Evidently, redfish don't read what they're supposed to do. With excellent tides this week, I figured I'd try to find some tailing reds in Pine Island Sound.
I found them, but not very many.
On Monday, I did manage a fly-rod slam. I got my snook and spotted seatrout early and then added a red in the afternoon. I finished the day with five snook, eight mangrove snapper, five spotted seatrout and a redfish.
Today, I took Capt. Al White of Boca on the Fly out for a little paddle fishing. We did well on small snook and trout in the morning. We had a few hours to kill before low tide, so we paddled into the backcountry to sling flies. While back there, I noticed a number of cruising redfish.
As low tide approached, we paddled back into the Sound to look for tailing reds. We found one and Al made a number of really good casts. But it seemed as if the red never saw the fly.
With tailers few and far between, we went back to the shallow backcountry to look for redfish. I found one fairly quickly while Al was switching flies. I was poling along the shallows when I spotted a tail not 20 feet off my bow. I stopped the kayak, grabbed my fly rod and made a cast. The red didn't see the fly. I cast again and almost immediately hooked up.
It was a good fish on an 8-weight. Fly of choice was my First Cast Crab, a pattern that produced for my on Monday.
Redfish always seem to look smaller in the water and this one was no exception. As I worked the fish to the kayak, I could see it was larger than I had figured. Turned out to be a 28-incher that weight a little more than 7 pounds.
Being able to stand and pole my kayak was the key. I had no trouble seeing fish all day. It's a great way to fly fish.
Al caught a couple of more snook before it was time to paddle back to the launch. On the way, we encountered a couple of tailers, but we couldn't get them to eat.
Oh, well. Another day and another fly-rod slam.
Not bad at all.
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