You Gotta Love Summer

May and June have to be some of the best fishing months in Northeast Florida because it seems like everything has come to life. One of the best times to fish shallow water for the elusive redfish is when you can get a calm day with low water. I like a day with little or no wind and a tide that is about 3 to 4 hours into the outgoing tide. I will run as far back into the shallows as I can get. I slip the Minn Kota trolling motor into the calm water pick up my favorite rod and reel combination, a 7 foot medium light action Shakespeare custom graphite rod, a Pflueger Infusion 7625 reel spooled with Power Pro 10 pound test line and on the business end a 1/4 ounce lead head jig (unpainted) with a Sea Striker 4 inch trout curl tail (white body with chartreuse tail). This combination will catch everything that swims and is more versatile than any live or natural bait you have ever fished.

This time of the year and conditions, I like to do a lot of site casting to moving fish. To be successful at this kind of fishing, you have to be as quite as you can and stay as far away fro the fish as you can cast. This is where the rod and reel combination comes into play. With 10 pound test Power Pro and the 7 foot rod using a 1/4 ounce lead head, you can cast a very long distance and when the lead head hits the water it makes a light entry that unless you hit a fish in the head it will not spook it. Now when I say you can cast a very long way, I mean farther than any mono that you could use for this type of fishing, A LONG WAY. This is so important because when fishing shallow water the redfish as is spooky as they get and any noise from your boat will alert them to your presence and then good luck in catching one.

Position your boat where you are just close enough to make a cast to your targeted area (usually just outside of the exposed oyster mounds) put your trolling motor on as low of a speed that you can make headway either with or against the current ( like going with it because you can be more stealthy as opposed to going against the current). Now that you are set up and ready to cast to a fish, you are going to have to use all your sense of sight and sound to excel in this. As you are easing along listen for the slightest sounds and look for any disturbance on the water. Most of the time you can see a slight wake on the surface or hear a fish eating. In these shallow waters (1/2 to 3 feet deep) the fish will be right on the edge and the cruisers are the ones looking for a meal. When you see a wake on the surface, cast about 5 feet in front of the leading wake and let you bait sit there until just before the fish gets to it. Then gently lift you rod tip and slowly turn the reel handle until you have a slow swimming action with your trout tail. This bait closely imitates a small fish swimming and Mr. Redfish cannot stand it and will most of the time inhale it. You are most likely going to have a little slack in your line so when you feel the tap (the fish sucking down your bait) turn the reel handle while lowering your rod tip. This will allow you to get up all of the slack and you will be ready when you feel heaviness to set the hook. The bite most of the time will be a tap not a pull the pole out of your hand strike, so you have to have as much slack up as possible. Now all you have to do is set the hook and have some fun.

You will also nee to cast into the mouth of every small run out as flounder like to lay there waiting on the current to wash out something for them to eat. While in purist of reds, you will catch a few trout, flounder, jacks, ladyfish, spanish and even a small drum or two. This type of fishing also works when making blind cast to the grass and oyster mound edges, whether you can see the fish or not. I catch a lot of fish just casting to the edge when I have not seen a fish pushing. If you do not have any confidence in artificial baits, a shrimp or mud minnow will also work for this kind of fishing. Another type of lure configuration is very productive and can be fished in a sort of snag less configuration. Take a 5/0 heavy X-Point worm hook with the Copperhead wire screw and screw it onto it the head of a Gotcha Trout Killer. Rig the bait as the picture below shows and the hook point is almost coming out of the top of the bait. When this is retrieved it sort of swims with the tail wiggling just like a live bait. This lure can be fished slow, or with a fluttering action and this also drives the fish crazy. Most of the time you will not feel the strike but the rod will be heavy feeling when you take up your slack.

Work the grassy edges on the higher tides for trout. Pick your favorite lure, drop in your trolling motor and start casting. Look for any surface strikes and cast to them. Most of the time your bite is going to be from 1 inch from the edge out to 10 feet. If you are fishing over heavy oysters or rocks, use a lure that suspends or on dives a couple of feet. The Mirrolure Provoker and Heddon baby torpedo are great baits for this and will produce lots of fish with a slam dunk bite.

The ocean is still on fire with great catches of snapper, seabass, vermilions and cobia on the bottom. Trolling for king mackerel should be on strong and you cant go wrong with a slow trolled live cigar or a fast trolled ballyhoo rig. For those of you from the old days, the wire line is the most productive out ever fished for king mackerel. This is a big heavy outfit but it works.

Bream should be on the beds and when you can find them, you can load the boat. Crickets, clams, worms and beetle spins work great. A cricket on a float also works great for these tasty hard fighting fish. I miss the days when Tom Roney and I fished the docks in Doctors Inlet for bream. Back in the day (seems like a life time ago), we would catch all we wanted. Good places to do this now are most of the docks south of Orange Park in the river.