CLICK TO ENLARGE DARNELL NEWS ARTICLE

HAPPY FISHERMEN

5-24-2014-- Predictions were for very little tide movement so I opted to go for redfish believing

the trout bite would be off.  The father/son team limited on redfish using cut menhadden.  

REDFISH LIKE THE WIND

 5--22--2014--Had a father and two sons today.  We opted to go for redfish.   Two reds were taken very early but then the bite died until about 11 AM when it turned on.   They ended up with their limit of 9 redfish.  Tomorrow, I plan to start on trout and revert to redfish when the bite slows.

AGE IS NO BARRIER

 5-19-2014--Had one young 85 year old today.  Redfish and trout have been so tough to come by since the full moon I opted to pursue black drum today.  My spry 85 year old limited on black drum and boxed one trout in addition to countless smaller fish including sheepshead, black drum, hardheads and gafftop sail catfish.  Yesterday, my four fishers each boxed a redfish and together caught, smaller redfish, dog fish, sting rays, and bonnethead shark.

BABES ON THE BAY

     5-17-2014-- Today was the annual Babes on the Bay fishing tournament, the largest all woman's fishing tournament. Low tides and strong winds made fishing tough.  The weigh-in stringer was to consist of one redfish and three trout.  My ladies got the reds with no problem but only got one trout.

COLD WIND REDFISH

5-14-2013--Had the same couple the past two days.  Yesterday, we couldn't fish until 1 PM due to rain.  During the afternoon trip they caught 4 keeper reds.  The wind was over 30 mph and very cold.  None of us were prepared with enough clothing to be comfortably warm.  The only good thing was we had the bay all to ourselves.  Today there were a few more boats on the water and we had warmer clothing.  They were limited on redfish and had one black drum when we quit at noon.  We've mostly been using menhaden for bait but yesterday, one of the reds came on shrimp and today four of them were taken on shrimp.

REDFISH SAVE THE DAY

5-10-2014--We had a two boat trip with two ladies and two men in each boat.  The plan was to wade using croaker for bait.  Normally the croaker are good sized by this time in May but this year everything is late and the croaker are still too small to be effective bait.  The clients wanted to try them anyway because they had done so well in the past at this time of year.  Most of the morning was dead calm with very light winds from different directions in between.  I doubt that we could have overcome the conditions even if we had larger croaker.   Luckily we had a plan B so after getting only two keeper trout in the morning we got back in the boats and went for redfish using menhadden for bait.  The redfish were very cooperative.