I went out Thursday evening for my first kayak trip in months. I've been waiting on cooler water temps and Francine brought just that! I launched around 430 pm and made my way to the marsh. On my way I caught 3 trout and a gaftop in the main channel. Afterwords I made my way to the marsh and started casting a wake bait around. I could hear blowups in the grass but didn't see any fish. As I blind casted I hooked up with a small red which I lost at the boat. Nothing else came of this so I pushed deeper in and followed the sounds of the blow ups. What I found was dozens of flounder blowing mullet out of the water in 6in of water, half of which was thick grass. After 15 min or so of trying to catch one I moved on... I think if I had a fly rod I could've made a good presentation, but the grass was so thick even my wake bait was catching grass. For the next few hours I paddled around the marsh looking for sign but didn't see much; bait activity was minimal and the blowups stopped. It was starting to get late so I started to make my way back to the launch when the magic happened.
In the distance I could see a school of reds moving down the shoreline rather quickly, as I got closer I could see they were busting small white shrimp on the bank.
I got within 15 feet of the school and got some great video before I started casting. I then grabbed my rod equipped with a 1/4 ounce jig head and a rootbeer doa cal. I was careful to not spool the school and casted the lure onto the mudbank and dragged it back through the school, fish on!
I quickly pulled in a nice 21 in redfish, when I looked up again the school had already moved 50 or so yards down the shoreline so I pursued. I quietly approached again and using the same tactic hooked up with my second fish, a nice 23 in. The sun had dipped behind the horizon at this point but the school hadn't spooked; I managed to get 1 more fish in the boat, but he was much larger and hit my kayak which ended up spooking the school.
It was a tough trip, I covered roughly 5-6 miles before I found the school, but it made it all worth it! Fall is here gentlemen, go get some!
