Back in Action

 So I'm sitting at work anxiously waiting for the clock to hit 5:00, and my buddy Aaron sends me a picture.  Its a redfish that he just caught wading off the beach.  That's it, I thought, I'm going fishing tonight.

The past few months have been crazy busy for me, and fishing has been put on the back burner.  My few short fishing outings have been relatively uneventful, and I have not once had the opportunity to get out on  the kayak and stalk some redfish, despite this being an excellent time of year for that.  Meanwhile, my buddy has been tearing it up this fall (although not documenting much of it in his blog).  It was time for me to ignore my responsibilities and just go fishing.

When I showed up,  Aaron had already landed several flounder in addition to the redfish.  He just needed a speckled trout to complete a Mississippi slam.  It only took me a few casts to get on the board.

From that point on, I could do no wrong.  Every cast resulted in a hit and most resulted in a hookup.  Oddly, I had on the wispiest little Clouser, stripped of the majority of its bucktail by previous fish.  I've heard that sparsely tied flies are sometimes the best ones, and I may have to experiment a little more on this theory.

In the midst of countless speckled trout, I managed to land a few small redfish as well.

Since I was used to the feel of a speckled trout, every time I hooked a redfish, I thought for a moment I had a real big one on.  Redfish fight so much harder than comparatively sized specks.

Aaron managed to complete his slam, and even added a couple white trout (super slam?).  We ended the evening throwing gurglers in the dying light.  It was hilarious to see specks shoot completely out of the water, flipping head over tail, after missing Aaron's gurgler.

It was a great evening of simple, fantastic fishing.  Wade fishing from the beach here in Mississippi can be a feast or famine experience.  This feast has re-energized me to do more fishing.  It doesn't have to be a day-long kayak trip to a secret location.  It can be simple as fishing from the beach for an hour or two after work.  I'll gladly go through a few evenings empty handed for another evening like this.