1/28 COLD

Headed back this morning the same spot we fished yesterday - to find the same fish being beat up by the same dolphins. I fished today with my friend Dave Dalu, and it was a bit windier. Still, we had a few shots at some rather large wads of fish. Today it was more like one giant school rather than 3-4 divisions like we found yesterday morning. Most of the time, the fish were skittish before the fly even landed. But Dave got one good shot into the bunch on a pass we made after the tide started coming back in. A healthy slot red grabbed up on Dave's fly and that ended up being the only fish we caught this morning.

Caught on a merkin crab pattern.

1/27 big scools

I woke up this morning at 5:45 to find a layer of frost covering the deck of my skiff. Forecast said 36 degrees, and I think for once it was right. The plan was to drive up the road to scout out a new area for the low tide, which was at about 8:45 this morning. I met my friend, AB Puckett, for an early breakfast and then headed for the boat ramp. We were in the water by 7:00 and I was up on the platform by 7:30. As I poled onto the flat, I could already see some dolphins working one end of the flat. The good side of that was I now knew that there were fish in there and I knew where they were. The bad side was that those fish were now spooked. So I eased my way in, hoping that the school of fish would settle down and get happy again. The first school of about 100 fish came our way, still unsettled from their attack from Mr. Flipper, but they weren't in a good mood for feeding. We played around with them for a bit, before moving on to find new fish. Immediately we were on another school that had a few fish tipping up in it. AB cast my black toad fly into the group, and as the 200 or so fish started moving over it, hooked into a nice red. He landed his first ever red on fly, a fish of about 26 inches and 7 lbs.

After that fish, I kept pushing the boat to the end of the flat, where we came across a few more scattered reds. As we tried to get a decent shot at them, some more dolphins came into the area and put on a show for us - throwing water 5 feet in the air, turning on their sides, and crashing about as they tried to find a meal. We watched as the fish fled the assault and came right at us, a school of probably another 200 fish. Unfortunately, they had been spooked pretty good and we couldnt get any of them interested. Ended the day shortly thereafter and headed back to the ramp. Another great January morning in the Carolina lowcountry.

1/13-1/14 2007 Florida East Coast

Headed down to Florida for the weekend to meet up with Capt. Chris Herrera to do some fishing and filming. Saturday we fished around Palm Coast and St. Augustine under near perfect conditions. Wind was down, sun was out, and the tide was coming in. However, the 80 degree weather in mid-January has the schools of reds confused and spread out. We did some searching and only found some spooky reds here and there. After some blind casting around some oyster beds I did hook into a slot size redfish that apparently liked the Kwan type fly I was throwing.

We did some more searching and running around to no avail. We did see some tailing sheepshead along some oyster bars and had some follow our flies, but none were interested enough in eating. We called it a day an hour or so before sunset and went in to rest up for an early next morning.

Sunday we awoke in the morning darkness, hitched up Chris' Hell's Bay skiff, and headed south on I-95 to Titusville - where we had planned to shoot some video on the flats of the Indian River. We were hoping that a school of big breeder reds would be willing to entertain us without getting too camera shy. As we ran across the lagoon from the west shore, the sun was rising in the East, revealing the mirror like surface of the water before us. We did find the fish, and they were willing and hungry, but the wind conditions had other plans for the day. We managed one big red in the neighborhood of 20-25 lbs and 40 or so inches long, but about 10:30 the wind picked up pretty good and took with it our chances of getting some tailing footage of these massive fish.