Jones Lakes 21-Oct-2023

[deptrai]

There was a flounder tournament so the ramp was unusually crowded in the morning. Lots of boats and yaks. It didn’t impact me as no yaks ever go to the areas I’ve been fishing and I only saw two boats back there all day.
77F surface temp on the ICW in the morning.

It was a bit foggy as I entered the first lake.

Tide was relatively high in the morning and my first cast was to a drain opening. I landed this short Red at 7:54.

2nd cast three minutes later resulted in my 1st keeper.

[deptrai]

Peddled to the other side of the creek and landed this two-footer at 8:12. Little did I know it would be my last keeper of the day.

8:17 I landed another shorty.

I then hooked something that was obviously small and brought in a tiny trout at 8:35. I don’t catch trout very often, but the location where I hooked this one tends to hold them.

Five minutes later, I got another trout. Bigger than the first, but still not 15”.

[deptrai]

My luck then ran out. I was using the same DieZel MinnowZ than had rewarded me with 30+ fish over the last month. I got a bite, set the hook and reeled in the jighead only. My plastic was stripped off the hook. I suspect flounder.

That bait was the Mulletron color and I didn’t have any more. I replaced it with the same bait in Slam Shady color and landed another small Red at 9:01.

I stayed out fishing another 3+ hours without landing another fish. I did hook a couple more that got off and had a couple other bites, but the action was nothing like the morning. Not sure if it was the tide that had slowed its outflow or the fog burning off or something else.
4+ miles in and the wind had kicked up to an unpleasant level. I was using my replacement non-Turbo fins after smashing the Turbos into oyster last trip. With the headwind, just the 2-mile final leg of my return on the ICW took me an hour and a half.

I’m getting a little better at filleting these fish.

I hope to get one more shot at flounder before November.

Dave

[karstopo]

Nice. I have enjoyed fishing the Jones Lake area although I don’t fish there all that frequently. Last time was in a Jon boat summer of 2022. That first lake is a mine field of hull and mirage drive fin wrecking shell.

I find it amazing that in spite of all the people with boats and kayaks there’s still relative solitude out there on the water getting away from the launch areas.

Redfish have that armor to pierce to fillet. Still, I’m a big fan of redfish flesh.

I too want to make at least one more flounder hunt before the November 1st closure.

Happy fishing.

[Ron Mc]

Very nice effort all around. Great report, great results on the water. You have good methodology.

Short-striking flounder is a definite possibility for pulling the stretchy ElaZTech plastic from your Texas eye jighead.
One other possibility is lizardfish, which are thick in estuaries this time of year.
The TSL grasswalker is the only plastic they can't tear up