Tough Day Fishing, Great Day Snorkeling.
We went out today to continue to test the full moon theory, that the redfish tend to feed more at night than during the day. Since I had expected a slow day fishing, we did have a back up plan, we brought our snorkeling gear along, just in case.
We picked up whitebait near the two poles off the bayport channel. Over the last month I have really have not check any other area, since this area is very convenient. However each time, the whitebait numbers seem to be less and less. Today I could only get about dozen big baits, bigger then I wanted. The whitebait will spawn in August, and we'll have lots a little (too little) baits.
Fishing was a bust, we had two strikes both missed the hook. so I can not even call them and auto-release... We did a little lure fishing and had a couple of redfish follow the lure but no strikes. So it was time to go snorkeling.
We motored out to mark 21 in the Hernando Beach channel and I noticed what looked like glass minnows. As it turns out they where whitebait, the perfect size for redfish. Since we where done fishing we swam with the whitebait for while. It was really very interesting to see how the bait behaves. The bait seem to use us for shelter. Off in the distance I could see a couple of Spanish Mackerel cruising around the bait. While I do not recommend swimming in schools of bait fish, it was very interesting. And at least I now know where to find the right size whitebait.
We moved to a couple of other locations along the channel and found some green, red and white shrimp for our fish tank. As well as a sea horse, pipe fish and some scallops.
The seahorse is holding on to the and pipe fish.
Scallops, Pipe Fish and some grass.
Scallop and all eyes are on you...One other interesting thing to note. Since this was a Sunday, I expected plenty of boaters on the "flats". When we got there there was only about 20 boats, I could here the motors while we where in the water. Once we got out of the water, it looks as if the boat parade had arrived. There must have been at least 80 boats...
Good Luck
Zippyjr