Post hurricane fishing

[Captainwraith]

Hurricane Ian pushed through our area Friday night. Talked to cpack yesterday and all is well with him but the storm was bad enough here to knock over the plastic chairs in my yard.  We will rebuild....

Went out fishing this morning and dthought the day was going to be a wash.  With water Temps around 70 all the bait was deep and scattered.  No bites all day and as we were starting to pull lines in my penn slammer started screaming.  About 25 minutes later I  managed to get an extremely fat 48 inch red in the boat that had to weigh over 50 pounds.   We had a second run about 20 minutes later  but it spat the hook. 

I only caught the one fish but I'm still pretty happy with my day of fishing.

[disposable]

Awesome beast! I've caught a great wealth of pacific fish but that is my highest hope on the right side. Maybe soon... would you be willing to describe your methodology for that fishery?

[Captainwraith]

First step is be here in september

[amazing grace]

 sweet, are those good eating?

[Captainwraith]

Theres a slot limit on them. Can only keep them between 18 and 27 inches long. Still a big fish.  I've heard from people who have kept a big one that the meat gets tough and isn't worth keeping so the slot limit on these fish makes alot of sense and is the size you want to eat anyways.

I will try to explain how to catch them when I get a minute to sit down

[RichHawley]

Nice catch.  Same here on Mississippi coast...18"-30" are keepers, and only 3/day. Some of the bigger ones I've caught were infested with worms.  Never had them with the littler ones...

I can imagine you were a little tuckered out by the time you got him to the boat...then netting him is like hauling up concrete blocks...

And Amazing G, they are very good eating.  Here in the gulf, we commonly just use dead shrimp sitting on the bottom...not sure how CaptW does it on the east coast...

[Captainwraith]

Finally got a minute that I'm not working.

Out here we use a few methods depending on what they're hitting.  Last year doa shrimp on a popping cork was the only thing I could get them to touch.    This year they were taking live or chunk bait off popping cork or an extra long Carolina rig.  That one took a live 4 inch menhaden on said Carolina rig in about 9 feet of water next to the edge of the channel.  Crab is also an ideal bait for reds but shrimp tend to get picked apart by smaller fish before any decent size red can get to it.

We usually will run the river looking for schools of menhaden or mullet in about 5 to 12 feet of water that are being attacked from underneath and cast into the school using a popping cork.  Since the water is getting cool there was no bait on the surface so we went to a ledge that we know they run along and set a range of live bait along the top to the bottom. Slot and smaller you usually find in the shallows from 1 to 6 feet deep. Same kinds of bait usually on the smaller size do well. 3 to 4 inch mullet are ideal and smaller menhaden do well. They take paddletails, flukes and twitch baits pretty readily as well as spooks mirrolures and other topwater baits.   They are powerful fish and usually fight extremely hard.   Smaller ones and slots are found here most of the year (though rare in the colder months)  but the big ones are only readily caught in the month of September and early October.

If you do decide you want to make a trip out here get up with me and I will try to put you on one.  I am pretty sure they are done for this year with all the fresh cool water flowing in from the western part of the state due to hurricane Ian.