12/17 pluff mud

Fished around low tide on a mud flat that was holding an impressive school of over 100 fish. I poled over them the first time and bumped them up, but realized what was going on and let them settle back down again. There were fish of all sizes in this school, many in the 30" range near the front of it. As I circled around, we found the school again and I picked one out of the group that turned out to be a nice little 26 inch red - caught on a spinning rod as I was on the platform poling the boat and couldn't break out the long rod.

After releasing that fish, I poled down the flat in search of any other fish that might be working the same area. Seeing no fish, I spun around and poled back over to where we had last seen the school. This time we found them before they knew we were there, and as they swam parrallel to the boat I was able to put another cast in front of them and pick up a second fish, this time about 30 inches.

We left the school alone after that and began poling on a different flat where the water was starting to rise to the grass line. We spotted a very nice red working in some very shallow water on the bank. It must have been only 2-3 inches deep where the fish was, and it was literally rolling around on the mud since it was too shallow for him to swim. Very cool sight, as an end to a good day on the water.

12/15 & 12/16 Charleston, SC

Went out Friday at noon with friend Dave Dalu in his Super Skiff and poked around on the incoming, looking for reds along the grass line. Saw a few moving thick into the grass, but they never came out to give us a shot. Picked up one little red on the fly, probably 17" long. Ate a rattle copperhead fly as I stripped it out of the grass.

Went out again Saturday morning to fish a mud flat that usually holds some really nice reds on it. Was disappointed when the forecasted 6 mph wind turned out to be 15-20 mph. Waves on the flat stirred up the mud pretty good, making visibility next to impossible, and poling through soft mud in 6 inches almost comical. Called the day early and came back to the house to do a little overdue maintenance work on the trailer and boat.