Corpusfishing.com

[fishinglady]

OK, I'm open to any and all suggestions [as long as it's legal] for what to do to catch fish in the current situation.

After two of us spent 8 hours on the water today, trying places from Packery, to near the ICW entrance to CC bay, back south to Pita, east side of ICW along islands by Night Hawk.......using live mullet, cut mullet, fishbites, gold spoon, topwater........ and only 2 hardheads and two pin fish to show for it [OK there were two good hits/misses, one of which snapped my line].

For the last month or so, this pattern has been pretty standard for me....maybe two keepers for 6- 8 hours on the water. (Usually, I do much better, and one memorable day, for almost two hours I pulled in a trout every time I threw my bone topwater.)

The water south of JFK is definitely murky brown...couldn't see a gold spoon until inches away.

[ltorna1]

Acoustictennis and I were up in those parts about a week or so ago. The water conditions were OK in the worth end of nighthawk but much worse as you headed south, and bad near the ICW. Like you said - we found some scattered fish but we had to work for them and none of us hammered them. All fish on noisy topwaters. Sight casted reds wouldn't touch soft plastic.

We covered a bunch of ground and I actually saw more red fish further north. At the spot where I saw the most pods of reds, I could see your house...Tino says its been much better at night.

I'm all ears
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[BigSaltsFishing]

Your not the only one fishinglady. Been out three weekends in a row with nothing to show but one skippy and a stingray. But a bad day of fishing is always better than a day at the office.
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[AcousTennis]

x2 on what luke said! Tops have been the only thing thats been working for me. For some reason everything else has been ignored. I played a school of reds just right with a paddle tail, and then gulp shrimp out at night hawk and nothing. Twice I had that same school nail a topwater.
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[fishinglady]

Thanks for the responses. I feel better knowing that others are having to plug away to get just a few. I thought I was doing something wrong or looking in all the wrong places.

The irony is that I usually fish top waters or soft plastics....bone super spook top dog jr is my first choice. But then, when the water got dirty, I thought people were saying switch to live bait to catch fish. So, I dragged out and dusted off my cast net and caught finger mullet to use as live bait.....and it seemed as if the fish weren't interested.

Yes, a day on the water is better than a day at work or at home. Yesterday was barge watching day. I saw two double-wide barges trying to pass each other on the ICW...it was a really tight fit. Then later, I saw a double-wide and three long barges [6 total] being pushed by a single huge tug. The barges were loaded with rocks and huge boulders ...maybe for a jetty....and were headed south. With that load, I was amazed that the thing could even stay afloat. When it passed where I was off to the side of the ICW, there wasn't much wake, but there was an amazing sucking out of water as it went by.

The flats in front of my house are holding schools of horse mullet, and I have seen a guy running trot lines there [for black drum?] and at night people are gigging for flounder along the back sides of the spoil islands [don't know with what outcome...I only see the lights as they walk/drift along] My lights at night are full of skipjacks, some of them huge, but only the occasional small trout or red....the skipjacks seem to keep the other fish away.

Again, thanks for the tips and the encouragement. Once this front passes, I'll be out with every loud topwater I have.

[Tyler]

[Lovethemyorkies]

A few pictures of that barge:

[fishinglady]

Thanks for posting pictures of the "rock barge"; your pictures do a much better job of showing the huge stones than my few words. That one picture also shows the off color water we were trying to find fish in.

[nisurodoc]

saw the post yesterday but gave it a try today, the front made things tough and the water was off everywhere. 5 1/2 hours on the water for 3 trout and a puppy drum. Lost a nice red at the boat though. Tough fishing not much catchn.
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You should have been here yesterday, they were tearin' 'em up.

[FwistedTucker]

Perhaps I'm an a-hole for being on here and never posting, but I'm still feeling this out as everyone obviously knows each other off the site. But I will say that I've been heading to the Port A South Jetty every since the "Amateur Hour" at Packery was happening a few weeks ago. My daily average take-home has been two reds and a nice mangrove. Some days there are Smacks, and the occasional tarpon is mixed in there. If you go to the end, there's triggers and big sheepies hanging out somedays. For a landlocked fisherman, it's been great to me. I've caught the most on freelined mullet with a #3SS. Some were on jigs, some on spoons. The guaranteed action is live mullet though. My freezer is full of drum now for the worse days to come. I haven't caught any yet, but I've seen people with stringers with anywhere from 2-5 flatties.

There are amateurs in Port A at times, but since the jetty is 3-4 times longer than Packery there's plenty of room. Hell, I've only been fishing here a year, so I'm still learning. You can always get better.


Daily Limit plus one tagged

[Tyler]

Nice and thanks for the first report!
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[chazthefisherman]

Read your PM

[Lovethemyorkies]

Welcome to the board. Great pictures and report.

[Johninaustin]

I spent most of the day flailing the surf from the south sticks to Packery. Not one hit.

The water was nice and clean with plenty of small bait.

The one odd thing was Packery. There was a nasty sewage smell to the place for some reason, almost like someone tipped over a porta-potty.