October 2007 was a great month for WaterDog Guide Service – the fishin’ was good and my beautiful fiance and I finally tied the knot. So, for those of you wondering why I disappeared for a while during early October…yup! That was why!
Well, but back to fishin – October 2007 was a very warm month and we had 75-80 degree water all the way until the very end of the month. While it definitely slowed the speck fishing for much of the month (with a short bite during a 2-day mid-october cold front being the exception), the red drum fishing absolutely on fire for the entire month – we caught them under birds (aka, busting baitfish) all month long. Just absolutely EPIC fishing conditions.
Towards the end of the month – we finally had a good cold front come through. While it slowed the bite for a few days, come halloween and the corresponding week – the specks were on fire and we smoked them every day up until I switched over to albacore fishing for the remainder of the month. While the bite was not as good as 2006, it was still very good with many, many 2-4lb fish being landed by my clients with good numbers of small 10-14″ spikes (so 2008 should be another GREAT season!)!
Now, a few pics…
Me and my lovely bride, Katie
Dave and his lovely wife sue, as well as his son and nephew fished with my for 5 days during the middle of the month – and to say we smoked the reds and specks would be a gross understatement.
For two days in a row we had a good speck bite early in the morningboating 10-15 each day…and for the rest of the day we chased schools of drum smashing shrimp on the surface. I don’t know how many slot fish we caught each day…but 25-30 would probably be an accurate guess. The best part? Almost every fish we caught we sight fishing!
Dale and I fished the CCA Inside/Outside Tourney for the 2nd straight row – and while it was fun, I do not really have the drive for serious tournament fishing. We found a huge school of 23-25″ reds…and while we knew none of them would get us in the money…..how could we leave these fish? I didnt – and we sight cast to them busting shrimp all afternoon on the falling tide. IT was fantastic..
We also had a fantastic speck bite all morning – landing a dozen fish from 1.5-3.5lbs. None big enough for the money, but it was a blast! 🙂
The Gentrys from Western NC fished with me for a half-day on a beautiful morning. The fishing wasnt red hot, and we had a big learning curve to go through when it came to casting and what not – but we were able to cast net about 10lbs of 20-30count shrimp and boat about 10 specks and a nice flounder. Not a bad half-day!
Katie and I fished the afternoon – getting some shrimps for dinner and getting in on some awesome bait-busting drum action…even got a few on the fly.
Dave and Sue were back for three more days of pain – and you knwo what? They found it! ….in a massive school of upper and over-slot reds that were sitting in a beach slough. We threw topwater plugs at them for SEVEN hours and had dozens of fish fighting over our plugs. It was INCREDIBLE. …we even landed a couple nice keeper flounder. Too bad none of us could lift our arms come that evening. 😀
…and we also netted a bunch of shrimp and found many, many more reds and some big trout in the marsh.
John from florida up here on vacation (you know – avoiding the heat) with a few reds on a productive afternoon.
I had regular client Anthony and son Amir today (And wife, Angela, of course!) – the warm weather really slowed the trout bite for us but Anthony was able to coax a nice 3lb gator. After we gave up on those guys, we found the reds hot and heavy busting bait in the marsh. While Amir couldn’t top his 35 incher from the month prior – he did get himself a nice slot!
Jay and Craig and the crazy grandad! We also have tons of fun together – no trout today, but found as many reds as we had time to catch!
Jim and his Dad – things started off a bit slow this afternoon but we were able to rope them in a little later in the day and found a few big schools of fish way way way up the backwaters.
Bill and Bill from Texas – we had hoped to fish in the ocean but the steady, hard SW’r stopped us…so we opted for the backwaters and found a whole ton of reds in the protected bays…throwing shrimp all over the place!
Katie and I managed to get out for a few hours and found a bunch of shrimp and TONS of reds. We found so many on this day we actually quit fishing for them and went home – it was too easy! We also had an epic topwater bite finding several fish between 39 and 33 inches! We also found a few trout at a couple secret holes 😀
Die hard CCA’ers Cooksie and crew – they braved the rain (and i mean it rained ALL DAY) without a complaint. I think I was the only one complaining, actually…. We found a few nice trout early, a few tailers during the high tide…and then we smoked the reds during the falling tide. Awesome day!
Chris and Chris on the morning of a cold-arse Noreaster that dropped the air temps 30 degrees and considerably slowed the drum activity. We still found a bunch of fish smashing shrimp, but we had hoped for tailers…and the 20 knot wind, combined with the cold temps really kept them out of the grass. We still managed a few.
