The Secret Spot

Almost two years ago, I paddled into a tough-to-access local bayou and caught my first sight-fished marsh redfish in what became the original "secret spot". Due to its difficult entrance and the success I've been having in other locations, I hadn't paid a visit to the secret spot this year since early spring. I was even beginning to wonder if the "secret spot" was really that special or if I'd just been oblivious to the quality of redfishing all along the coast.

This weekend I finally made my way back. The "secret spot" did not disappoint. From the hours of 7 am to 11 am, I was absolutely surrounded by redfish. I cannot believe how many shots I had. There was a period of about an hour where I poled up a narrow branch of the bayou and spotted redfish literally every 15 yards. Some were cruising down with the tide, periodically crashing bait at the edge of the grass. Others were laid up on the edge of the channel, heads pointed into the current. It was nonstop action.

I had 6 eats and landed 4 on the day. Given how many fish I saw, I could have done a lot better. My conversion rate was abysmal. The great thing about having like 500 chances at fish in one day is that you learn a ton. It was like a whole season of fishing packed into one day. 

Why so crabby?

My main excuse is that I was fishing solo from the skiff today. I fish for reds three different ways: kayak, two people in the boat, or alone in the boat. Having owned the skiff since March, I've learned that at my current skill level, it is easier to catch redfish from the kayak than from the boat. The biggest reason is that they simply spook much faster when you're in a boat. That's assuming there is a person poling and a person fishing in the boat. When its only you, it gets even harder. This was actually the first time I've managed to land a red in the boat by myself.

Poling from the bow is the best option when going solo

One of my big lessons from the day is about fishing in current. As I described earlier, I found a lot of redfish while poling up a narrow branch. The branch had a very defined channel (~3 - 4 ft deep) and shallow edges, with most of the redfish being spotted in the shallows right next to the drop off. The current was ripping through the channel, and I was usually trying to cast my crab fly from one side to the other. Many times, I cast the crab fly within a foot or two of the fish. As the fish turned to make a move on the fly, the fly would get pulled into the current. Instead of chasing it down, the fish would nonchalantly disappear into the depths as if they were able to sense something was amiss. I'm not sure what the takeaway is here. I didn't really solve the problem - I actually caught most of my fish in areas where the narrow branch opened up into a wide marsh pond. My ideas are casting further into the shallows, using a heavier fly, or using a minnow imitation which might look more natural swimming in the current. 

Overall, it was still a wildly successful day in my opinion. The best development is that most of the fish I spotted were not breaching the surface in any way, which I depend on when kayak fishing. Instead, I was able to take advantage of the height of the boat and spot fish in the relatively clear water that can generally be found in the Mississippi marsh for the next few months. Its going to be a good winter.

Fishing Guide

Things haven't exactly been busy over here at Michissippi Fly, but I've been fairly busy in the real world. I got to play fishing guide last weekend to three good friends who visited with fishing on their minds. My goal was to get everyone to successfully sightfish a red. I was optimistic as Aaron has been killing it lately (and making some pretty sweet videos), and I had caught a few the previous weekend. But if I learned one thing, it's that being a fishing guide is tough. We didn't strike out, but our fish per hour rate was pretty poor. Instead of boring you with a detailed report, I'll just throw some pictures at you.

Check out the spots on this guy

Best fish of the weekend

Solo scouting trip

What a fatty

To be caught again...

An Evening Out

Its the wonderful time of year when as long as the tide isn't too high, you can successfully sightfish for reds pretty much every morning and evening if you look in the right places. I haven't been taking advantage of that as much as I'd like for one reason or another, but I did manage to take my friend Jason out on the boat recently after work. We headed into the Pascagoula River Marsh around 4:30 pm and immediately found redfish making wakes.

Why are you taking a picture of such a small fish?

Jason used a spinning rod, and it allowed me to really see the pros and cons of redfishing with a spinning rod vs a fly rod. There are a few obvious advantages to the spin fisher, particularly ease of fishing deep, and ease of casting. One fairly obvious fly rodding advantage is the fact that flies land more gently on the water, preventing fish from spooking. But the main fly rodding advantage that I finally realized on this trip is that a fly fisher can pick up a cast and immediately make another when necessary, but a spin fisher has to reel all the way in first. This was a big one on the day because Jason did a fair amount of blind casting (which was somewhat successful), and I kept calling out fish locations, expecting an immediate response from him, but forgetting that he had to reel in first. In sightfishing, it is sometimes crucially important to get a cast out quickly, particularly if the fish is close to the boat or moving toward the boat with pace.

