# NML 2-2 redfish



## phishphood (Dec 15, 2006)

Got an invite from Tony to fish some of his pet schools this AM, so after a 21 hour work day(and night), met him at 0 dark thirty in search of some schoolers. As we zipped through the islands in the early light, we could see several fish push up and away as we cruised by. Good sign. When we rounded the point of one small island, we saw what we were looking for. It looked like a pod of 10-12 fish pushing up some good wakes along the shoreline in a small bay.
We powered down and let things settle a bit before pushing in on them. Well, push them is about all we did. Several casts to this school and a couple solo cruisier and tailers produced zippo, but hey, the fish were here and the sun wasn't even up yet.
We poled around for the next couple hours that produced mostly profanity as shots at small groups of fish came and went. I finally broke the skunk with a 12"(being generous) rat on a mirrodyne. Then we hit the mother lode of profanity as we entarded a trough between 2 islands. The water looking aboil with reds flying all around the boat. Tony even used the word edification in a sentence. That's how bad it got. We threw a combination of arti's and mullet at them to only have the fish bump and and chase them, but not eat. What the heck? 
After zeroiing on this group, I pushed us back through the bay we started the morning in and we had shots at a couple singles and a nice trout. Foiled again. As we round the point headed back toward the trough, I tell Tony that I'm going to put him on a big school and we start talking about the magic water temp for the fish to start eating. "Is it 70?", he asks. Hell, I don't know. Sounds good to me though. Why don't we fire up the Eagle fish finder and see?
I'm on the tower, he's dinking with the fish finder, so you know what's coming next. He says the water temp is 66deg and I say Holy Smokes batman, there they are. An army of easily 50-60 reds was swimming right at us. As they do an about-face, Tony fires DOA missile over their backs and hooks up immediatly. I try to double up, but it wasn't to be. Sleep or no sleep, that will make you weak in the knees. Fish turned out to be 27" on the dot until we pinched the tail. 1/2" to 3/4" over and about 8lbs. Two quick pics and short revival and she was on her way.
















I don't want to talk about the rest, but a combination of poor casting and bad timing on my part kept me from hooking up with any of the others. Oh well, still had a ball. Thanks for the invite Tony. We'll 2 boat them next time.


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## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

Nice report and pics! That why we keep going back.


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## tojo (Dec 12, 2006)

I only used the word "edification" heck, u knew how to spell it  It was still a great day on the water. If we didn't see over a hundred fish we didn't see one. I think if we had of stayed out longer the bite would have turned on...

The second pic says it all...Mountain Dew to stay awake...scissors laying about cause I forgot a knife WTF??? Just one of those days.

I'm gonna watch the fight tonight and if it turns out that Im not as think as I drunk I am, I might try em again in the morning.


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## JRH (Mar 18, 2007)

Nice job guys.


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## deerfly (Mar 10, 2007)

yall need to edify yer measurin technique. Probably had ya a keeper right there. Besides you know how they shrink by the time you get back to the dock. Hell, most of the fish I catch shrink a bunch a millisecond or two before the camera goes off. :-/ 

Thats a funny a review though, I got a good laugh. Never been a size limit on profanity far as I can recall, good thing too.  - eric


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## Ron_W. (Dec 14, 2006)

Nice way to end the work day. ;D


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