New season begins....

A very short trip down south to take advantage of an un-seasonally warm January resulted in a small Bluefish first cast! A nice way to start the years surf casting!!

Unfortunately things went a little quiet then before a little flurry of activity as we were about to pack up.

I just wish I could find wellies like that in my size;)

South of the Border

I cannot believe the weather we have been having this fall and winter. I woke up this morning and had a real debate as to wether to stay local and try for some more big Reds or head back down to Florida and see if the fish would co-operate like they did a couple of weeks ago.

I decided on a run south for a change of scenery. Good move on my part as I had a fun few hours fishing Blue Crab Knuckles on small hooks.

To the fish...

15" Pompano

Word on the grapevine is that these guys have all headed south, this one never got the memo.

26" Black Drum

Got my new PB on Black Drum with this beauty. For a fish of around 5Lb this one fought incredibly hard on light tackle.

Found a few of these Man-o-War's washing in. Had to be careful where you step when running to a rod!

20" Red Drum

This little guy put up a great scrap.

Same fish, different angle.

Rough but organized surf, always a good sight!

26" Red Drum

Last customer of the day was this beautiful Red Drum.

All of todays fish were kissed and released to fight again.

Florida Small Game Fishing

Took a trip to Florida yesterday for some small game fishing. Small game Fishing is about as far away from Big Game Fishing as it gets. Light lines, small hooks and plenty of bites were the order of the day.

22" Red Drum (my big fish of the day)

14" Black Drum (a close relative of the Red)

Double shot of Whiting (another member of the Drum family)

A Spot (yet another member of the Drum family)

I also got two hand sized Pompano.

A really fun day casting crab knuckles and shrimp and never knowing what might come along. The Red was the fish of the day and really fought well for it's size. The Black Drum was really what I was after. They grow to over 100Lb's (and are lovingly called "Big Uglies) and although mine was small it fought well and kicks off my very own Big Ugly challenge.

The Whiting were the most plentiful and it really was a bite a cast, sometimes I never even got to spike the rod before a fish hit.

It was great to go wet wading and have the sun beating down on me (81 Degrees yesterday) in late November.

I've seen you before...

Well the cold frount that we had last week has passed and although a hooded top is required as the sun goes down the weather has gone back to normal.

I made the long walk to fish some deeper water after talking with another angler fishing the open beach who confirmed although the conditions were good (no weed) that the cold frount had knocked the water temps down fast and action was non existent.

I had to fish through the weed at the spot I had chosen but after about 3 hours I saw the rod knock twice and then slam over. It turned out to be this big hump backed 45" Red Drum. The same fish I caught last week on the same bait on the same rod in the same spot!

A nice release shot.

As the sun started to get low in the sky and the air temps dropped I decided to check the bait and as I pulled the rod out of the spike this big 44" Red tried to pull it out of my hand. Circle hooks, got to love them!

As the sun set the weed became unbeatable so I admired the end of another great day and headed for the house.

:)

Well as you can see from the clothing the weather has gone downhill fast. The wind was whipping from the North East the high for the day was 64 degrees. The Red Drum however were out in force and they were big. My first was 46" which equalled my PB, my next was 45" followed by two 42" ers and a double with my buddy at 41 each.

46"

45"

42"

42"

41" (both)

Multi Spotter

With a day as nice as yesterday was and work looming all weekend I just had to get out and wet a line.

The water was dirty and a little rough which is perfect for big Red Drum......

....Just like this multi spotted 42" specimen

This one had spots all the way to his pectoral fins.

This one took a chunk of fresh Whiting, which were out in full force. A clearnosed Skate, a small Sharpnosed Shark and a 3' Sandbar Shark rounded it out for the day.

The Lemon and The Darkness

Just couldn't resist another try at night fishing and had an almost identical trip as the last one. A piece of Stingray got picked up by this nice fat 5' 6" Lemon as the tide came in and the temperature dropped.

As much as I love the Lemon Sharks I was really hoping that when the light stick hit the floor this time it was going to be a Bull.