4th of July Fishing - Summer Can Be Fire

The full moon happened to fall on the 4th this summer. I was relieved to know that I had the day off, and we had a late high tide. After stopping at South Shore Bait & Tackle, we quickly headed to our private launch. We arrived on the water at 8:30 am, and we had a light four mph wind from the east. I ran to the marker to catch bait and to anchor up for mackerel. A couple of throws of the ten-footer, and we were all set.

Fat Redfish

The tide was slowly pushing in, and we were getting ready for the toothy critters. We deployed the tournament chum, added the long shank 1/0 Mustad hooks, and we were prepared. Once the current started flowing, the fish started feeding. We put about a dozen in the fish well before a 5 ft. black tip was seduced by the mile-long chum slick. We were hoping for a cobia, but hey, we aren’t prejudiced. We weren’t prepared with shark leaders, but we knew that if we could button hook the fish, the battle would be imminent. The shark quickly consumed Vince’s fresh piece of threadfin that he was drifting for mackerel, and the fight began. After a little video footage and a 20-minute battle, we broke him off at the boat to fight another day. We decided that we had plenty of mackerel, and we were coming off an adrenaline high, so we decided to head inshore to prepare for the redfish and snook. I’ve been eyeballing a few fishy areas on the satellite maps and decided to do some investigating. I’m happy that we did.

The first two stops yielded ten redfish, all of which were slot fish. (18-28 inches) They wanted fresh-cut threadfins, so that is what we feed them. We caught redfish for hours; five of the seven spots yielded BIG fish. After a while, I started to think about the striped Mongol. I threw out a few live chummies and tossed in a live threadfin with my 1/0 Owner Super Mutu attached. To no avail, I started catching redfish. I couldn’t get the baits past the redfish to hook up with a snook, which is not a bad problem. Overall the boat traffic was crazy, the sun was hot, but it was an incredible fishing day.

 

 

 

3 comments

Vince

Vince

Would have to say one of the best fishing day of my life. Almost every cast was a nice fish all fish was a keeper and every spot stopped produced fish. Shark was a allsome drag pealing exciting feeling and it was a light outfit. Lots of fish to take home.Great day for sure would go out every day if I could.

Would have to say one of the best fishing day of my life. Almost every cast was a nice fish all fish was a keeper and every spot stopped produced fish. Shark was a allsome drag pealing exciting feeling and it was a light outfit. Lots of fish to take home.Great day for sure would go out every day if I could.

Joe Raimondo

Joe Raimondo

Joshua, that is a great fishing report. I fish that area of the southshore out of my 18 HPX almost every Friday. We have been able to get in shore slams almost weekly this summer. I try to targot Reds and Snook but I have been hooking up with some of the largest flounder that Ive ever seen fishing the south shore . Great video and pictures.

Joe Raimondo

Joshua, that is a great fishing report. I fish that area of the southshore out of my 18 HPX almost every Friday. We have been able to get in shore slams almost weekly this summer. I try to targot Reds and Snook but I have been hooking up with some of the largest flounder that Ive ever seen fishing the south shore . Great video and pictures.

Joe Raimondo
Joshua

Joshua

I know this is a late reply but I never received notification of your comment. I am glad to see that you have been doing well. How are you doing in 2013? Same results?

I know this is a late reply but I never received notification of your comment. I am glad to see that you have been doing well. How are you doing in 2013? Same results?

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