Plans almost derailed by this thunderstorm

It was a different day than what I was used to, but still successful. We pulled a few fish out of the channels and a few off of mud flats that we knew held a fish or two but couldn't pin point their exact location. We found several crawlers, and Jason had 2 nice fish follow his jig up to the boat, but we couldn't seal the deal. I was disappointed about that, but overall I was glad we caught fish and glad we got to see some redfish doing their thing.

Another conclusion I drew from this trip is that sightfishing weeds out the little ones. Most of the fish I usually catch are in the low 20's (inches), but these were much smaller. I guess it makes sense that the big ones make the most commotion and therefore are easier to sightfish.

On a side note, Aaron was fishing out of his kayak in the same area, and it was fun to have all of us in the marsh at the same time. He one-upped Jason and me and found the biggest redfish of the evening.

Horn Island

When I moved down to Mississippi almost three years ago, I quickly developed two main goals in terms of outdoor pursuits. Number one was to figure out how to sightfish for redfish. Number two was to kayak to one of the barrier islands.

Five barrier islands grace the relatively short coastline of Mississippi. They are Petit Bois, Horn, East Ship, West Ship, and Cat. Horn Island is considered to be the prize of the Mississippi barrier islands due to its large size, tidal lagoons, numerous trees, and beautiful beaches. There are barrier islands all along the Gulf of Mexico, but the Mississippi barrier islands are special because they are almost completely undeveloped. This is probably due to the fact that they are further offshore than most Gulf barrier islands, but for whatever reason, there are no bridges to the islands, there are very few man-made structures, and all except Cat are completely within the Gulf Islands National Seashore. So while there are no condos, beach houses, or high rises to attract tourists, the lack of development, in my opinion, makes the islands much more special.

Horn Island lies near the cities of Gautier and Ocean Springs, ranging from 6 to 10 miles directly south of the coast. The Mississippi Sound in between is a large, shallow body of water where waves can kick up in a relatively short period of time, making it a serious open water paddle. Most people look at me funny when I say anything about paddling out to Horn. Fortunately, I found a friend who is just as crazy as I am!

The trees of Horn Island are just visible above the pelicans - roughly 7 miles from our launch point

We planned to meet at our launching point at 6:00 am Saturday morning. Due to alarm clock operating error, I didn't show up till 6:15, and on top of that, I had to run back for my life jacket! Life jackets are somewhat important for extreme kayaking expeditions... We ended up leaving at 7:00 and some fairly large waves awaited us. I was very glad for my sprayskirt and waterproof hatches. Despite the waves, our trip was uneventful, and we paddled about six miles across and then four more miles down to the west end of the island where we camped.

Did I mention the fishing is good? Right, so I'd actually been to Horn once before, and this happened. I did some fishing this time around too. The only luck I had was on a sand flat with some patches of grass on the Sound side. Strangely, I caught three different types of fish standing in almost the same place over the course of about an hour.

Redfish, sheepshead, speckled trout. Pretty cool to catch all three in the same place. That was the extent of my fishing luck, and sadly I caught them too early in the day to be cooked for dinner. Despite my tendency to release fish, I was hoping to cook one up on this trip.

The west tip of the island where we camped is very popular due to its access to both the Gulf and Sound and the fact that the mosquitoes, gnats, and flies that thrive on Horn tend to be less of a problem on the treeless tips. The downside is that with no trees and only short dunes, the tips are much less scenic compared to the middle. Regardless, boats were parked all along the tip during the day, but most left around 6:00 pm leaving us in relative peace, just a couple other groups spread out along the shoreline for the night.

These short dunes are all that separate the Sound from the Gulf at this point.

Lantern light and  Biloxi in the distance

No trees on the west tip - helps keep the bugs away

Morning brought a beautiful sunrise, but swarms of gnats sent me scurrying back into my tent. When I emerged for a second time, my mosquito head netting slowed the gnats down but was too coarse to keep them out completely. Eventually the wind picked up and we were left in peace.

With the direction of the wind, we were going to have to fight it all the way back to our launching point, so we got an early start to our 8 mile journey. It was a long three hours of steady paddling, but we made it back early Sunday afternoon, exhausted, but with a feeling of accomplishment.

