The announcement on the news last Thursday night that it was the summer solstice, rang a wake up bell for me. I had not been taking advantage of the long days and fishing after work nearly as much as I needed to. Evening fishing after work spells topwater action for Trout, Reds, Ladyfish, Blues, Spanish, you get the picture! As far as angling experiences go, watching a fish blow up on a topwater bait ranks extremely high on the excitement scale for me.
Realizing that within the next 3-months it would be pitch black dark by the time I was home from work I made a commitment to hit the water every possible chance I get over the next few months. Last night after work, I left the dock around 7:30, caught some finger mullet, and was fishing at one of my favorite spots by 8:00. I rigged up a finger mullet on a bottom rig and then pitched it toward the center of the creek in hopes a Red or Flounder would come across it. I then rigged up a MirroLure Top Dog and started fishing it over a dead shell bed. This particular bed comes out to a point and 2-hours into the outgoing tide the water was ripping over the tip of the point pretty good.
As the sun began to drop low on the horizon action began to heat up. There were several large schools of finger mullet running around the bed and every now and then you could see the school scatter. I pitched the topwater bait over the oyster bed and began to work it slowly back against the tide. Halfway back to the boat a saw a nice silver flash and saw a fish crash the bait. The fish effortlessly ran and then began an awesome aerial show. I was hooked up with a 2 to 3-pound poor mans Tarpon, AKA a Ladyfish.
After a nice 5-minute aerial show and a good release I was back at it working the plug over the oyster bed. Several casts later I had a large gold flash blowing up on the bait. A nice sized clumsy Redfish was after the Top Dog, unfortunately in my excitement I think I worked the bait a little too hard and the fish was unable to get his lips around it. A