LOCAL

Colby catches his first red

AJ Watson | Special to The News Herald
AJ's brother Colby shows off his 23.5-inch red. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS]

As I have mentioned in the past couple of tournaments, my Marine Corps brother Colby is stateside at Ft. Rucker for 45 days TDY training. On the weekends, he comes down and stays with me and my family at my stepson’s place, since we lost our place during the hurricane and are still trying to rebuild.

When he came this past weekend, he told me he wanted to catch a redfish, that he has never caught a red. I got to thinking about the times we were stationed together in California and North Carolina, and he would fish with me. He was correct, he had never caught a red. He had caught flounder, bluefish, grouper, kingfish and red snapper with me, but never a red. We tried four years ago before he got stationed in Korea, and we caught everything but a red. He also tried when we pre-fished the last ECRC tournament out of West Bay and he couldn’t hang a red to save his life. I told him we would go and get him a red this weekend, no matter what.

We headed to Shell Island about 9 a.m. High tide was at 5:30 a.m. and the falling tide had started. That meant a good moving tide and the reds would start to school together and move off the flats. I rigged him with a DOA CAL jerk shad on a 1/0 finesse jig head by Eyestrike. Jake threw a white paddle tail on one our custom 1/8 ounce jig heads. I threw a Lil John XL rigged on a 1/4 ounce Mirrolure jig head. I knew with that Jerk shad he would catch plenty of trout to keep him engaged and eventually catch a red. It probably wouldn’t be a giant red, but it would catch a red.

We pulled up to a point with a drop off and bait on it, lowered the trolling motor and began moving east. Jake and Colby threw the banks and I threw straight ahead and the drop off. We saw plenty of mullet, croakers, pinfish, grass shad and ballyhoo, and they were running as if something was chasing them. About Colby’s fifth cast, he set hook and started fighting something. It looked like a trout until it got near the boat — a rat red. He was stoked to have caught his first red, but I wanted him to catch a slot, so we kept working.

About 10 casts later, he set hook and the drag pulled. I saw the swirl and a nice mid-slot red. He worked the red to the boat and landed him — a 23.5-inch red, and he was grinning ear to ear. He looked at me and said, “Now I know why you target redfish; that was fun." We finished the flat, which took about two hours, and we caught 15 trout, nine reds, a mangrove snapper, some lizard fish and probably a dozen ladyfish. Jake wanted to see if we could get Colby on a bull red and let him see fun.

We packed up and headed to the Hathaway, since we launched there. I’ve only ever fished for bulls once at the Hathaway with zero success. We normally fish for bulls at the Tyndall bridge, since we are confident there. We set the Ipilot to anchor lock and held under the bridge in the shade and worked artificials in the current for reds. I was working the Little John XL and felt thump, set hook and thought we were on, until it jumped. Another ladyfish; those are literally everywhere in the bay right now and do not discriminate when it comes to baits. I tried landing it to use for bait, but it spit the bait beside the boat.

Not knowing we were going bull red fishing today, I had nothing to rig for live or cut bait and had taken the cast net out before last tournament and never put it back in the boat. I would have loved to have some cut ladyfish or live finger mullet to soak in the current for Colby to hook up. After about an hour or so of killing time and catching nothing, Colby asked if we could go by the docks and look for those upper slots again.

We went to the docks and started up and down in between them seeing upper slots lying under every dock. When you would toss to them, they would swim off. Either they had been high pressured lately or were in no mood to eat. We worked the docks for about 45 minutes catching small trout and pinfish before we all decided to call it and head in. I hate Colby didn’t catch an upper slot or a bull, but not only did he catch a red, I believe he caught four of them ranging from rat to almost 24 inches — not too shabby for never catching one before.

This weekend we will be in Navarre for the final ECRC tournament before the championship. We are tied for first in team of the year with a team from the Navarre area. Hopefully the fish gods will continue to bless us with top two finishes in Navarre, so we can separate from them before the championship in October here in Panama City.

Anthony Watson of the Liquid Dream Fishing Team shares his fishing adventures weekly in the Entertainer.