Christmas Reds in the Freeport marsh. 25-Dec-2024

[deptrai]

Forecast was for heavy wind, rain and thunderstorms early, but gradually tapering off in late morning. Due to hernia surgery followed by vacation, I hadn’t been fishing in nearly two months.
I left the house later than normal due to the weather and arrived to an empty lot at the launch. It was windy and the rain was on & off. During the off periods, I slowly got my gear ready to go. Rain finally stopped and I saw a sun break in the distance so I pushed off at 8:15.

Surface temp in the ICW 65F.

10 minutes later it was a downpour. Even though I had it with me, I opted to leave the drysuit in my truck and just wore a light hooded jacket.
I proceeded cautiously as I listened to some disturbing thunder. I checked my weather apps and they seemed to change their mind every 15 minutes. The trend was always the same…gradually improving.
I appreciate that someone added two markers to the entrance of the marsh.

First fish didn’t come until 10:09 in the rain.

[deptrai]

10:23:

10:33:

What does everyone call the waterways the go from one lake to another? Bayous, ditches, canals, inter-lake waterways (ILW)? Anyway, I was going through one of them and spooked a school of Reds. There were 4-5 mud boils and it was difficult to determine which way they shot off to. The wind was at my back and kept me going forwards past the spot where I spooked them. I made a U-turn, peddled back to the spot where the fish were and staked myself out. While I was pondering what to do next, I reapplied the Pro-Cure. As I was doing this, a saw a wake along the shoreline just 15’ over my shoulder. Quickly made the toss and hooked my 1st keeper of the day. 26-incher in the bag at 11:29.

I kept pushing back further through the ILW and came to the spot where I landed my last keeper Red almost 2 months ago. I hooked this beast at 12:02. I swore it was my first Bull Red by the way it fought. The area is full of fallen trees, and I was afraid he was going to break me off like one did very near there on my last trip. I tightened down the drag two more clicks and brought him to the net. It was super fat, but not a Bull.

[deptrai]

Turned around and headed back to the launch. Caught a few more shorts on the journey. I did hook another slot Red, but it came unbuttoned after a short fight.

1:15:

1:30:

1:48:

2:35: 14.75" trout

[deptrai]

2:39

10 fish landed in all. Not wide open, but not bad.

I might go again tomorrow. The tide prediction is similar to what yesterday was, but much better weather.

Dave

[karstopo]

I call them “cuts”. The connectors between marsh lakes. I know other even more old timers call them that, cuts.

Nice redfish!