After a morning full of 'baby' redfish, some of which taped over 30", Jeremy was ready to find some big ones. I was ready to see these giants for myself, and do battle.
Pushing off down the shoreline, we moved quickly to cover water as the sun climbed higher and allowed us better visibility. We came across a slight dropoff, and boom. There they were. Fish appeared in ones and twos, at 60 feet, at 10 feet, and everywhere in between. Some fish were obviously big - some were obviously bigger than even the massive bulls I had seen caught from the jetty. It was crazy. Never in my life had I seen anything like it.
The calm conditions of the previous night had allowed sediment to settle out of the water, leaving it much more clean that the day before. We still weren't able to spot fish that were hugging the bottom, but more often than not they would move off slowly enough for me to get a shot. A lot of the time, even after they spooked, they ate.
Color didn't seem to matter much to these fish, so of course that led to a game of 'let's see what they won't eat.' Not much, it turned out. I landed fish up to 39". Most of the fish came on a 7wt. It was pure fun.
Prowling about the edges of the drop were groups of big uglies - massive black drum that stampeded when we floated over them. I quickly learned to keep a weather eye on these herds, because oftentimes there was a big redfish trailing along with them. Trying to work a fly in around the black drum in such a way that the redfish ate it first became an issue several times.
Despite my best efforts to make them spit the fly before they hooked themselves, I still hauled a few to the boat.
That's when you know you're spoiled.
