Timing is everything... lately.

Have you ever told a joke that would have been funny two minutes ago, but at the moment you chose to blurt the joke out, it was too late to garner a chuckle? Well... I had bad timing today in one spot today. Luckily, I hit another spot at just the right time.

I picked up my charter today and I made the bone head decision to not catch bait prior to picking them up.

The big trout bite had been on fire and all you needed was a 1/8th oz. jig head with any soft plastic on it to load up. My guys jumped in the boat and I made the fatal flaw of announcing that, "we might catch 100 keeper trout today." They were excited, and so was I, until we showed up at the spot and only got one bite in an hour. Granted it was a very nice 22" trout but I was about 99 fish short of meeting my prediction. Those fish will probably be in those holes again on a lower tide but I had scheduled this trip around high water. Bad timing on my part.

Well, now that I made the great decision to not catch bait before picking up my clients (I almost always catch bait prior to pick up) I had to get some pinfish in the well. Luckily it only took about 10 minutes to load up and off we headed towards the mainland in New Port Richey.

It took a little time on the trolling motor to find a nice sized school of mullet, but when we did, we put the Power Pole down and started slinging baits. It wasn't to long before we were getting slammed by mid-slot redfish. We boated 8 in 30 minutes and then we had to get off of the flat before we were high and dry.

We only got two more bites after that rush today, another redfish and another really nice trout. That's the second trip in a row where the bite lasted less than 30 minutes. Granted, we have done well in those short time periods but it wouldn't hurt my feelings if the bite lasted a little longer.

All I can say is that if you know where fish are, stay on them. They are going to bite eventually and if you aren't there when that brief window is open, you may miss out. Again, look for milling mullet. Throw live or cut pinfish, 10" under a cork, into the mullet schools, and if your timing is right, you could be in for a fast and furious bite.

What's the best pitch in baseball?

I know this may sound like a strange question to ask on a fishing blog but this question was posed to me many years ago, when I was playing minor league baseball for the Yankees, and I believe the principle behind it's answer is applicable to fishing as well. I was on a team filled with talented pitchers. Some of us had tremendous fastballs, some of us had nasty changeups, and I was gifted with wicked curveball. We were all having one problem though. We were walking a lot of people. So one day, our pitching coach pulled the pitching staff aside and asked us all, "What's the best pitch in baseball." One guy said, "a fastball", another guy said, "a curve ball", and another guy said that the best pitch in baseball was a changeup. The coach just laughed and said that we were all wrong. The best pitch in baseball was a strike. It didn't matter the style of the pitch you threw if it wasn't a strike, he said. You can't control if the batter will hit the "strike" you throw but you can be pretty sure he won't have to hit the "ball" you throw. He said that no matter what style of pitch you throw that you have a much greater chance of getting an out with a "strike" than a "ball".

I've been hearing a lot of talk at tackle shops and reading a lot of posts on internet forums lately about, "what's the best bait?" I always want to interject and ask, "Do you know where the fish are?" Because you can have the best lure, live bait, tackle, and boat but if you don't know where the fish are then what do the other things matter? Do you see where I'm going with this? I can have a great curveball but if I can't throw it for a strike then I'm not going to get any outs in baseball. I can have the coolest, bestest, most hyped lure on the market but if I don't know where the fish are I'm not going to get a bite.

After our coach taught us what the best pitch was, he suggested that we work on that instead of getting more break on our curveball or more juice on our fastball. With fishing, I would suggest you work on the ability to find fish.

Now you have to keep in mind, that the people you know that seem to always catch fish, don't just go and pull up to a spot and start hammering fish without doing their homework. I can promise you that those people have spent many hours searching, hunting, and just looking for fish. If you want to just be able to go catch fish and not study the environment you're going to be fishing, then I can almost guarantee that you will have several frustrating days of not catching fish for ever day you have where you do catch good numbers of fish.

Here's how I work on finding the "strike" zone. .

