Goldfish

This week the weather really limited the time spent on the water. I was real worried with the recent cold front and torrential rain it would force the bull reds into the ocean so we did some scouting and  came up big again. Meghan to me she wanted to beat my biggest red last week at 51", I told her it wouldn't be easy but she could try but it may take years..

 

50" Red

 

 

New spot Fat Goldfish

 

Near slot wanna be bull red

47" Red

Release

 

Fighting a Giant Red

Photo by: Rob Choi (Angling-Addict.com)

53" Red, yeah she beat my personal best on her second day trying!

 

Release of the giant

 

This week looks like a favorable forecast so I look forward to getting on a few more, hopefully one from the kayak if I can find em close enough!

Big Things!

In the beginning of the summer I promised big things were coming. To steal a quote from Gladiator's Maximus: Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?

Well big things were coming and I poured it on this week again with Giant Bull Reds with several up to 51"s!

 

 

Lets hope they stick around after this cold front this week and we can get just a few more of these old guys in the boat!

Cobes, Reds and a photo shoot

Quick report from the week of 9/8. Mid week we got an invite from  Brian Olszyk of Stretched Out Fishing ( https://www.youtube.com/user/SportFishingTourism ).  We took his boat with the swell and winds rising. We managed to spot some Cobia and landed 2 keepers and 2 throw backs in about 3 hours of fishing. Not too bad for a quick afternoon trip.

 

I then had Meghan Lorraine come back up to go fishing with me this Saturday. She is he newest member of Lucid Fishing (www.LucidFishing.com) and wanted to get some photos. Our plan was to look for cobia then find a spot for Bull Reds. Well after about 90 minutes of looking we decided to fish for reds and look again in the afternoon. I immediately set out lines with dead bait while she starts bait fishing. She gets us small spot and croaker both of which go back out on lines. We get a run and I can see the head shakes and I say yeah that's a red. We get it to the boat and she yells "that's a Giant Redfish!!", I net it and we quickly work to measure, photo and release the fish.

 

50" Red, my first Red off the boat!

 

Meghan with a Giant Virginia Bull Red using her Lucid Grips! Not a plug but due to the size she really does need them to position large fish for photos. 

 

Reviving the old Red

After that the storms began moving in and we raced them home. We finished off the day with drinks and Texas A&M football at home. What a great day!

The next day Kencraft Boats asked for some photos of my ride, a Challenger 206. So we sent them some decent ones despite the wind and lighting being off.

 

 

Hopefully the rain wont ruin fishing for long and we can really get into the fall fishing, then we have to decide what to chase on any given day with everything biting! 

Slump Busting

The last couple weeks of fishing have produced both some highs and lows on the water. We started in a slump that didn't want to quit, but after this past week, it's safe to say that our luck has turned around!

To start, I got out with Meghan, who came up from Florida for Labor Day weekend. The plan was to do something easy, but she refused, saying she wanted to do something that required a little more skill. We started by running the buoys, but no one was home, so we began scouting for Cobia and found a rat -- it's not a trophy, but it's action!

We put some lines out and trolled for a bit, with a couple Spanish bites, landing and a pretty big one -- a weight citation, one of only 7 reported this year in Virginia!

She wanted to try kayak fishing, so we went for trout, but her first fish was a baby flounder. She finally got a bite from a 22" trout, her new personal best kayak caught fish!

Later that week, my buddy Lee and I got an invite to head out with Brian Olszyk of Stretched Out Fishing ( https://www.youtube.com/user/SportFishingTourism ). There were five of us on the boat and I let him know Lee and I have had had a string of bad luck lately, but he was confident we would get on some fish. Well he was right, as we had a limit of Cobia within 90 minutes and it all happened so quick I didn't get any photos! But it was awesome and he managed to break the curse. I really owe him and Jerry thanks for a great trip and the quote "if you're not yelling, it's not Cobia fishing".

The next day looked good before the storms hit. So Lee and I took my Kencraft out with our buddy Alex. Once we got rigged up and in the tower we immediately began seeing pods of fish. The first two didn't want to eat and the third pod was only two fish. The first keeper ate an eel and once next to the boat I tossed a jig and hooked the rat for fun while running the boat! A double! We landed both and kept the legal fish.

We kept looking, hooking another keeper. Then as I see a pod, Lee casts and I tell him not there as he comes tight. Lots of weight, the fish took forever to surface staying deep, but when it did it brought up a pod of 40-60lb Cobia with it. Honestly I was too shocked to get a cast off. It was amazing. We boated the 50lb stud and kept looking. Within 5 minutes as the guys are rerigging, cleaning the deck I see a turtle covered in big cobia. There were so many as the turtle surfaced he pushed one cobia out of the water. Alex had a shot, but missed the cast and they went deep. We kept looking and called out a location of another keeper to a guide close by, he hooked up and thanked me later.

All in all, it's been a great couple weeks for fishing, and now that the slump is over, it's time to get out there and start landing more big ones.

Please also check out this months The Fishermans Journal, I had an article and photos published about fishing new locations in different parts of the country. You can view it here:
http://thefishermansjournal.com/blog/2014/09/06/the-september-2014-issue-of-the-fishermans-journal/