As we pulled away from the dock, I could not help feeling a little anxious about this fishing trip. I had experienced some amazing fishing while wading this particular flat and really wanted my dad to see how much fun wading and catching fish could be. We had already made two trips to this flat and so far we had not experienced any action. I was already making up my mind that this would probably be the last time I tried to get him to wade in this area with me if we did not see any fish.
We arrived right on time about an hour before low tide. The way this particular flat was set up all of the water would flow through one channel just before low tide. There would be acres of water about 18” deep when the tide quite running. We would fish the channel as the tide went out and then work our way into the flat to target the fish that decided to stick around through low tide. After two fruitless trips I was not feeling very confident and I anchored the boat out away from the shore, so we would not be stuck if we did not see any fish.
As we made toward the flat along the channel, I saw a disturbance out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see the unmistakable wake of redfish pushing water with their big dome heads. I made a quick cast in front of the school and with two twitches of my lure I was hooked up and the reel began to scream. My dad made a cast to the remaining fish and also hooked up. We fought the fish standing side-by-side smiling and giggling like a couple of kids on Christmas morning. We landed both fish, 26” twins and got right back to fishing. We saw hundreds of fish that day as we moved up onto the flat. Every time a gull would fly over it would scare the bait and the reds would begin crashing all around us. We had fish swim between us, around us, and occasionally, even into us. This was a day I will remember forever, not only because of what I experienced, but being able to watch my dad experience it for the first time.
There is something about stalking fish by foot that cannot