Just like with a baseball glove in baseball, I think a trolling motor is essential for helping you find redfish and snook. It allows you to cover more water while minimally affecting the awareness fish have of your presence. I use the trolling motor to break down a shoreline by what I call "sampling". The primary goal here is not to catch fish but to find fish, all the while doing it in a time efficient manor. This is not an instant result technique for catching a lot of fish, rather a way to build a repertoire of fishing spots so that your future trips will be more successful.

So, I'll pick a shoreline that I want to "sample". I decide on a starting point and an end point. I work the shoreline rather quickly throwing lures that I know have worked for me in the past. I know that I will not be covering the area in depth by doing this but that isn't my goal. I'm just trying to cover as much water as possible while gaining an understanding of where the largest quantities of fish are holding on this shoreline. Think of it like a presidential poll. Do they call every potential voter or do they take a sample from a select few people? That's what were doing. As I work the shoreline I make note of every fish I see and every strike I get. The more visual signs of fish and the more bites in a single area raises the level of importance of that spot in my mind. All the while being able to eliminate the areas with few signs of fish and few to no strikes.

So then I'll go home and open up Google maps online or I'll break out an aerial photo of the places I fished that day. I'll highlight the places that were most productive and make note of the weather and tides. To really drill down an area, I will follow the same routine in the same area but at different times of the year and at different tides.

After I've figure out how to throw a "strike" in a particular area, then I can worry more about pitching the best "style" of bait. The "strike" is number one, without it, you've got nothing.

Once you learn how to be in the "strike" zone on a regular basis, you need to come back and check out my blog entry about picking the right bait for the right situation (coming soon).

Quick trip, quick bite, quick report.

Tom called me a while back about a fishing charter for he and some of his friend that were in town on a business trip. He said that they wouldn't have a lot of time to fish (a little over three hours) but that they would rather get out on the water instead of play golf like some of the other guys at his corporate get together. When they arrived we all made quick intros and rushed to the fishing grounds. We needed these fish to cooperate and we needed them to do it fast.

The first spot was a group of oyster bars that were beginning to get flooded by the incoming tide. Perfect timing for such a quick trip. Luckily we had a live well full of greenbacks that a fellow captain was generous enough to share with me (because my bait spot had run dry) and when we pulled up we started chumming. The first bite came on a really nice trout but we lost him at the boat. It took a little while to get another bite but when we did, everybody started hooking up. The bite only lasted 15 minutes but in that time we managed 7 or 8 redfish and three really nice trout.

Redfish are everywhere in the Tarpon Springs area right now. Just look for mullet and you'll find them. The last couple of days they have become more reluctant to take an artificial bait but if you have some pinfish or green backs they will bite.

Mission Accomplished

My very important client arrived early this morning. Very early. We were supposed to catch the last of the incoming high tide today which would put us in the water around 11am. However, he tugged on my bed sheets around 6am and quietly whispered, "Daddy, it's time to go fishing." I assured him that the fish were still snoozing and that he should climb into the bed with me and nap a little longer.

When we finally got ready to hit the road, all my son Cade could do was tell Mommy and his little sister that he and Daddy were going fishing and that he was going to catch a big redfish. Cade has been on the boat before but not for a fishing trip with just he and Daddy. He was excited to say the least.

First up on the agenda was to get some bait. Instead of trying to manage the cast net and watch after him, I decided to stop at Hart's 1 Stop in Tarpon springs and pick up a dozen pinfish and a dozen shrimp. From there we headed to the boat ramp in New Port Richey.

Once in the water we worked our way to one of the spots I mentioned in yesterday's report. On our way there, Cade just had to play with the shrimp. He asked all sorts of questions like, "Can the shrimp swim? Why do they have so many legs?" and, "Can we eat these?". He kept me busy for the 10 minute idle out to the mouth of the river.

