CortezFisherman (US)

 We got out this morning as light was just beginning to provide enough illumination to navigate without a spotlight. My older brother and his son-in-law were my guests for the trip. Amazingly they showed up at exactly 6 o'clock as agreed and we set out. We started out on a big 3-4 foot deep flat that always holds a few fish and drifted west.

The son-in-law, we will call him Matt, is from Indiana and gets out in the saltwater maybe twice a year. He has a very aggressive cast and thinks the harder he whips it the further it goes. I explained to him that it was much like a golf swing in that it is all about rhythm. He wouldn’t listen and I watched as he whipped the hell out of my St. Croix rod all morning. Anyhow he is first to get a top water plug in the water and within 3 casts he boats his first 15-16 incher. A few casts later he is ripping the lure out of their mouths he is so excited.

My brother on the other hand is also fishing a top water plug that he still insists doesn’t catch trout. It wasn’t long before he lands his first fish and I give him the ole “top water baits don’t work huh?” As we continued our drift, schools of mullet were getting busted by what appeared to be small Tarpon. The flats were incredibly alive this morning and provided a great “family” guided trip.

All in all we landed 15 fish, 8 for Matt, 6 for my brother and one whole one for me as well as losing another 10 fish. Almost all of them were keepers with the biggest going to Matt at 18+ inches. I spent most of the time being the nice “guide” and letting the guests have all the good hardware and clean water in front of the drift.

By 9:00 the bite was diminishing so we headed back in to make sure Matt didn’t land in the doghouse. Fifteen fish in less than 3 hours and I still had the whole day left to get some projects done.

I can’t think of a better way to start the weekend than this…