Redfish Galore

[Jack Hexter]

A friend has been telling me he's got some redfish off Anclote Island dialed in so we left his dock at 8:00 Monday morning. We had 6 dozen handpicked shrimp in the livewell and my net aboard. Getting to the spot he has been catching the fish, the tide was ripping and we had a hard time anchoring, but finally got it to stick. We repositioned the boat several times and he was finally satisfied we were in the right place. We baited up and started to catch everything but redfish. Trout, cobia, jacks, bluefish, ladyfish, mackerel - they all came over the gunnel, but no redfish, Anyway, we started to run low on bait, so I motored back to a flat, started chumming and threw the net twice and we had enough bait for a dozen of us to fish We went back to "his spot" and re-anchored, still not finding the reds. About a half dozen boats were gathering around a spot about 1/4 mile away, so we pulled anchor and drifted that way. As soon as we got in the vicinity of the other boats, and with the slowing tide, we started catching the reds. They were on fire. A fish every cast, mostly upper or over slot. Biggest was 36" and 13 pounds Flipper was right in the middle of the foray and the reds didn't even appear to notice him - they just kept chewing. The blitz lasted about 1 1/2 hours. Total was 20 redfish. The wind picked up with a storm in the afternoon so it was a moderately slow ride back across the sound back to the Cotee River in our flat bottom 20' Express, but the fresh redfish last night made it worth the trip.

[SpeckTackler]

Jack, When I was a kid I was always told that redfish were trash fish (My dad and grandfather were trout fishermen). I found out that redfish on the half shell and a tug by a red in shallow water can be a great thing. Anyways, the last front cleaned out the surf and started the finger mullet run. Fishing on Saturday was incredible. Reds, trout, bluefish, Spainish mackrel and a few unknown breakoffs.Blow up's on the mullet were happening all around us as we were wade fishing. We were using cast nets to catch all of our bait. If you time the Texas surf a day or two after the front has blown through then you'll see that the north winds will flatten the surf. And the fishing is on. Then we get the first front that has a good punch to it( late October or the first of Nov.) that will lower the temp. quite a bit.No matter what we are doing we go Fishing.Fall fishing = Life is Good! Rusty

[Jesse]

Good job, Jack.

Thanks for the report - sure sounds like alot of fun.