weather is cold... fishing is HOT

I dont want to come off as bragging or gloating... but five days into the new year and I have already logged three very epic fishing trips.The weather had been nasty, windy, cold. Luckily the last 5 days have been warm, sunny, and agreeable. And the fish have been cooperating as well. Inshore fishing has some rod bending action, and offshore is producing coolers full of delicious seafood. Here's what I have been up to.

Sunday 1/2 I fished inshore with Chad Nelson and his father Eric. Chad has fished with me many times and we always have a good time. We had a negative tide in the backcountry and the first pothole we set up in produced the best trout of the day, a nice 22inch fish that ate a shrimp under a cork.

The same pothole was productive for some time, and we caught about 2 dozen small Redfish and several nice Trout. When the bite waned there we proceeded to the adjacent sandy depressions and picked up a few more bites from Redfish and Trout. The real sweet action came a few hours later when the tide turned and started the outgoing phase. Chad makes a perfect cast to the back side of a pothole. He immediately hooks up with a stud of a Redfish that blisters drag and send boils of turbulent water swirling to the surface. Chad fought the fish with expertise and kept the rod tip high with constant pressure on the fish as it took him in a 360 around the boat. Soon the battle royale was over and I landed the fish for him, congratulating by saying "great fish! biggest Red on my boat this year!"

We settled into that pothole and a steady bite of 17-20 inch trout and 15-25 inch Redfish ensued. We finished off the last of the shrimp for the day and also caught a few fish on plastic jigs and jerkbaits. We ended up keeping a 25 inch Red and five nice Trout for Chad and his family to fry up for dinner. I felt very priviledged to guide a father and son and put them on some good fish and make memories for them!