When we rolled up to the first spot, I didn't see much in the way of fish. Yesterday I could see reds everywhere. I may have been early though as yesterday I hit this spot three hours later in the tide. Oh well, I cut the first pinfish in half and chunked him out there. I stuck the rod in a rod holder and resumed answering the deep questions of a three year old little boy.

It wasn't 5 minutes before the rod bent over and I handed it to Cade. He struggled to turn the handle of the reel but I told him that he could do it all by himself. He finally beat the fish and drew him up beside the boat. I pulled the little 19" red out of the water and he grinned and said, "I caught a big redfish!" I said, "You sure did son. Good job!" We took a quick photo and released the fish to fight another day.

We didn't get another bite today. Mostly because we had done what we had set out to do and Cade's mind was occupied with accomplishing other goals. He wanted to drive the boat for one thing and he wanted to make the boat go fast like the boats he saw leaving the river. I granted both wishes and we called it a day.

What an awesome feeling to take your son "real" fishing for the first time. We've spent countless hours on the dock of our neighborhood pond catching bass and bluegill, but taking him on the boat and seeing him get excited about landing a fish that I am passionate about was a real joy. When the day was over and I was putting him in the car seat, he looked at me and with a childlike sincerity he said, "Thanks for going fishing with me Dad. I had fun with you." The word "Awesome" is the only one that comes to mind every time I remember that moment.

On the way to go fishing.

The ride home after fishing.

Scouting for Tomorrow's V.I.P. Client

My son turned 3 years old last month. He's become my best fishing buddy... on the neighborhood dock at least. But now, as he would say, he's a "big boy". When I left this morning to go check some new water for fish, he all but cried his eyes out that I didn't take him along with me. He's been on the boat with me before but never for a serious fishing trip. Usually it's just been a trip to the beach to hang out with his mom, his little sister, and me. So today when I saw those bright blue eyes turn dim with tears because he couldn't go, I decided that if I found good numbers of fish today that I would take him out tomorrow and let him try to catch his first redfish.

I didn't leave the house early today because I knew the place I wanted to check out and it required a high tide. High tide in New Port Richey was going to be around 11:45am today. So I rolled out of bed at the crack of 8am and took my time prepping the little boat (Ranger 169 Ghost). I left the house about 10am and hit the Ramp in New Port Richey around 11am.

I have been fishing out of the big boat (Ranger 2200 bay) so much lately that I forgot that the Ghost had the back of it strapped down. So I backed it in and tried to get it off the trailer 2 or 3 times before I remembered that it wasn't going to come off the trailer until I let it loose of it's binds. What was really cool was that the ramp had absolutely no traffic but there were a few people at Hooters watching me back the boat down like an amature, all the while a big fat sticker on my back truck window proudly said, "Capt. Clay Fishing Charters" on it. I laughed to myself at how silly I looked while sporting an advertisement about my naval prowess on my truck. Oh well... no body's perfect.

Once I was through with my circus at the ramp I headed South to a little bay that I had seen a nice school of fish at over two months ago. There was no guarantee that they would be there today but it just seemed right. When I shut the motor off and calmly dropped the trolling motor, I approached the shallow point where I'd seen the school of redfish before. They weren't there. That kind of placed a little doubt in my mind about the day's plans. Never the less, I pressed on. I worked the shoreline for about another 150 yards and I spotted the first fish. He was lying there undisturbed and I made a perfect cast. When the bait came close he turned it down. More doubt crept into my mind. But it wouldn't stay for long as I quickly found that he was the lead fish in a school of over 50 fish. I hit the Powerpole and began making calculated casts. The third cast produced the first fish of the day. It wasn't a large fish but it was a fish and I felt the doubt begin to melt away.

Hooking and landing that fish spooked the remainder of that school. I never found them again but I kept working the shoreline and when I came to a similar spot I found a similar school of fish. This was a long stretch of shallow water lined with mangroves. But every 200-300 yards or so, there was a break in the mangroves and a shallow sand flat with spars grass extending form the water. The fish seemed to be milling around the grass that extended from the shallow water. I hooked another 3 fish at the next little sand cove.

