Late Saturday morning and what to do… Well, the timing is about right to head to Copahee, so that is what I convince my daughter we should do. We only had to walk about 4 feet down the creek then we could paddle the rest of the way out. We stopped at the island and caught up some bait, but would have to wait a while before we could get into the bay, so we decided to play with some sharks.
We stopped at a creek with TONS of bait everywhere and fish crashing everywhere. I know there were ladyfish in the mix, but some bait crashers looked to be close to 3’ in length, but I didn’t see them long enough to know if they were shark, or possibly small tarpon? Anyways, we caught a few small shark, a couple whiting, and had a few bigger hits and runs, which resulted in a large fish flying through the air and coming off the hook.
Once the water came in some more, I threw the net and picked up a couple large mullet and we headed for the grass line. Three lines out with live mullet sat for a while, until my daughter said we were not doing to well yet. I told her that while I have not caught as many fish out here, they were generally big enough to be worth it. Within 5 mintues of that, her float disappeared and the drag starts screaming. She reacted and had the fish for about 15 seconds, then it came off! A few minutes later, while reeling in to check her bait, something hit within 10’ of her kayak and ripped off a bunch of line and went bye-bye…
Finally it was my turn to get a bite. Freight train on, then off, or so I thought. It had turned towards me, but when the slack line reeled in, it went deep into the grass. With the water as warm as it is, the fight left pretty quickly and I just had to wrestle it out of the grass. As it came closer to yak-side, my daughter, whose previous redfish were 27-28" (7-8lb) range, started freaking out a little. The head looked like a bowling ball. A quick lip-grip landing and some pics were followed by a nice yak-side recovery and release. I didn’t get a length o
