It was a windy week in the Fort, but we did fish and on two of our three days out we whacked them! Heck, even on the slow day we boated nearly twenty critters.
We were forced to fish sheltered areas so we could hide from the waffling east to southeast wind. Some directional shifts seemed to cause a rise in wind speeds reaching well over twenty-five mph. Once in a while a shift allowed the blow to drop a bit only to increase again later. Still, the boys from Texas (the Dallas Cowboys as my wife likes to call them) didn’t mind and neither did the fish!
The guys caught a few jacks, catfish, snappers and a sennet while tossing small Z-Man soft plastics along the mangroves. However, the real activity came when using live shrimp. Tossing up-current along the trees with a free-lined and tail hooked shrimp on a 1/0 circle hook produced much of their catch. When that pattern slowed to a crawl we weighted the baits slightly and “soaked” them in a few of the deeper backwater holes; this bite was on fire!
The species count included trout, snook, jacks, mangrove and mutton snappers, croaker, sheepshead, black drum, sennet (barracuda type fish), blowfish, hardheads, sail-cats and likely a couple more. They kept wondering what the next critter would look like!
The guys said they’re coming back again soon and if weather allows they want to try the inlet and nearshore in the bay boat. I can’t wait!
Until Next Time!
Capt. Mark Wright
