Left Columbia early am Saturday and put in at IOP Marina about 8. First stop was a little slow with only a couple of trout, but then we hit a few spots around the ICW that produced a bunch of trout, a couple of slot reds, some shorts and a daymaker (for us anyway) 30" red. All on pearl white grubs on the last of the falling tide and during dead low.
It wasn’t even noon yet, so we headed to the Nearshore Reef with hopes of catching a few sheepshead. Impossible to keep a fiddler down more than a minute or so for the BSB, so we just hung out a while quenching our thirst while having some fun catching them on ANYTHING you dropped down. Did pick up one nice slot red jigging a 3oz hopkins spoon. Thought about trrying them at the jetties, but I’m not comfortable anchoring real close to the jetties yet.
Saw some bait on the way back up the ICW, stopped and picked up a dozen more trout there real quick, but not one was a keeper.
Sun am was a crazy am. We got on the water about 8 again. Went to the first spot and pulled right up into the grass. First thing, my friend casted out a cork with a mm to leave out while he casted a grub. He put it in a rod holder and as soon as he casted out his grub, the MM rod doubled over, so he put down the rod with the grub. While he was fighting his fish, I landed a trout and then netted his 28" red for him. Then, while he unhooked his red I pulled in his grub that was left out there and there was a flounder on it!! In the first 10 minutes of fishing we had a red, a trout and a flounder!! LOL The trout was short and the flounder was probably one of the smallest I have ever seen caught on a rod and reel, but still a good omen.
We then moved to one of the spots we caught mostly trout at the day before, but it was all reds on Sunday. We got about 7 or 8 (all under slot) on the same white grubs and mud minnows before heading home at noon.
What an awesome weekend with a good friend and us both catching more trout and redfish than we have ever caught as well as both