Morning Trout

Posted on July 31, 2022 by admin

Stan Simmerman took me trout fishing this morning “in his back yard”. Threw topwater baits all morning. Floating grass was a pain but that topwater bite is addicting. My first explosion was a nice puppy drum that pulled off after a good fight. That made my morning right there. The next drum, I managed to land. Stan caught a speckled trout and I caught a fat 24-inch trout that crushed the topwater. We caught some bluefish and had a number of bites we did not catch. The most fun was a big speck that hit Stan’s bait four times before getting hooked. That fish pulled off after getting down in the thick eel grass.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Morning Trout

Sheep Breeze

Posted on July 30, 2022 by admin
It was rather breezy out there this morning. It did make it cooler. I had David Brabrand and Stan Simmerman with me. We caught six big sheepshead and were back in before lunch.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Sheep Breeze

Trophies

Posted on July 29, 2022 by admin

I took my assistant Meghan Wells and her father Michael Wells out to try for some sheepshead this morning. There were some break-offs, pull-offs, and missed bites but both managed to catch a couple of sheep each. Meghan’s largest one weighed in at 11.3 pounds. Michael’s weighed in at 10 pounds. Right after catching her second sheepshead, Meghan hooked up with something a bit larger. It turned out to be a rather thick, 47-inch red drum. It kicked her butt but she did manage to release it for her second citation of the morning. We were back in for lunch.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Trophies

Good Morning

Posted on July 27, 2022 by admin

Before work action

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Good Morning

Quick Trip

Posted on July 25, 2022 by admin

Made a quick trip before work this morning. It was blowing. Watched the sunrise. Caught a redfish.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Quick Trip

Getting Lunch

Posted on July 24, 2022 by admin
While taking a boat ride yesterday evening, Tricia asked if I was fishing tomorrow? I said that I had no plans…what do you want to do? “Nothing, but if you go fishing and catch a sheepshead we can have it for lunch along with sliced cucumbers.” It would have been good to know that before I sent all of those fish home with Stan. “Oh, don’t worry about it, if you don’t catch a sheepshead, we have other things to eat. We would have ice-cream with homemade caramel for dessert.”
What I heard was: “get your butt out of bed, catch us a sheepshead, and have it cleaned in time for lunch or you don’t get any ice-cream.”
So, I got out of bed this morning before the sunrise and went and caught her a sheepshead. Then I caught another just in case we were really hungry. Then, you just can’t leave without dropping again and there is sheepshead number three. Now, I am one fish from a limit so…
That last fish was a bit of a challenge. I pulled hooks on a couple then I held on to one. I had that 4th fish at the edge of the landing net when the hook pulled and I watched it swim away. Now, it was getting personal. I did manage to land a limit and was home for breakfast.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Getting Lunch

Sheepish

Posted on July 23, 2022 by admin
Stan Simmerman and I went fishing again this morning. This time, our target was sheepshead. We caught them, we pulled hooks, and we broke some off. We ended up with seven big sheepshead in the cooler. I also managed to catch and release a big red drum that put up quite a fight on my sheep rod.
I’m sure that you noticed that there are more fish being held by me but we are trying not to bring attention to that.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Sheepish

Topwater Specks

Posted on July 22, 2022 by admin
It took years but I finally got Stan Simmerman to take me to one of his top-secret speckled trout spots. I really thought that he was joking about the blindfold thing. I think we drove over a bridge.
We caught a dozen nice specks and a striped bass. Stan even let me catch a few. We had to tag and release all of the trout. Something about them being Stan’s pets.
A really cool thing is that most of our bites were on topwater lures. Even in the middle of a hot sunny day. I was at my usual 5 bites or so to every fish caught. Stan started telling me to “keep cranking, no slack” stuff. Said it was payback for all of the marlin trips. I have no idea what he is talking about. I never got overly excited or yelled during a billfish bite. Anyway, I was losing enough fish that I really had no comeback.
We did see a school of puppy drum but did not get a good cast on them as both of us were having our topwaters smashed by specks at the time.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Topwater Specks

No Hounds

Posted on July 17, 2022 by admin
I started out on the flats for sunrise this morning. I couldn’t get any houndfish to play (or specks or pups). I went on out to catch some oyster toads. Those guys are always ready to play. That bite went pretty well other than for these sheepshead things that crashed the party.
Another way to tell the story is that Stan kept all of the sheepshead the past two days so I had to back out again to catch my lunch.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on No Hounds

Back at it

Posted on July 16, 2022 by admin
Stan Simmerman and I ran back out to try for sheep again. First, we stopped shallow for a sunrise bite. We got the bites. We forgot about the catching. We had both speckled trout and puppy drum on topwaters and managed to pull them all off. At one time, we found a big school of tailing pups. They clobbered the plugs. On one cast, I managed to hook and pull off three drum…or, you could say that I got to experience 3 topwater bites on a single cast!
They scattered and so did we. Got on the structure and as soon as he dropped down, Stan was hooked to a sheep. Got that one, dropped again and he was hooked up again. Netted another fish for Stan before I had managed to catch my first oyster toad. Stan continued to get some bites but didn’t get any more to the net, allowing me some time to catch a couple of sheep myself. We caught four sheepshead and pulled hooks on at least that many. Three of them weighed between 10 and 11 pounds.
We were home for lunch.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Back at it