What a day!

Today was one of those rare days when your clients believe that you may possibly have a clue as to what the fish are doing.  When I stopped the boat in the ICW just south of the new Cow Bayou cut you couldn't even see across Cow Bayou for the fog.  That was about 7:30 this morning.  Less than two hours later we were limited on trout and redfish.

For the remainder of the day we just checked out different areas and caught lots of fish every where we went.  Darin Freshour put together the trip with two of his friends and it was actually a trip that we had to back up a couple of days.  In other words, it was just plain old good luck that we were there today.

We limited on trout in the 16 to 18-inch class before we ever caught the first redfish.  They were stacked up along a shell bank in 8 to 12 feet of water that most folks just ride by every day and they would not let a pumpkin-chartreuse Tidal Surge Split Tail Mullet reach the bottom.  I threw some four inch stuff just to see if it made a difference and there was no doubt that the better trout wanted the longer plastic.

Darin said his wife was expecting him to bring home a few reds just like this one!

We didn't move a hundred yards before finding the slot reds.  Regardless of how quickly you set the hook you still had to dig the lure out of the back of their throat as they were on a feeding binge.  Darin threw some Gulp, but the rest of us stayed with the Split Tail and a Swim Bait and they ate both lures.  It was the first incoming tide that I had fished all week and the water temperature was back up to 59 degrees.

We found more boats than fish in Black's, but both shorelines from Hardin's camp to the mouth of East Pass were holding trout and redfish.  After two drifts we shot a couple of pictures and decided to fish some water that I hadn't looked at in a while.  You very seldom get that opportunity when fishing with clients.

Catching redfish wasn't a problem again today, but the trout stole the show!

Since we were on a roll, I ran to the La. shoreline and we drifted two different 3 to 5 foot flats with Corkies, Maniac Mullets, and Catch V's.  We were strictly in a catch and release mode by that time, but most of the trout we caught and released were much better fish than the trout that we had already boxed.  Darin even got one shot at a bragging size fish that came to the surface and just turned loose of his black-chartreuse Corky ten feet from the boat.

We finished up the day back in the ICW and turned loose at least 15 trout in the 2 to 3 pound class on one short drift.  We added a couple of nice flounder to the catch and called it a day. All we were missing was a swing at a few more seven pound class trout, but that doesn't happen every day anyway.

The east wind blew pretty good all day long, but the water on the La. shoreline was some of the warmest we found and the water clarity was very good as well.  The most surprising thing about finding the trout on those flats was that we saw no bait at all.  The fish were just there and they were hungry.  I think that we're supposed to get some rain tomorrow, but aside from being a little uncomfortable,I can't see the bite changing much.