After I had thoroughly bothered that small school of fish I moved on. Eventually, I came to a tight cut through which opened up to a large back country bay. Just inside this bay was a small island that had a deep cut along it's Northern shore. The water was crystal clear and I could see them . Tons of redfish were just hanging on the edge of this deep hole. I began casting around the edges and managed 6 more fish before the tide started dropping to a point where I needed to leave.

On the way back to the ramp I stopped at a few islands near the mouth of a river that looked similar to the last island that had produced so well. I decided to try them. As I worked my way up to them I spotted what looked like a submerged log. It wasn't. It was a 35"+ snook. I tried my best to get a good cast on her before I floated over her and I thought I have made a good presentation. But she disagreed and turned up her nose and swam off. That's when I saw all the redfish. They were everywhere. I worked those Islands for another hour and caught 8-9 more redfish and 1 nice trout.

It looks like I've found my fish for tomorrow's very important client. My 3 year old son. He's never caught a redfish before and if he gets one tomorrow he may never remember it; but I will and I can't wait.

Today the fish were broken up into two groups. I found good numbers of fish that seemed to like a change in a shallow, mangrove lined, flat. Whenever I found a large sand patch with tall grass in it I found fish. I also had good luck near islands that had deep cuts next to them. I tried a variety of baits including clear/gold flake Exude RT Slugs, gold spoons, and Mirr-O-Lure Mirr-O-Mullet. Not of which coaxed a nibble. But, the hot bait for the day was Gulp shrimp in a natural color rigged on a Mustad weedless weighted hook. Total for the day was 15 redfish and 1 trout. Check back tomorrow for my son's fishing report. I have high hopes.

It was all so cool.

What a cool day. Literally and figuratively. A good friend of mine, Capt. Greg DeVault, was going to be out of town today and referred some of his family friends to me for a day on the water chasing redfish and trout in the Tarpon Springs area. Leonard, Andrew, and Emily own boats of their own that they can use when they are down here visiting from Pittsburgh but they wanted to have someone take them out and show them a few tips and tricks. I was more than happy to oblige.

The time changed this past weekend so I had to get up an hour earlier to head to the ramp to catch bait. There was a brisk chill in the air as I dropped the boat in the water and I wished I had thought to wear pants instead of shorts. I did have a light jacket in the boat so I knew I would survive. Leonard had said that he had tried for greenbacks this past weekend with limited success and he wondered if he had done something wrong. After catching bait, I arrived at the boat ramp to pick up my crew for the day and I was able to confirm that he had done nothing wrong. I too had trouble finding the little snook candies. I did however manage to fill the well with plenty of pinfish and that was fine to me because I know redfish love them.

After the introductions and loading the boat, we hit a dock near the ramp that has been successful for both snook and redfish in the past, merely because the tide was right for it. The fish however didn't get the message. We only gave that spot 5 minutes and headed to the only spot South of the Anclote River that I wanted to hit today. When we arrived we could see a few mullet milling around and that's always a good sign. We had to reposition the boat once before Emily had managed to coax the first redfish of the day to the boat. For a good hour after that we managed several more bites that resulted in a couple of keepers that went in the well. One of which had been hooked before as evidenced by the hook lodged in his throat and the line still hanging out of his mouth. That guy must have been hungry.

After the bite died down here, we headed North of the Anclote River and North of Gulf Harbors to find some productive oyster bars. It wasn't long before Leonard had hooked up with the first fish at this spot and we all thought it was a lower slot redfish. It turned out to be a very nice sized trout. Because we were North of Fred Howard park, the season is still open for trout, so this guy went in the well. We continued to work the edges of the oyster bars for another couple of hours and we boated another nice trout and a few more redfish to round out the day.