It's On

Remember that post I made a month ago about how the redfishing was going to turn on any day?  Well that day has passed us. It's on.

Aaron and I took off after work last week for a little redfishing in the vast Pascagoula River Marsh. We weren't sure what to expect as it is an area we had only explored briefly before. Almost within sight of the launch I cast at the first fishy looking disturbance. Immediately a redfish blew up on the fly, managing to avoid getting hooked. After that, we knew it was going to be a good day.

Over the course of the first hour as we poled through a deep channel with shallow edges. The fish were there, but they kept popping up out of the channel only to disappear again when we approached. It was tough, but things would get better.

We moved on to a spot that looked extremely promising on satellite images. It was awesome. There were redfish in every direction. It was literally a matter of picking which one to go after.

In total we had 6 or 7 eats, with 5 hooked and 3 landed. With the number of fish targeted, we didn't have a great success rate, but I think we are still figuring out the differences between fishing from a flats boat vs. from a kayak. For one, with the high profile, the fish spook much more easily, so you have to stay further away and make longer casts from the boat. We spooked a lot of fish by getting too close. But overall it was an awesome, action packed day, no matter how many fish were landed.

If you live on the Gulf Coast, its time to get out there!

Release...

...and looking for the next one!

First Connection

Aaron and I got out on the boat after this work last week and finally christened it with its first fish. I've owned the boat since March, but in my defense, I would say this was just its second serious fishing outing. And to end another poor streak, I caught my first redfish since December! Yikes...

It felt great to hook up with a redfish again.  Its pure magic when you first feel the line go taut upon strip setting. For that moment when the rod is pointed straight and the fish is trying to figure out what is going on, you are literally playing tug of war, the line in your left hand. In this moment when the fish first feels the tug, the whole scene changes. I have an image in my mind of a back and tail breaching the water and showing the first signs of alarm, writhing for just a second before taking off on a run. This is the image that is seared into my mind. Not the cast, or the eat, or the fight, or the grab of the tail - although those are all good moments. The first connection is what really sticks.

Enough waxing poetically, here's the fishing report. Aaron and I poled around seeing limited signs of fish for about an hour before we finally saw an obvious crawler with Aaron on the poling platform and me on the bow.  It took me two or three fairly long casts to get it within the strike zone.

No visibility...

We switched up regularly and after moving to a nearby bayou, Aaron hooked up casting after a swirl in the channel.

Stylin'

We switched again and I had another really great chance at a crawler.  My first cast was about four feet to his left, and he ignored it.  Coming straight toward me at some speed, I struggled to strip in enough line and make an accurate shorter cast, and he escaped to deeper water. I am realizing that it is much more difficult to catch a fish coming straight toward you versus one that is swimming across your view.

Just a few moments later I hooked up with another red by blind casting into a channel, but he got off after a brief battle.

It was a beautiful evening on the bayou with plenty of action to keep us entertained. Looking forward to many more like this.

Heading North

With my annual migration back to Michigan approaching, I had to make one more trip out on the bayou. Aaron and I headed out on an extremely low tide, expecting superb sight fishing conditions. We found them... for about 30 minutes. We each landed one nice red a piece, and I completely blew a perfectly wonderful chance where I had three redfish feeding right in front of me. After that I paddled around for about 4 hours and only had one more chance where I managed to pull the fly out of a fish's mouth. Bummer. A relatively uneventful day by our recent redfishing standards.

To shake things up I used my 6 wt rod on this trip instead of my usual 8 wt which was a fun challenge. It was pretty difficult to make the quick, line shooting casts required for successful sight fishing. I need a little more practice, but I'm getting there. The goal is to eventually land a redfish on my other 6 wt, a short fiberglass rod. I took it out once earlier this year and was completely humiliated...

I also gave my new Lamson Konic reel its first workout on something other than a hardhead catfish. It performed flawlessly, and its drag is by far the smoothest of any reel I own. I like it.

I haven't seen any alligators on my most recent outings, but the wife and I saw several on a kayaking expedition a few weeks ago before they went dormant, including this one which we found sleeping.

Nice shot honey!

 On our next kayaking expedition, I finally got to show her what redfishing is all about. And she took some great pictures!

In the plans for my trip up north is a repeat of last year's grouse hunting trip. My buddy Nick has once again invited friends to his family's luxurious hunting camp, and maybe this time I'll finally shoot something. Hopefully I'll be back next year with a report on that.

Merry Christmas!