Got out again this past weekend with Blake in his boat.  Kind of a last minute deal that I wasn’t fully prepared for, but whats nice about going in someone else’s boat is you don’t have to be all that prepared when you get asked to go – you just show up and hope you can borrow some tackle.  A buff was the only thing I needed that I didn’t have as the bugs at the launch were horrendous and those buffs are a life saver in buggy conditions.  Of course once we were out on the water they weren’t too bad.

Conditions early on were great; winds were calm, skies were bright and sunny, and the water clarity ranged from decent to exceptional.  The tide was a bit lower than I’d like in a boat, but very manageable.  Basically all the boxes were checked that would indicate it would be a good day, but that actually wasn’t the case.

The first canal we stopped in we saw backs out of the water and tails up and we couldn’t help but think it was about to be on.  I was able to connect with a decent little bull.

After that fish activity became sparse, those tails disappeared and with them went the fish.  We picked up and moved as the water clarity in the canal was dirty due to the tide ripping out.  We found some absolutely gorgeous water, some of the prettiest I’ve seen for Louisiana.  It looked like Florida at times, unfortunately redfish were few and far between.  For as much bait as we saw on the flats it was kind of amazing how few reds we saw.

So we picked up and moved again and found more pretty water.  This time we found fish too.  It’s a big problem though when you find fish and they won’t eat.  I really have never seen such tight lipped redfish.  We were putting good casts on them and they just didn’t want anything to do with our offers.  It was almost as if they were already spooked when we showed up – maybe we were fishing behind someone else?  Whatever the case we poled our way along the flats off the coastline of this island and eventually found some active black drum.

These were baby drum, not yet earning the “big ugly” moniker, they were actually quite pretty fish.  It was nice to feel the tug of a fish again.

So what we thought turn into a badass day ended up being really tough, but I feel like we made the most of it.  Sure, not too many fish caught, but we did put in some good scouting.  We found some really nice flats with stunning water.  I wish we had found more fish, but maybe we were just in the right place at the wrong time.

I’m not sure why some spots seemed void of redfish or why those redfish we did find did not want to eat.  Maybe barometric pressure, maybe they were spooked, who knows?  I can count on my hand the times when I’ve been on redfish and they won’t eat, it’s frustrating when it happens.  Here’s hoping that it was just a fluke and our next trip out will be a bit more successful.