7/18 - South Lagoon - Outfished by my GF.

[Rob@FLKayakAngler]

7/18 - Well that rare moment that only comes along every so often in the year occurred just last night, my lovely girlfriend said my favorite words "Take me fishing"!! Its been about 9 months since I've had the pleasure of putting her on fish, and I figured I'd send her after some big boys to see if she could top her personal best Red of 34". I haven't hit the school in the south ML in about 2 weeks so we set out at the crack of dawn armed with a few big mullet hoping they were still around and feeding. Arrived at the spot to see the wind making the lagoon quite choppy, so sight casting the early morning hours was out of the question. But knowing the pattern of that particular school we picked the perfect spot for an ambush and waited for the school to show itself (Notice I said show itself and not run down or bump up). We tossed out some cut mullet and started scanning the water. It was choppy and very hard to distinguish any activity in the area, but we didn't need to see the school to know they were there as Jillian's drag starts to scream!! The fight was short as he quickly spit the hook after 3mins of battle, no worries though cause we know we're in the right spot! Reset her bait and she gives it a good fling in the general direction we believed the school to be headed, and not 2 mins later shes hooked up again! But unfortunately this fight was even shorter as she snapped the drag to tight and to sudden and the fish broke the fluro just above the hook. At this point a boat further down the shoal jumps up on plane, and spooks the school up just long enough for us to hone our casts in on their feeding line. I decided to show Jillian how its done, and picked up the next rod that began to sing. He went for a few good runs but I put the brakes on him hard and had this nice 42" red yakside in just a few minutes. Took sometime and got him nice and active again and sent him on his way after a photo.



Sweet skunks off the yaks, and Jillian's got a better understanding of how to handle these pigs. We reset the lines and start scanning the water for any subtle hints on where the school may have moved to or where they are headed. At this point we look over our shoulders and see a plethora of flats boats headed in our direction. Oh fun here comes the Sunday crowd! No worries, I expected as much! So we start seeing some tails, but instead of just casting away at them we observe what direction they're headed, and notice they are literally chasing around a school of mullet. So we get our baits reset and wait for them to head our way again. At this point all the boats that were further down the shoal are right on top of us and begin casting away at the school. I sit back and wait for the inevitable, the sound of our screaming drag, and it wasn't a long wait as Jillian's now got her 3rd chance at a big red. I coached her through the process of getting the fish to the yak in a timely manner and she held on tight and brought this nice 35" red to the yak! Shes now got her personal record beat by 1" but I told her she can do better! She takes some time to revive the fish and he swims away happily. She noticed he had some weird disfigurement to his body, he was fat on one side but not the other in the tail section it was pretty weird, she released him before I could get a photo of it.


So now the schools agitated as its being attacked by all sides in the typical lagoon surround and slay fashion. Not my favorite kind of party but I knew we were in the right spot and wouldn't have to move to catch fish. Nobody's hooking up, but we again placed our baits in strategic locations knowing that at some point the school will head right over them. Lines in the water, and we sit back and wait. We see a big tail stick up in the air right over top of Jillian's bait, followed by a huge swoosh of water and the sound of a Shimano Sustain Drag giving line away by the second. Jillian's now hooked up to what I believe is a solid 40"+ fish and the fight is on. Not a lot of room to let him run with all the other traffic now in the area so after a few runs she locks him up and begins getting him yak side. That fish kicked Jillian's but for a solid 10 minutes and I wasn't sure who was gonna give up first Jillian or the Red! She prevailed and we soon see that this was the pig she was looking for, so into the drink she goes to get a photo and revive him back into active health. The fish was a little heavier then Jillian could handle but we got a nice photo of this 46" Red!! Her new personal best(Even better then her Fathers, which she is now so proud of)!!



So now the area is getting a tad ridiculous as you can see in this photo, and each time we'd hook up we could hear the disappointment from some of the other boats surrounding us. I only saw 2 other boats hook up and one broke off and the other got landed. We went 5 for 8.


The school decided it had enough and pushed off into deeper waters and some gave chase but we decided to push further south to get away from the chaos of the boats and use up what lil bait we had left! We find another nice ambush point and tossed out our remaining bait. I got 3 catfish and Jillian caught another nice red at 30"+. That's 3 for her 2 for me. But thats ok cause the day was really about her anyways! I'm super proud of her she handled those fish like a champ after a little coaching, and I think she might be a little more interested in fishing now!

[BC_Fish]

Nice report. I love when everyone around you cant hook up, but I have been on that end more often than not and its rather frustrating. Wish I could make more time to get out there.