April/May 2014
The month of April was unseasonably cool, windy. With all the rain the water was very fresh and dirty. With that the trout bite was pretty much non-existent. The black drum that had been around the first three months of the year also took a break for the biggest part of the month of April. Thank goodness for the redfish bite, which is always our main target on every trip.
The month had a fairly steady redfish bite with the fish running from small 17” fish up to 32” fish. The days this month when the weather was somewhat stable we had some really awesome days. When we had lots of East/Northeast wind we had to really work hard for the fish we caught. For the inshore fishing, cold water temps don’t affect the fishing. The heavy rains and wind do. The fresh water that gets dumped into the system turns the water to mud. And the winds that blow out of the East/Northeast don’t let the tides get really low, which keep the fish spread out.
The month of May overall has been a great month for fishing with the water clearing up. The trout bite has started to turn off with the trout running anywhere from 14” to 28”. Drum have been showing up this month in fair numbers, although not what we are used to. The past winter really messed up the timing of the inshore fish. The redfish have stayed steady however.
The trick to catching these redfish this month has been to keep moving to stay on top of them. The fish have not been spread out in a lot of different places. They’ve been schooled up in small areas and moving a lot.
We’ve had to move a lot to find these fish. They may stay there one day and then they are gone. So for May, just because you caught a lot of fish in a particular spot yesterday didn’t mean they were going to be there the next. You had to understand this and spend a lot of time trying to duplicate the day before. That’s the approach we took and found success!! The fish have all been quality fish in the 25 – 32” size. With everything being late this year due to the long winter – I expect June and July to be a couple of really great months to be fishing the back country!!
