More July Heat

Don't know if this is the hottest summer down here but my utility bill sure says so. A small window in the mornings before the winds get too bad. Had a few nice fish swipe at topwaters but no takers. We managed 8 keeper trout and 4 nice redfish, even a couple of "tournament" reds. Cajun Pepper Devil Eyes and bloody/white Sea Shad were the hot tickets. Shallow mud grass flats in clear water on both the north and south shorelines. Can't wait for some rain.

Chillin' With The Family

Our daughter and her family came down to spend a few days with us and I got to spend some quality time with my new grandson and my two "instant" grandsons. I took Josh (8) and Isaac (6) out with their Dad for their first ever saltwater fishing trip. We worked hard to get things off on the right foot. Finding some working birds in the bay made things so much easier. Here are Josh and Isaac with their first ever keeper trout. Both were caught on bloody/white Sea Shad. Josh cast and caught 6 trout all on his own. Proud of my boys. Click on the pic for a larger image

Repeat

Another day and similar results. Winds are light until about 9:00am and the topwater bite is good but most trout are on the small side. Finished with ten trout with two over 20" and three redfish. The "Young Guns" got beat again today but made a much better showing. Rootbeer/red glitter, Firetiger, and bloody/white Saltwater Assassin and Sea Shad were best today

Double Report

Fished yesterday (July 8) with two friends on a mini scouting trip. Caught a bunch of small fish but we managed 2 good trout (24" and 26") on topwaters and plasics. Off the water early because we could LOL. Fished with three father/son pairs today and had a blast. 3 fourteen year old boys can really put you through your paces. But when it was all said and done, the "young guns" were outfished and outlasted by us old guys LOL. We had a decent box of fourteen trout up to 24" four reds up to 31" and two flounder. Several fish were lost for various reasons but thats another story. Firetiger Saltwater Assassins, bloody/white Sea Shad and Baby skitterwalks and Top Pups in various colors were top producers.

Happy 4th

Switched gears and tactics and headed for the Laguna today. No problem catching small fish. They were everywhere. We had a bit of a topwater bite early and fish came on chrome/chartreuse She Dogs. Like I said, trout were plentiful but small and most fell for strawberry/white paddletail assassins, red/white Sea Shad and red/white 5" assassins. Headed down to 9 Mile Hole and found plenty of redfish in all sizes from barely keeper, to perfect tournament reds to 45" monsters. They were very skittish probably due to the heavy weekend boat traffic. However we did manage to pick up several nice size reds on red/white Sea Shads on 1/16oz. Title SHot jigs. The reds liked the off colored water a lot better than the clear stuff. I'll be visiting my new grandson for a few days but back to the grind on Thursday.

Prelude To the 4th

Kinda disappointing today. We boxed 8 trout up to 23" and a nice 25" redfish but it looked like it was going to be killer day. The morning bite was very sporadic and we had lots of blow-ups on topwaters but just couldn't seem to hook them up.

Rocks were the ticket today as almost all of our fish came from rocks in about 4 feet of water. Bone/Chrome She-Dogs and red/white assassins worked best. Daniel and Debbie were troopers today and had plenty of fillets to take home with them. Gonna try it again tomorrow

July Fireworks

Fished with Ed Dodds, a good friend of mine this morning on a little scouting trip for a two day trip coming up this weekend. We did pretty well boxing 8 hefty trout and releasing four Big Girls. No wall hangers but trout up to 5+lbs were there. We lost a couple to the rocks including one real big trout on a topwater. The fish hit about 50/50 between topwaters and soft plastics. Strawberry/white Saltwater assassins, rootbeer/red glitter assassins were the top plastics. Ed rigs his on a flutter hook which is an offset 4/0 worm hook with a weighted shank. Works very well around the rocks. The topwater of the day was a bone/chrome She Dog.

Click on the image for larger picture