My brother and I traveled to Niceville, FL (due north of Destin) over the long weekend to fish with a buddy and get some work done on our dad’s house. We fished a good bit and a lot of it was scouting since neither of us had much knowledge on how to find fish during the winter. The first morning out was chilly and more breezy than expected. It was a challenge for my flats boat on the open bay but we did ok anyway. Ended up tied off to the center pier of the mid-bay bridge with some live shrimp and caught a slot red that went home for dinner with our buddy. He also took home a 16" sheeps head. We also trolled some following directions from the local bait and tackle shop (Half Hitch in Destin - they’re good folks). We didn’t catch anything that way and gave up.
The next day it was just me and my brother. We put out a pinfish trap in deep water and also tried our luck with a sabiki rig to catch some who had robbed our live shrimp the previous day. We were trying to find a consistent way to get live bait in the winter and the sabiki tipped with cut mullet paid off. We had plenty pinfish but they didn’t bring in any reds or anything else. Next we decided to make a better effort trolling along side the bridge pilings and caught a 34" red that darted out from under a piling and slammed the deep running plug that we were trolling. We revived him had he swam off healthy to go make more baby redfish.
Overall it was a great trip. It’s an awesome place to fish if you ever get the chance to go down there.
Slot red for dinner
Over slot red released
