Two strange catches today and a few normal ones too

[GoDoe]

I caught some fish today but one of those fish is considering this his luckiest day I am sure. I was wading a small lake in fairly clean (relative term) water today. I had caught a couple of black drum and one red fish when I saw a smallish (18") red fish "slumming". That is what I call it when a red fish throws in with a group of mullet and swims along like he a part of the crew.

On the second attempt to get my black crab into the right place I was successful and the little red snatched it up. It wasn't much of a fight. I put a lot of heat on my fish to get them to hand as fast as possible. There are three reasons I do that: the water is hot and I don't want to exhaust the fish, the cover is thick and I don't want them running in the mangroves and truly once I have the fish hooked I get bored. I want whatever fish I have on the hook off so I can go hunt down another one. Anyway, I am loosing track. So I get this cutie to hand and start to unhook my fly from the corner of his mouth and I notice fishing line laying along his side. I thought I had hooked and lassoed him but that wasn't the case.

This guy had an 1/8th oz jig head stuck in his throat and 12' (I measured it) of 30lb test tied to it. The hook was old and rusty and as I tried to remove it it broke at the bend. I kept the jig head and the line for a trophy and let the little guy go on his way. Just the thought of him dragging all that tackle along for however long kind of tuged at my heart string.

The second weird thing that happened today was I caught a mullet on a black spoon fly. I was casting to two cruising reds when the line went tight . The water here was even more off color so I couldn't see what had hit the fly but when I set the hook I knew something wasn't right. The little 8" mullet was odd looking in my had with a spoon fly stuck in the roof of his mouth. Maybe I should go buy some lottery tickets before this days ends.

John

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[kickingback]

That's where the fish went that broke my rig off! Cool report. Way to save the day! Hooks usually rust and fall out over time also but you did good. I too have caught a rather large mullet on a paddle tail once.

[karstopo]

It's a wonder how a fish feeds with all that line and hardware in its throat.

Mullet around here provide redfish cover, chaff like a fighter jet might use as a countermeasure to disable an enemy radar. I have to tune my sensors to filter out mullet wakes in favor of redfish sign. Don't really want to spend much time casting to Mullet wakes. Mullet also are an early warning system for redfish. They will spook easily in skinny water leading to a spook event that radiates out from the initial disturbance. It can easily lead to tipping off the redfish.

I can't ever remember catching a mullet except by accident in the surf.

Do you ever see sheepshead in your target areas?

[GoDoe]

Lots of sheephead out there. I cast to them all the time and have only ever caught two. It is good practice but I haven't found them willing to eat the fly. I thought black drum were pretty hard to catch on the fly. I would say I catch a black drum of every 20 that I cast to. I would have to say that for sheephead that is more like 1 of 500 that I cast to.

[jeff89]

Mr John - how long do you plan to be goofing off at the coast? I just got off of my hitch and i've got 7 days off...probably going to head to POC/Rockport/AP area tomorrow...

[karstopo]

Lots of sheephead out there. I cast to them all the time and have only ever caught two. It is good practice but I haven't found them willing to eat the fly. I thought black drum were pretty hard to catch on the fly. I would say I catch a black drum of every 20 that I cast to. I would have to say that for sheephead that is more like 1 of 500 that I cast to.

I can't say I have cracked the code on sheepshead either. I spent one outing this winter casting at nothing but sheepshead in winter clear water for many, many casts. Got rewarded with 2 follows. I've gotten 2 to hand and one of those was an unseen fish hanging around structure.

[GoDoe]

Jeff,

I have company in town as of today thru the 26th. Don't be fooled by some of my reports. The fishing is really and I mean really hard. Finding skinny water is all but impossible from a kayak and most of the water is dirty too. I have a Solo skiff and am able to run 5-6 miles from several launch points to find some back water. That is the only place I can see fish.

If you know of someplace to get in skinny water that is where you should go. Usually I do a lot of fishing in the LIghthouse, Brown and Root and South Bay but all those places are unfishable for me now. The water is crotch to waist deep and mostly dirty.

Hope this info helps. The tides are running 8" over the predicted

John