The productive bait for the day was both live and cut pinfish all fished 12" under a weighted float. We fished both the last of the incoming tide as well as the first of the leaving tide and the fish bit on both. Cuts around oyster bars and shallow flats near the edge of a channel were the hot spots. And, apparently the best bites are to be had by really cool 12 year old girls. Emily stole the show today landing the most redfish all by herself.

Cool weather, cool people, and hot fishing. What more can you ask for?

Super Troopers.

That's what my clients were this weekend. They were Super Troopers. I knew the weather was going to be a little windy but the weather report had forecasted the weather (when I read it the night before) to have the winds calm down a little as the day went on. I figured, worst case scenario, that we could spend all day fishing the Little Manatee River. It had been holding plenty of snook and a few redfish. When I rolled up to the ramp early in the morning though, a stiff, cold, wind cut through my long sleeve teeshirt. Ouch... looked like we would be in the river all day. Which was fine to me. It just limited us to one particular area and would prevent us from fishing any of the Cockroach Bay area or the Piney Point area, which are both holding reds and snook right now.

So I dropped the boat in the water at Simmons park and hit the edge of a flat nearby where I'd been catching bait for about 1 week and 1/2. The birds weren't diving today so that had me worried. The first throw of the net yielded 3 net shredding catfish. Not a great start to the morning. A few more throws and I didn't have much to show for my efforts. I decided to make one more throw before heading out into the chop to find other bait spots and "bang", I hit the greenies. I started chumming harder and it wasn't long before I filled 2 live wells with greenbacks.

So I headed back to the ramp to pick up Kerry, Cody, and Kim. They seemed excited to be there and were all smiles. That's what I like to see. Little did I know what troopers they would truly turn out to be later in the day.

I told them that the wind hadn't died down like I had hoped but that we would have a safe, fun, day fishing the river anyway. So off we headed to the railroad trestle near HWY 41 where good reports of snook had been relayed to me by a few of my fellow guide buddies. We didn't do too well there but a friend of mine, Capt. Greg McCullough caught a few dink snook at the other end of the trestle. From there we proceeded to work our way back to the mouth of the river, hitting several points and cuts along the way. We managed hooking up on a couple of small redfish and a nice jack. When we got back near the mouth of the river, we stopped and fished under some sailboats where I had been freight trained by some monster snook earlier in the week. I hit this spot a little late this day and the tide was barely moving. We tried throwing greenbacks, pinfish, and even mullet up under the sailboats but we didn't get a hit. However, the wind seemed to be dieing just like the tide at this point. I had the bright idea that we could head out to the flats to the South for some trout while the tide was dead and then follow the water up to the shoreline as it rose.

Off we went. There was a mild chop on the water on the way down and I was excited to not have to be confined to the river which had produced only a few fish. When we got to the flat where I had caught over thirty trout a few days earlier, I thought the catching would commence. Man I was wrong. We tried that for an hour without a bite except from a few catfish. I did see saveral upper slot snook however but couldn't coax a bite. I decided to head further South to the spoil island in search of some redfish. An hour of that and we couldn't find them either. Time to head back North and see if the tide had come in enough to hit some redfish spots near Cockroach.

When we came around the spoil Island I knew we were in for it. The wind had picked back up out of the North and I was oblivious to it to this point (because the spoil Island had blocked us from it). I knew it was going to be a long, rough, wet, ride back. And it was. I never, ever, like getting my clients wet. I was really dreading this run and worried about how they might feel about me getting them wet. To my surprise, they were all smiles the whole way back and when I got back to the calmer waters of the river, with all of us drenched, I apologized. They just looked at me and said, "Hey, we own boats back home. It's part of fishing and we're having a great time." Wow, you don't know how those words made me feel. I want all of my clients to have a great time, catch lots of fish, and feel like I treated them like V.I.P.'s. When a day goes the way this one had it really gets to me and for them to say they were having a great time really lifted my spirits. We decided to hit a few more spots in the river before heading in and we managed just a few more bites fom a few smaller snook and ladyfish. Nothing huge but at least we finished by getting a few more bites.

