Short and Sweet 7-13-10 Report

So here's the scoop. After an afternoon of getting skunked with a pal, I decided enough was enough. I rolled out the big chalk board and sketched up a serious plan of attack. I only had a couple hours to pull this off, so I had to make the minutes count. Here's how it went. I shot out of Granada Boat launch at about 6am this morning. Threw my cast net one time in the channel and got a few dozen shrimp, about 30 manhedan, and 3 croakers. YES! CROAKERS!! That buys me some time because my plan was to use the shrimp to catch croakers. All is working out perfectly so far. Hit a few docks lights with Manhaden and a small split shot. Wam, nice trout, dam, came off. Cast again, wam again, one on ice! One more and I got dinner. Couple more thumps but the sun was close to peeking out and the dock lights were losing their magic. Shot over to one of my little trout/ladyfish holes and decided to toss out a croaker on one rod and a free lined shrimp on another. Crashes all around me, the trout and ladyfish are busy sucking down all the shrimp they can, while the shrimp are running strong. WIZZZ, my croaker rod screamed! Hefty Trout on ice, nice fight! Need a lady now. Just then smash, topwater explosion where my shrimp once swam. Set the hook, airborn and into the cooler. Redfish spot! Toss out two rods with cut ladyfish. 5 minutes, bump, bump, bump, almost dead weight, slight wiggle, reel it in, small run, heavy, reel it in again, big gaftop, release. Other rod goes off, gaftop, time to move. Got a couple jumbo shrimp, i'll hit the tarpon hole. Tarpon are spooky, one take, miss. Back to redfish. Cast out a freelined croaker and a lady chunk. Chunk goes first, nice fight, good runs, 28 1/2" Red, Release. Croaker rod thumps hard, no commitment, reel in a smashed croaker. Tarpon?? Cast out another ladyfish chunk and almost immediately ziinngggg..... Set the hook, another decent fish, feels like a slot, Redfish, measure, 17 3/4", release. Time, 9:30, gotta go, darn...

Busy morning, lotta fun! Sometimes if the plastics not working, use natural bait.

Almost forgot to take a pic of the trout I kept. I could have easily bagged my limit but I try to only keep what im going to eat that night.