My son turned 3 years old last month. He's become my best fishing buddy... on the neighborhood dock at least. But now, as he would say, he's a "big boy". When I left this morning to go check some new water for fish, he all but cried his eyes out that I didn't take him along with me. He's been on the boat with me before but never for a serious fishing trip. Usually it's just been a trip to the beach to hang out with his mom, his little sister, and me. So today when I saw those bright blue eyes turn dim with tears because he couldn't go, I decided that if I found good numbers of fish today that I would take him out tomorrow and let him try to catch his first redfish.

I didn't leave the house early today because I knew the place I wanted to check out and it required a high tide. High tide in New Port Richey was going to be around 11:45am today. So I rolled out of bed at the crack of 8am and took my time prepping the little boat (Ranger 169 Ghost). I left the house about 10am and hit the Ramp in New Port Richey around 11am.

I have been fishing out of the big boat (Ranger 2200 bay) so much lately that I forgot that the Ghost had the back of it strapped down. So I backed it in and tried to get it off the trailer 2 or 3 times before I remembered that it wasn't going to come off the trailer until I let it loose of it's binds. What was really cool was that the ramp had absolutely no traffic but there were a few people at Hooters watching me back the boat down like an amature, all the while a big fat sticker on my back truck window proudly said, "Capt. Clay Fishing Charters" on it. I laughed to myself at how silly I looked while sporting an advertisement about my naval prowess on my truck. Oh well... no body's perfect.

Once I was through with my circus at the ramp I headed South to a little bay that I had seen a nice school of fish at over two months ago. There was no guarantee that they would be there today but it just seemed right. When I shut the motor off and calmly dropped the trolling motor, I approached the shallow point where I'd seen the school of redfish before. They weren't there. That kind of placed a little doubt in my mind about the day's plans. Never the less, I pressed on. I worked the shoreline for about another 150 yards and I spotted the first fish. He was lying there undisturbed and I made a perfect cast. When the bait came close he turned it down. More doubt crept into my mind. But it wouldn't stay for long as I quickly found that he was the lead fish in a school of over 50 fish. I hit the Powerpole and began making calculated casts. The third cast produced the first fish of the day. It wasn't a large fish but it was a fish and I felt the doubt begin to melt away.

Hooking and landing that fish spooked the remainder of that school. I never found them again but I kept working the shoreline and when I came to a similar spot I found a similar school of fish. This was a long stretch of shallow water lined with mangroves. But every 200-300 yards or so, there was a break in the mangroves and a shallow sand flat with sparse grass extending form the water. The fish seemed to be milling around the grass that extended from the shallow water. I hooked another 3 fish at the next little sand cove.

After I had thoroughly bothered that small school of fish I moved on. Eventually, I came to a tight cut through which opened up to a large back country bay. Just inside this bay was a small island that had a deep cut along it's Northern shore. The water was crystal clear and I could see them . Tons of redfish were just hanging on the edge of this deep hole. I began casting around the edges and managed 6 more fish before the tide started dropping to a point where I needed to leave.

On the way back to the ramp I stopped at a few islands near the mouth of a river that looked similar to the last island that had produced so well. I decided to try them. As I worked my way up to them I spotted what looked like a submerged log. It wasn't. It was a 35"+ snook. I tried my best to get a good cast on her before I floated over her and I thought I had made a good presentation. But she disagreed and turned up her nose and swam off. That's when I saw all the redfish. They were everywhere. I worked those Islands for another hour and caught 8-9 more redfish and 1 nice trout.

It looks like I've found my fish for tomorrow's very important client. My 3 year old son. He's never caught a redfish before and if he gets one tomorrow he may never remember it; but I will and I can't wait.

Today the fish were broken up into two groups. I found good numbers of fish that seemed to like a change in a shallow, mangrove lined, flat. Whenever I found a large sand patch with tall grass in it I found fish. I also had good luck near islands that had deep cuts next to them. I tried a variety of baits including clear/gold flake Exude RT Slugs, gold spoons, and Mirr-O-Lure Mirr-O-Mullet. None of which coaxed a nibble. But, the hot bait for the day was Gulp shrimp in a natural color rigged on a Mustad weedless weighted hook. Total for the day was 15 redfish and 1 trout. Check back tomorrow for my son's fishing report. I have high hopes.