The Day of Variety!

    As usual. our day started on the pier.  Since the redfish are biting, we hustle down before daybreak, catch some little mullet to use as bait and set our lines.  It seems that the reds only want the tiny mullet and refuse to even taste a menhaden.  Personally, that suits me fine as it seems catfish prefer menhaden.  I am not pestered by nibblers that are of no use other than as crab bait.  Before the sun started showing its face above the pines on the far shore, we were ready and waiting.

  The morning did not go quite as planned, however.  Instead of refish, Mark started catching mullet...ones large enough to eat.   With that, I was left watching the poles while he threw the net.  He caught several dozen of the fish and I still had no bites.  Then, he caught a trout and a tiny flounder.  Well, that was different!  These were tossed back into the water as they were too small.  Still no reds, however.

  Oh a whim, I hooked on a menhaden and threw the line straight out from the pier.  Wham!  Woo hoo!  I pulled back to set the hook and the drag on the reel started singing!  I got one!!  Yeah...right.  As soon as I thought I had a good fish, that goofy thing started dancing on top of the water.  I knew exactly what I was fighting...a ladyfish.    I may as well have a bit of fun so I battled the ladyfish.  For anyone who has never caught one of these fish, it is quite the experience.  Picture a fish acting like a pinball bouncing around madly while you try to reel it in.  To top it off, ladyfish are known to be able to throw off a hook in the bat of an eye.  It takes a bit of skill to get one landed.  I did!  Too bad these are not considered to be a "food fish".  I had a nice one!

  After all of the ruckus from throwing the net for mullet and catching a wild and crazy ladyfish, Mark did finally catch that elusive redfish and we went back up to the Little Bayou House with quite a variety of cleaned fish!  Meals for free!  Fun for the day.

Just a Good Day of Fishing

  Once again, Mark and I were on the pier at daybreak.  To be honest, this is our favorite place to be at any time of day but sunrise is always the best!  After yesterday's nice catch of ground mullet (Southern Kingfish), he and I decided to give it a go again.  There is nothing tastier than a good mess of fried fish especially when those fish are fresh!  Seafood is one of those things that he and I can eat most every day of the week and never tire of it.

  This morning started off with a bang.  He had two poles out..one with a menhaden and the other with a shrimp.  I had two..both with shrimp.  He was fishing bottom while my shrimp simply floated on top.  One good sized trout started the morning off nicely and things progressed from there.   Seven trout and one large flounder later, we were ready to head back to the house.  

  The only thing strange about this was it seems that we were the only one catching legal sized fish!  Several of our trout were in the 16 inch range, while our smallest was nigh on 14.  We were told that the other fishermen were catching small 8 inch fish which are far below the acceptable size as keepers.  I am not sure just what we were doing differently than the others but I am sure glad that the fish decided to like our baits!  Seems that the Good Lord gave us more than enough and now we have plenty of fish to share with others.  What a great day!

One wonders..

One wonders just what crosses critters' minds at times.  I suppose they are a lot like humans as I have the same thoughts about a lot of us as well.  But back to the critters..I pondered fish minds today.  Someone once told me that fish have tiny brains.  Well, I cannot be sure of that as I have never pried into what is in a fish head.  It just seemed to be adding insult to injury to do that after already mangling the poor thing while cleaning it.  Still, fish have to be smart enough to catch food so they cannot be all dumb.  Or can they?  If anyone can talk with fish, I sure have a few questions to ask!

I was on the pier this afternoon taking advantage of a cool breeze coming across the Bay.  About half way down our pier, there is a wallowed out place where a huge piece of machinery became bogged when the pier was being built.  That, in itself, is a story worth telling some day but for now, we will focus on that hole.  Although it is a nice size space that is void of any marsh grass, time and tide has filled it with mud so it is quite shallow (even during high tide).  A myriad of small fishes take advantage of the relative safety of this enclosed area.  Bull minnows and small mullet congregate here to be free from any threat of being eaten by large fish.  For the longest time, all they have had to worry about was the shore birds.  Today, however, things changed.  This territory became dangerous for the little fishies!   While I was sitting there watching several hundred tiny mullet play, a large fish attacked the group!  Oh, my!  I stared into the water.  Sure enough, a redfish was in the small pool.  It had come down a narrow chute of water from the Bayou.  This is the only entrance into the pool that a fish this size could possibly use.  I watched as the redfish chased the mullet around in the small pool of water.  The mullet had no escape.  I wondered why they did not head out the same narrow channel that the redfish had used to enter.  Nope.  Round and round they went in the pool with the redfish always right behind them.  After a bit, I noticed bull minnows rushing out of the small chute.  Then a large flounder shuffled into the pool.  Wow!  This is unusual!  Now there were two large fish in the small pool.  Both were making a fine meal of the little mullet.

With this whole tale, keep in mind that small, fourteen inch or so wide chute is merely about a foot deep at high tide.  But..our tide was falling.  Water was rapidly leaving out of the chute and back into the Bayou.  Soon there would be no exit for any of the fish.  The smaller ones could make it out fine in just a couple of inches of water.  The flounder might be ok swimming through the same but that redfish..that redfish needed at least a good eight inches of water.  Still, he lingered.

I did not make it back to the pier before dark to see if the fish had made it safely out of the pool and back into the Bayou.  If not, I would never know.  Some larger critter would be happy finding a free meal stranded on the mudflats.  Still, I have to wonder..what possessed those two large fish to venture into such a confined area.  It was not because of a lack of food in the Bayou.  I could fully see thousands of the small mullet and other tiny fishes making ripples there.  Why journey a good hundred feet or so down a narrow chute to wind up in a pool of water that was rapidly diminishing.  Fish have no sense!  Or..they like to live on the dangerous side and take huge chances!