2/11 Carolyn's first red

6 A.M. - 30 degrees. Scraped the frost of the windshield and was on the road to the boat ramp. 5-10 mph turned out to be about 10-15. Headed back to an area that's been holding a bunch of fish and found them all grouped up, and of course spooky. Had to scare off a few dolphins from their morning feeding, then tried to give the reds time to calm down. Despite the cold and wind, we did have good light today, which helped in seeing the schools on the mud flat. Chased a couple of schools for the last of the outgoing and the first hour or two of the incoming to no avail. Lots of fish, but they were lethargic and hardly moving at all. Finally decided to head to a different area that I found a big school at last weekend. Sure enough, they were there. Poled over them the first time and bumped them a little bit, so I swung wide around them and went upwind of school. Drifted down back to the fish, that had now regrouped, and staked out. I was fishing with my girlfriend this morning and got her to put a cast downwind and into the fish. She had a gulp crab rigged with a circle hook, and she just let it sit there as we watched some of the fish milling around in the general vicinity of where her cast landed. The bulk of the school was to the right a little ways, as indicated by frequent hints of pink in the water as the fish turned broadside in the sun. A few moments later and her line came taught with a willing red. It actually put up a good fight, contrary to the others we've been catching lately in the cold, and gave her a few quality runs. Shortly, she had her first ever redfish to the boat. 28" and 8lbs, a healthy multi-spotter. Im not sure which of us was more excited.

Among the dolphins and hundreds of redfish, we also saw an otter and a whitetail deer today. The otter was swimming around on the mud flat and followed the boat for a little while with curious glances. The deer appeared out of the Spartina grass and swam over to a small oyster bar. I don't know what it was doing out there, but appeared to be eating or licking something. Never seen a deer that liked oysters ! Tide got too high for sightfishing about 11:30 and we headed back to the ramp.

2/3 Charleston report

Had to work today, so I made sure to go in early enough to make it out of the office with time to fish the afternoon low. After last weekend, I was looking forward to the low tide being in the afternoon - hoping that the sun would warm the mud flats up a little and get the fish a bit more active. Much to the contrary, it was cold, windy, and overcast. Nevertheless, I had the boat ready and my mind had been made up about mid-week that I was going to go fishing today. So I came home around noon, changed into some long johns, hooked the trailer up to the car and hit the road. Got onto the flat about 1:30 just in time to see some dolphins heading out before it got too skinny. We quickly noticed that one dolphin had a large white thing in its mouth. Upon closer inspection we realized that it was the white belly of a redfish that was nearly 30 inches long ! The dolphins left us alone for a little bit while they shared their feast and waited for the water to come back in. It was a negative tide today, so it was just us and the redfish for a solid 2 hrs.

We found the school, which was still just as spooky as last weekend. On the first pass, I was able to hook into a fish on a spinning rod from the platform while poling the boat. It turned out to be about 27" or so and 8-9 lbs.

My friend on the bow had multiple casts with the fly rod into the group of fish, but no takes. They were stirred up pretty good between the dolphins, the boat, and the fact that we had just caught one out of the bunch. We worked a few other groups of fish before returning to the main school which had at least around 100-150 fish in it. On this pass, my other friend I was with hooked a nice fish, again on spinning rod. Turned out to be a nice 30" red that weighed 11 lbs.

Eventually the water came back in and so did the dolphins. We watched as they cruised in and began working the area again. One of them caught a whiff of the redfish scent and made a bee-line through 2 feet of water to where a bunch of fish was holding by an oyster bar. He came in at full speed, made one swirl, and then headed back out to deeper water again at full speed - with another redfish in its mouth. Quite an awesome sight to see.