4:50am was way way early for me after an all day beach excursion with the family on Sunday, but I got up anyway...it was a solo trip so I could travel lite. Picked up the Whaler and headed south. Was putting it at my favorite unihabited west bay ramp around 6:20. Wading the south shoreline around 7.
Not much happened for the first 3 hours..2 keeper trout around 18 and a few blowups...conditions looked great, good water, a w/n/w wind around 5, and lots of bait...took my fish back to the boat to get a drink and lesson the chance of donating to the local shark population. I was sitting there having a little H2O and noticed a slick a couple hundred yards to the south.
The wind was non existant by now so I switched to a bone/ch she pup. About halfway to the slick I stuck a 20 incher on top and it was on from then until I left around 1pm. I missed more than I caught, including one monster blowup and drag rip...that shamed the good fight that the 23 incher I did land put up. It wasn't non stop action, but every 20 minutes or so I had a shot at a good blowup. The key was to work the she pup really slow, and sometimes let it sit there for 30 seconds, around any active bait of course. Some of the trout blasted it and some of them slurped it under. Only saw one other boat fishing the same shoreline and he left around 9:30...about half an hour to early.
Final tally was 7 fish from 17 to 23(left one in the cooler for the pic), and I think I could of stuck it out and had a limit but the hall pass was getting thin. It was a great day to be out...I only waived off 2 jet skiers all day!! And one of my better days so far this year...3 of us fished the same spot at daylight Friday and came up with 4 fish between us...I think they were there Friday too we just couldn't get them to eat. Nothing beats a 20 inch trout slamming a top water at high noon on Independence Day!!
Not much happened for the first 3 hours..2 keeper trout around 18 and a few blowups...conditions looked great, good water, a w/n/w wind around 5, and lots of bait...took my fish back to the boat to get a drink and lesson the chance of donating to the local shark population. I was sitting there having a little H2O and noticed a slick a couple hundred yards to the south.
The wind was non existant by now so I switched to a bone/ch she pup. About halfway to the slick I stuck a 20 incher on top and it was on from then until I left around 1pm. I missed more than I caught, including one monster blowup and drag rip...that shamed the good fight that the 23 incher I did land put up. It wasn't non stop action, but every 20 minutes or so I had a shot at a good blowup. The key was to work the she pup really slow, and sometimes let it sit there for 30 seconds, around any active bait of course. Some of the trout blasted it and some of them slurped it under. Only saw one other boat fishing the same shoreline and he left around 9:30...about half an hour to early.
Final tally was 7 fish from 17 to 23(left one in the cooler for the pic), and I think I could of stuck it out and had a limit but the hall pass was getting thin. It was a great day to be out...I only waived off 2 jet skiers all day!! And one of my better days so far this year...3 of us fished the same spot at daylight Friday and came up with 4 fish between us...I think they were there Friday too we just couldn't get them to eat. Nothing beats a 20 inch trout slamming a top water at high noon on Independence Day!!
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