Joseph Sound

I've been thinking recently that maybe instead of fishing, I should turn the blog into a dolphin sight seeing tourism cash grab. 8 out of the last 10 fishing trips, I've seen dolphin up close - so close in fact that I could see the famous toothy grin. I've seen dolphin more than caught fish recently.

Yesterday morning was no different.

I left the house at 5:30 AM to meet Keith at St Joseph Sound and to launch at first light in the hopes of finding early morning redfish on the feed on the lush grass flats. The water was glassy calm as I drove along Edgewater Drive, but as soon as I arrived at the launch site, the wind picked up and I could see flashes of lightning in the distance and hear thunder booms a few miles away to the north and south. The gray dawn revealed rain clouds everywhere.

This large expanse of grass flats between Anclote Key and the Tarpon Springs shoreline are some of the best I've ever seen and have a unique feature; 10 feet deep holes amid 3-4 feet depths with decent moving water. The plan was to cast to the edges of the holes on the up current side and let the fly drift and bounce down the slope...this didn't produce any fish so we drifted across the flat.

The wind pushed us fairly hard. Cold down drafts from the thunderstorm cell to the southeast. The thing I kept thinking about was "We're going to have to paddle back into this wind to get back to the car" but, by some small miracle, the wind slowed...and we were able to paddle back the way we came with ease.

That's when the dolphin showed up. You could see and hear the furious splashing along the shallow mangrove shoreline as the dolphin herded the fish against the bank. Again, only a single dolphin. As we drew closer, I could see that it was around 6 feet in length, and was "fluking"...where it swims on its side and the fluke sticks out of the water. It wasn't shy or afraid of us and I paddled right up to it to snap a few photos.

On the paddle back to the car, the rain started....a free rinse job for the drive home.

My Memorial Day - Just Like A Publix Commercial

For this year's Memorial Day celebration, Mom, Brother Steve, Lacy and I went to Philippe Park in Safety Harbor. Mom and Steve did a great job of planning, and making awesome food!

We had sun dried tomato brats, potato salad, roasted corn in the husk, watermelon, and Jim Jones Desert (a concoction invented by mom that's made out of angel food cake, lemon pudding, blueberries,and whipped topping...all mixed together, not made out of Kool-Aid, you sick people)

I launched the kayak during the incoming tide. The mangroves were packed with blennies and finger mullet, and crabs. I was working the mangroves in an area that has a nice drop off from a sand bar just inches from the tree line with lots of prop roots with a dark brown crab fly. My quiet drifting along this tree line spooked a few redfish. I watched one shoot into the mangroves. I cast the crab about a foot away from where it went into the bushes and he came out and hammered it while the fly was falling. Of course he turned right back into the trees and my 25 lb leader quickly broke on the barnacle encrusted prop roots as I tried to horse it out.

Lacy did some things I've never seen her do - like gallop in the water and try to bite the small baitfish that were circling around her legs. It was hilarious! She also dug up a dead horseshoe crab and proceeded to have a not so fresh crab dinner. Needless to say, she was pretty wiped out at the end of the day.

We got packed up in time to beat the impending thunderstorm bearing down on us...

I fell asleep on the couch, feeling super relaxed after a nice day and a nice shower. I'm recovering for tomorrow....Tarpon...

Ken and the great herds of hermit crabs

Yesterday, i had the good fortune of taking Ken Morrow from Upstream (http://kenmorrow.blogspot.com/) on his first trip to what is known as the "darkside" which is saltwater flyfishing.

We arrived at Honeymoon Island State Park a few minutes before they opened. i had planned on taking Ken out to fish for snook on the beach however, the wind was right in our face and i'm not talking about a light sea breeze. We tried the beach but couldn't see anything (the water clarity was muddy in the swash channel) so we hiked out to Pelican Bay in hopes of getting out of the wind and finding a nice flat...which we did. A section of the trail leading out to Pelican Bay was closed due to a Bald Eagle nest so we found our way to the flat and saw loads of bait in the water, tied up, and proceeded into the brine. Spooked a few nice snook on the way in, endured a series of snook "drive by's" and blew out several overslot redfish.

The tide came and went. Saw lots of "herds" of hermit crabs that resembled a moving dark brown carpet along the shore, a rosy spoonbill, and the always dreaded Ken casting to a tailing mullet ( i won't elaborate...at least he saw it.)

Was a great day out there and Ken definitely did his homework and knows what he's doing out there.

Can't wait to take Mama.......