Jim VanPelt and I went to Pine Island to prefish the Coastal Redfish Tour tourney scheduled for tomorrow. Our plan was to launch from Pineland, but when we arrived, the negative tide had the mud flat exposed at least 500 yards. We ended up launching from the co-op ramp and headed out. It was very chilly but the wind wasn't very bad. I was using white Gulp shrimp and Jim was trying out a new Rip Tide soft plastic. We were derifting some pretty deep potholes and getting some smaller trout. Finally I broke the ice with a decent trout.
After taking a picture, we continued on. We kept working the potholes, but kept an eye on the flats looking for any movement that meant reds. Jim hooked into another good trout on his Rip Tide bait.
As we moved along, we were getting into some pretty skinny water. Up ahead of us, I could see nervous bait fish coming out of the water, so we moved up very slowly. I had a nice red slam my bait and he started taking me for a ride. I wasn't in a hurry to get him in so I let him fight while a tried to get the camera ready for an action shot. That was all the chance he needed to throw the hook. I knew we were on them at that point, so we scouted around and caught a few more. First, I caught this 23"er
Then Jim hooked into his first red of the day.
I slowed down to take pictures, and took some really amazing action shots of Jim landing another redfish. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed all of them were ruined by a drop of water on the lens. You can make out the fish in this one.
We headed in and fished our way back. The return trip was uneventful except another decent trout.
The wind got a little worse, but it warmed up into a beautiful day! Tight lines.
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