Sloughs, Channels, Cuts, and Creek Beds

“And I’ll take ‘places fish hang out’ as the question!”

I never know where to start.

Start at the beginning?

I called to confirm for my fishing date, and my buddy suggested we change it up a little, different launch ramp. Not exactly a new launch place, just further north than usual.

“Man, I was out there yesterday and we were just killing them!”

Thursday night was a late start, but Friday morning was early. I had a bag of beef jerky, two cans of coffee drinks, a single energy drink, and the coffee shop was still closed, it was that early. Under the cover of lazy morning fog, I made my way north to launch.

Meet, greet, motor off, me shivering in shorts. November. Early November, and shorts are still proper attire.

The first image, I started to get a few with the camera because the dawn against the clouds, then Venus high in the morning sky, all of that looked so, so, well, it was pretty.

The limit of Redfish is three in the slot, between 20 and 28 inches, and one per license over 28. My experience is the best tasting Redfish are the smaller, leaner ones, under two feet. Them big boys are a little tougher in flavor.

In one hour and forty minutes, roughly on the water at 7, I’d boated 14 Reds, of which, all were keeper in size, except, maybe one. Didn’t even bother with the ruler, kept two, but started releasing them when we got so busy catching and reeling, the fishing was great.

As the sun rose, as I shed clothing, the clouds burned off, I noticed two other boats, then three, camped out around us. Not much luck and at least two of the boats had noisy wade fisherman, who, unbeknownst to them were driving fish towards us.

Eventually, I suggested a different spot, maybe less crowded and and we eased on down the shoreline, my guess, no more than a quarter mile. One more red, keeper-size but not kept.

Catch and release, free the fighter.

Quite honestly, most of the reds were strong fighters that day. Lean, hungry, full of fury. Recent weather patterns and the relative temperature of the bay, and it being the first week of deer season, I think that all plays into the deal.

I was having a blast.

We switched places, again. Maybe a quarter mile south. Really, we just worked a section of shoreline, back side of San Jose Island, for the morning. Might not even be more than hundred meters. The last spot, my buddy pointed to a hole between two sets of underwater material, suggested that was a spot. I set lines in a few places, and I got ready to wait.

Didn’t wait long. I was gnawing on beef jerky, washing it down with water, and Green Tea, when a pole bent over and the drag started to sing.

In the past, the over-size reds have a way about them when they fight. While not, strictly speaking, oversized, the fall reds were runners. Many of them felt oversize until they were in the boat. some of them pulled the “Swim at the boat” trick. Reel faster.

Lost two to equipment failure, but my friend would never own up to that. Total number of reds kept? My three. Total catch of keepers reds? 33. Total of 35.

That was fun.