Finally caught a break with the wind today!

The barometric pressure was rising just about as fast as the water was dropping out Thursday, but we still managed to have a very good trip.  Needless to say, there wasn't much traffic on the water with a north wind that continued to get stronger all day long.  You know its howling when it blows a two pound trout off the fish cleaning table!

Jim Morrisey booked the trip a month ago as a "thank you" gift for his friend and neighbor, Art Collazo, and they were ready to fish in spite of the wind.  We caught small trout until we got tired of catching them in East Pass, before taking a chance on another program that I knew was geting pounded by the waves.  Before we made the move, Art managed to throw his east beast Flats Minnow in front of our largest slot red of the day.

Art caught our largest slot red............and

We ran back to the ICW and took a butt kicking the remainder of the day, but still finished with one limit of trout up to 4 1/2 pounds and 2 slot reds.  Yep...Art caught that trout as well swimming either a Flats Minnnow or a Swim Bait in 12 feet of water.  It was Art's day and Jim couldn't have been more pleased. I was fighting the troll motor at the time and Jim netted the fish so I don't know for sure which of the two lures he caught it on.  Just before we called in the dogs, I caught and released a really pretty 7-pound speck on a chicken on a chain Sea Shad that marked a perfect ending to another enjoyable trip.

.......the largest trout that we kept!

It felt good just to get out of the wind at the end of the day and even better when we finally managed to get my boat back on the trailer.  When we pulled up to the dock my lower unit was in the mud.  You have to really like to fish to have fun in those conditions and we did have fun!

This morning it was much colder when Bruce Bryant arrived, but dead calm and the water had come back up.  We caught fish all day, but we really hammered them in the lake until the wind picked up.  We caught our red fish right off the bat, but also caught and released a pile of 15 to 17 inch trout before Bruce later decided that  he would like to take a limit home.

It didn't take long to take care of that and we ran back to the ICW to see if we could catch a big trout.  We caught fish non-stop until we quit, but the biggest speck we caught was just over 20-inches.  Bob Hood, P.J. and Joe were at the dock when we got in and they really had some nice flounder. One fish was a tad over five pounds and they had another one over four.  They caught them on Gulp and live mullet.

We found some good fish under lots of birds early on the north end, but later in the morning the best gull action was farther south.  We spent more time targeting sitting gulls than chasing birds that were working.  If you hung around long enough you would see the shrimp jump so there wasn't much need to run.  The conditions were super good this morning so it came as no surprise that there were a lot of boats on the lake.  It could get crowded tomorrow!