Workin' Overtime

The fall seems to be, in my two and a half years here on the coast, my favorite time of year.  The hot weather breaks and the morning and evening temperatures can be down right chilly.  The bait also seem to enjoy the cooler temperatures as it moves into the area in droves.  Schools of pogeys can stretch on for football field lengths and the shrimp is so abundant that it pops out of the water with every step as you wade.  With the bait comes the game fish.  The reds pour onto our shores and at least one keeper speck is guaranteed whether the fish are biting or not.  And with the cooler weather come the bull reds, which I am TRYING to get onto.  I've been working mullet and white trout schools cause supposedly, that is what the bulls follow.  On the days when I have focused my efforts on the bulls, I usually spend most of my day taking small white trout off my hook. They say you have to kiss a frog or two before you find a prince.

Tonight was no exception to the rule.  I decided to meet up with my friend Jake, who doesn't get a lot of time to get away from his family to fish. His time on the water is precious.  We went to my spot to wade fish.  I like this spot because it's not far from where I live, it's far enough away that people don't bother me, and the fishing is phenomenal.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to test out the gurgler pattern I've recently started tying.  I've wanted to do a tying post for some time and think I may start with this fly.  It's pretty easy and has proved absolutely dy-NO-MYTE! for surface speck fishing at dawn and dusk.

We got to the spot, Jake with his spin cast gear, and me with my fly rod in hand.  We both began working the shore and not long after our arrival, Jake managed to hook up with his first speck.  He threw it back, and on the next cast, BOOM, redfish.  This was a special trip for me because I love it when people can say it's a first for them. Well Jake has lived here a little longer than I and he said after this redfish, "I've caught a total of 1 redfish since moving down here." He then continued to talk about how much more colorful the fish here are.  This makes me excited. I love getting people on the fish.

Jake let the redfish go and on the immediate next cast, he hooked up with a real nice flounder.  Mississippi Inshore Slam in THREE CASTS!  I was very impressed.  It was about this time that the bite took off for me and soon there after, I had a Mississippi Inshore Slam on my chartreuse and white Clouser Minnow.  The redfish was absolutely unmistakable.  I set the hook and the brute took off pulling all my loose line out.  The harder I pulled, the harder he pulled. After a gallant ten minute tug of war, I landed the fish and released him to fight another day.

The end of the night found Jake with a total of four reds, quadrupling his lifetime total! GOOD NIGHT!

Because of work, I've been working funky hours. 9 and 10 hour days have been the norm.  I usually get down to the water and fish about an hour of light and then fish in the dark for a little bit. When the transition occurs, I've found that that is the time to throw on my gurgler flies. If the conditions are right, it makes for some of the most exciting fishing I've experienced.

By conditions being right, I've gone on both nights where it was dead calm and nights where the waves were crashing the shoreline.  Neither nights produce optimum conditions. I've found that if there is a light breeze from any direction but the north, this spot lights up.  I suspect it is because of the wind pushing the bait into the indentation where I fish.  The oyster bed nearby helps. 

I've seen a preference towards yellow and white foam, although this is unverified as I haven't tried another color.

I tied this on with about five minutes left of daylight and began working some of the bait schools that were visible on the surface.  Apparently it was a dead ringer, because the bait would flock to it and follow.  Five minutes after i started gurglin', a huge explosion erupted just a few yards in front of me.  My line went taught and began to pull harder than anything I had caught at that point.  A nice 18" speckled trout had found my gurgler.  I love speckled trout. They attack lures and flies with reckless abandon and this one was particularly angry when he hit.  When I landed the fish, the gurgler was all the way back in the back of it's mouth. The fish were hungry apparently.

This continued for a while.  All the sea trout were big and aggressive. At one point I actually hooked three in a row.  Trout were launching themselves fully out of the water to eat my fly. With each hookup, I let out a little giggle at how hard and aggressive these fish would attack.  All and all I ended up with 4 monster trout that my buddy Jake kept (gotta feed them little ones!) and two giants I threw back.  On a fly rod in about two hours time, that's a good night.

Jake caught the flounder. I take no credit for that!

This has been the norm for a few weeks now. Me by myself or with a friend catch the evening bite and go home with a nice dinner and a few great laughs about fish on top water. I suspect this will continue on a while longer too until the trout go into winter mode and you need sinking fly lines to get to them.  I also suspect my work schedule to continue like it has into next year. Until then, I'll be fishing on the weekends and workin' overtime on the specks.  Tight lines everybody.