This isn't as much a fishing report as it is a blog note and a thank you note today. I want to hit a home run every trip but sometimes it just doesn't work out like that. It makes it all the more enjoyable when you have such "Super Troopers" on the boat as I did with Kerry, Cody, and Kim. Thanks guys for chartering me and being such an awesome group of people. You're welcome on my boat any time.

Fish are harder to keep on the hook when it's windy.

Well... that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, Rob from Alberta, Canada called me about going on a Clearwater fishing charter. They wanted to use all artificial lures and target some redfish and snook. I was excited because artificial lure fishing for those two feisty game fish is my passion. We were supposed to go yesterday but I asked if they could reschedule the trip to today in hopes that the wind would lay down. It didn't.

I asked them to meet me at 10:30am this morning in order to give us a chance to hit one of my favorite low water spots at the last of the leaving tide, as well as the first of the incoming tide, and they obliged. I left the house early to head to the ramp so I could say hey to Terry, who works at the bait house at the Seminole Boat ramp. When I got there I only saw one other boat at the ramp. The high winds (20+ knots out of the North) had kept everybody home I guess. So I talked to Terry for a little while and put my boat in as Rob and his brother Jim arrived. We loaded the boat and off we went.

Rob and Jim are accomplished anglers and their ability to cast a light lure in the wind was needed today. The plan was to hit shorelines that were out of the wind. The only problem was the wind was blowing so hard that it seemed to just cut right through the mangroves, even on the lee side of any shoreline we were on. My hopes for the chop on the water being knocked down by foliage didn't come to be. Though any hope of sight fishing was obviously out, we did see a couple of snook pretty quickly at the first spot. They were close to the boat and spooked by the time we saw them but at least I knew there were some fish around.

The tide was low and getting lower, just as I had hoped. Mullet were everywhere and a few were getting crashed by snook. So things were looking good. We worked the edge of a now dry flat by blind casting Berkley Gulp Shrimp and Shad on Mustad weedless weighted hooks. About 20 minutes into the trip, Jim said, "fish on!" Two seconds after his exclamation, Rob said, "I've got one too!" I'm thinking "sweet, double hookup! This is gonna' rock!". Jim lands his lower slot redfish and halfway through Robs fight, his snook wore through the leader. Oh well, we had a double hook up early in the day. It was a great sign.

We continued to work the flat and managed a couple of keeper sized trout. It wasn't what we were looking for but we couldn't really just pick up and go because the wind kind of had us hemmed in. We saw a couple of more snook so we knew there were fish around so we were just going to have to keep working the area hard to get more bites. A couple of hours later rob hooks up again and this time it was a nice upper slot redfish. The fish seemed well in hand when all of a sudden, within 5 feet of the boat, he just comes unbuttoned. Dang it. Another thirty minutes go by without a bite and I decided that we need to get on the other side of the flat and into the trough that runs along the shoreline.

In the first 10 minutes of working this new water I see a few wakes and two tailing redfish. They were super shallow and the wind was making it hard to make a good presentation but Jim laid one in there just right and hooked up. Another lower slot fish makes it to the boat. But just after that fish was released, the few other fish that were hanging around seemed to disappear. We didn't get another bite in that area.

Plan B time. I told the guys that we might get wet but we need to try to run to another spot. I'll save you some reading time though by cutting to the chase and letting you know that the next spot, a spoil island South of the Bellaire bridge as well as the spot after that, Sutherland Bayou, didn't produce anything but a couple of very small trout.

Between the wind today and the two biggest fish of the day coming unbuttoned, it was tough out there for lure fishing. We did our best though and didn't come away with a blank. Flying a kite today would have been a whole lot easier but Rob and Jim did great (I think) by hooking two snook, 3 redfish, and 5-6 trout. Not bad at all today considering today considering the tough conditions.