Bridesmaids Once Again

Fished the Redfish Action Series out of Sneads Ferry today.  With all three of my boats in the shop and my fishing partner without a boat we had no time to pre fish for the tourney.  We ended up borrowing one of Drew's friends skiff.  I have been running near shore charters the past two weeks since my offshore boat was the only boat in my fleet that was not being serviced.  Drew got out on the water around sneads Ferry for a few hours Friday and saw only a few fish.  I was supposed to be on the boat with him but had to turn around and come home to babysit my baby girls because our babysitter was sick.  We hit the spot Drew found fish first only to find another boat coming off the flat so we hit the spots I hit two weeks ago on charters and found fish pretty quick.  Within two casts I'm hooked up with a nice slot red that sucked down a topwater lure.  I got him near the boat and he pulled the hooks.  Bad start. 

Next we hit one of my favorite flats.  Found a pod of hungry reds.  I landed our first red on a topwater lure on this bank.  We decided to move onto a spot I haven't fished in over a year and by the way these fish cooperated I dont think anyone else has either.  first cast and I'm hooked up once again on topwater and on the other end of the line was our largest fish we weighed in.  For the next two hours we wacked

Fish on topwater, spoons, and soft plastics.  We caught a handful of over slot reds that pounded topwater lures lime tarpon.  The largest over slot was 32" and 12 lbs. I caught a deformed fish that was 21" shaped like a bass and 5.5 lbs-would love to have two of them in SC.  We also caught a red with 31 spots. During this beatdown we caught 20-30 slot reds and upgraded our second fish several times.  With two fish at 26.6 inches we left those fish alone and hit a flat we hit earlier.  We found a nice school of reds on this flat and pulled another fish off this bank.  From there we shifted gears and hit the flat we started on and had no luck.  We moved again and hit a flat I found some fish on two weeks ago.  The fish were still in the same place I left them.  We bumped the school and drew popped a fish that ran into the boat.  This was our last upgrade of the day.  We decided to check in early at 2 pm.  We saw two they teams already at the dock so we knew they had some good fish as well.  We ended up with 13.04 lbs and second place in the tourney.  Not a bad day for one day of pre fishing and a borrowed boat.

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Fishing nearshore has been steady the past week.  We caught several black sea bass, scup, grunts, small grouper and many other bottom fish.  We also did pretty well on the Spanish macks trolling.

Inshore the bite has been on fire until this front moved in on us Monday.  I had two trips Monday and all we managed were a handful of fish.  We caught a few sheepshead, 2 reds, and some trash fish.  We saw several fish and some nice schools of reds that were shut off due to the weather.  Hopefully the bite will turn back on them this weather moves out.

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Awesome Topwater Action

Had a half day today with Tom.  Took a little longer than normal to locate our first school due to the wind and cloudy water from yesterday's storms.  When we found the reds it was on.  Caught over twenty reds today mostly on topwater lures.  All fish were 20-27". Its always a good day when u can sight fish a school of reds with topwater lures.  Had 6 to ten fish following the lures fighting to crush them.  Had one fish still unknown of what its identity is.  Had a large fish crush a topwater, strip drag off effortlessly, and then run to structure to break us off.  This fish had to be a jack, never seen a fish swim that fast inshore.  The fish are starting to filter in on the flats. What a great time to fish coastal NC.

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Hungry Fish

Glad to be home where fish eat when u cast to them.  Went to find some old friends yesterday.  They were home and ready for dinner. Hit the water at 7:00 pm and fished til dark.  Found three schools of fish and wacked eight on top and a 32" bluefish.  On most casts I never had to twitch the plug, they piled on it soon as it hit the water.  I love fishing the huge schools of reds in SC but those fish don't eat like ours do.  Book a trip now for hot topwater action!

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IFA Redfish Charleston

Drew and I covered quite a bit of water in and around the Charleston area over the past three days.  We found schools of fish everywhere we fished.  We hit five different water bodies and made our game plan on Friday night for the tourney. First cast on tourney day I land a small trout, then a couple casts later I had a red follow and strike my soft plastic on top while I wasn't looking and I snatched it away from him.  Then Drew broke one off on hooks the very next cast in the same spot.  We pulled the hooks on a couple of fish and landed one on this flat.  We had tailers in the short grass but couldn't capitalize on them.  We left that flat and hit two more flats.  Stuck our second fish on this flat and tried to upgrade from there.  Hit a very large school on this flat but couldn't get them to eat.  Unfortunately these were all the right size fish.  Went to another flat holding fish and we stuck 5 more reds, upgrading our smallest fish.  Hit some docks before we headed to the scales but never found an upgrade.  Ended up in 7th place in the tournament and stayed alive in the team of the year race heading into the regional championship.

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