.......needs a pinch of salt!!

Fishing in general has been pretty good.  Bass are getting fat, trout are getting fat, everything seems to be getting fat (catch my drift)...but even when things are good, sometimes, something is still missing.  Kind of like that meal your wife/husband cooks.  It taste's great just like it is...but no matter how great it is...needs a pinch of salt!!

I don't know why my food needs a pinch of salt...but I know why I need salt.  It's an addiction to drag pulling, hard fighting, never give up redfish.  So when the arctic blast rescheduled my plans I didn't hesitate to pack up my gear and head to Grand Isle, LA. to fish ahead of the front.  I had 2 days to fish and the fish were very cooperative.   Best explained by a fish that wanted to be caught...despite my best efforts...

Had time to snap a photo before I tried to catch this fish w/ a hook-less spoon 

I found a shallow flat with feeding reds.  Pushed up on the flat slowly and saw a red cruising.  Pitched the gold spoon close and he attacks it.  He's on for a second but comes off.  I pitch back to him...again he hits and off again.  I repeat this 2 more times, each time he's on for a brief moment.  I'm getting frustrated, I can't figure out what's happening, then it comes to me...check the hook.  Sure enough he broke it off.  Unbelievably, the red is still circling my kayak...I reach down and grab the rod with the flats minnow...toss it to him and he crushes it.  That's what redfish do...they break your stuff and dare you to come back.  At this point I'm think'n, dude you could have saved yourself a couple piercing's by just swimming in the net.  I'm just CPRing anyway.

The gold spoon with hook snapped off.  TTF flats minnow worked.

So that's how the reds were behaving.  Some photos, b/c what's a blog w/o pictures.

Ran across this guy around lunch time.  Saw another on Tuesday that nearly climbed in my kayak

Not sure if he got banged up during the fight or before...swam away

There's a spoon in there

Reds spitting up shrimp - looks similar to a gold spoon to me

Released a nice leopard red

Spent 4 hours chasing reds and then used the last 2 hours locating specks.  Got to my hole and found this huge garfish resting on the ledge I like to park my kayak on...guess it's a good spot to catch some rays or specks.  I let him keep it b/c I didn't want him to freak out and spook everything around.  When I checked on him later he had moved on and I moved in and caught about 20...only kept 12 b/c I forgot how many I had in the bag.

See him? Looks like a log underwater...dude you're in my spot.

Day 1, was near perfect sight fishing conditions...no wind, high sun, no clouds, and clear water.  I had a good day sight fishing 30-40 reds using spoons and TTF killer flats minnows.  Specks were caught bouncing flats minnow (purple/chart or opening night) along the bottom.

Day 2, in the works...Different conditions, wind and clouds, easy limit of specks under birds and more reds.  Part 2 here: part 2

Some unintended results.  A few reds made a last minute dive for freedom as I was snapping a pic...below was the result of such an evasive action.