Reds were hard to see with the muddy water and 12-18 East wind, but once they started moving it was pretty easy, seemed to be fairly large schools of 25 to 50 fish…Weird the lead fish would not bite, but the ones back in the school inhaled live shrimp.
Seems to me like we are perhaps 30 days ahead of schedule as far as the fish are acting. Larger schools of reds, plus I saw 4 flounder go airborne chasing mullet, normally I don’t see that much until mid September or later.
Kept missing fish under a “new to me” dock…finally hooked up and landed two nice 21 inch black drum, which accepted my dinner invite for tmrw night.
Only 86 degrees on the water, but it was like a sauna out there today.
Think the approach of the storm has them acting differently?
Not really, I thought it might but the pressure was hanging around 30.10+ at my house today. Once it drops to the 30- I would expect to see them eating anything they see, hear or feel.
It also seems like the shrimp are larger then normal for August. I have been getting up to 7 inch shrimp in my normal bait spots and a lot of them. Amazing how a 6 inch croaker can eat a 7 inch shrimp.
I have always used two smaller shrimp on the hook when I could not get larger ones…This year I have been doing a lot of fishing in thick grass and have used a 4/0 or 5/0 circle hook with two large shrimp…that seems to get a bite twice as much as my normal rig of 1 shrimp on a 2/0 circle hook (when fished side by side). I know one thing, the two shrimp on the hook jump around a lot more then the single shrimp…for sure.
These are brown shrimp, baiting is white shrimp…or vice versa, I forget which. At least that is what the experts tell me. But, another inch or two and the shrimp I am getting for bait will be plenty big enough for dinner. Of course, most people I know have been waiting on another inch or two most of their lives.