West Bay Night/Morning Combo – Tuesday, July 1 - VIDEO ADDED

[shoffer]

DandyDon and I wanted to get out there and do some fishing, so we picked 12:30 am on Tuesday, July 1st. We fished some lights and had plenty of action, each of us catching 20+ 13” inch trout and multiple rat reds. The action was fast, furious and fishy, but lacked any keepers, save one 18 incher I hooked just outside a light. Lures were TTF red killers, hackberry husters, and Norton Sand Eels, all in glo/chartreuse, swum through the lights on a slow to medium retrieve. The fish seemed to shun the darker baits, and my Mirrolure twitchbait, which got one fish in 15 minutes of fishing the lights. I was using a 20lb fluorocarbon leader, and it seemed to help a little compared to my fishing compadre, who had tied directly to braid.




We then ventured into the bay at first light. The sunrise was captivating, as always:




We arrived to find glass calm conditions, so we broke out the topwaters. Don caught two keeper specks nearly back to back on a chartreuse Skitterwalk on flats adjacent to a boat channel, and I picked up a schoolie on a SS Jr. in bone. We moved over near the marsh, where I hooked a keeper red on the same SS Jr., while the brute was prowling some grass flats adjacent to a marsh looking for its morning meal.


After that, it was nearly 9 am, and the wind and temps. were picking up, so we headed back to the launch, where I picked up three more schoolie trout trolling a hackberry hustler in glo/chartreuse on a 1/8 oz jighead, and Don got another one as well:


Wind – South at 5 mph
Water Clarity – 18 inches
Water Temp – 81 degrees
Solunar – 12:30 to 2:30 am – strong major feed; 6 am to 7 am – strong minor feed

Tides: 88 coefficient incoming from 3 am to 9 am.

[Dandydon]

I'm prejudiced (of course) because Capt. Shoffer is my best fishing companion & personal attorney but he clearly posts some of the best fishing reports & videos on this website. TKF is lucky to have him.
Shoffer watched me fish hard for several years & learned a lot from me. Now I usually watch Shoffer. He catches plenty of specks, reds, sand trout, tarpon & snook. Keep up the good work, man!
--Dandy Don, Esq.

[skltex]

Nice report, informative.

[mpg2yahoo]

Feel your pain Shoffer! Went with Nhan, my fishing buddy, Thursday night to West Bay and fished hard from 9PM until 4:30AM with tons of dinks catched using 1/16 jigs with Chicken Boys 3" on a fast retrieve to keep the lures on top 2-3 ft where the trout were working baitfish.

Got 6 keepers after a lot of work weeding out the small ones. Biggest one was 18". Did not see any reds at the lights.

Seems to be the norm from the last couple of trips we have done. Really nice photos as always.

[Yaklash]

Excellent report

[Texas Torpedo]

Yes great report and some very nice photos. Thanks for posting.

[FiremanDan]

Ran into ya'll on your way back to the launch, finally saw this report and recognized the names you gave me. We ended up grinding out a few trout and a couple reds ourselves. Nice to me ya.