What’s Up Fishin’ Geeks,

Thanks to the great quarantine of 2020, I’ve been working from home and have been able to socially distance myself from time to time via watercraft. But in all seriousness, I haven’t really left my house other than grabbing the essentials in about a month. So it was nice to get out and get some fresh air for the first time in a while. You can tell by a few of the casts in the beginning and throughout the video, I’m pretty rusty. I hit more docks, snagged more mangroves, and scared more wildlife than what was shown but you get the idea.

It’s not shown in the video, but I started off cast netting and fishing with live bait. I caught some big menhaden (6 or 7 inches) along with a lot of small finger mullet in the residential canals. After an hour of no bites, I released the live bait and switched over to artificial. I made the switch because my dogs were just way too excited to be out of the house and I just couldn’t get the bait out far away enough from all the commotion. It was super windy and overcast all day long, so I tied on my favorite topwater lure, a Super Spook Jr.

The trout bite and blow-ups were great all afternoon. They did not see to mind the noise of the boat and missed casts. I hooked up on two nice speckled trout early. After that I must have cast a hundred more times, missing dozens of blow-ups on the lure but having no success. Although I was finding the calm pockets of water, the wind was still creating good water movement and I was getting big bows in my line often. I should’ve worked harder to correct this and make sure my line was more direct to the lure. It’s hard to get a topwater hookup let alone with a big D loop in your line.

Some more excitement happened towards the end of my trip as the sun was starting to set. As I hooked into a mangrove (nice one), I saw a fish blow up on some bait right against the mangrove roots. Once I got the lure out of the tree, I was able to cast the lure right on top of the fish’s head. The hook up was instantaneous, and the fish dug deep. I tightened the drag afraid I was about to be taken into the roots, but it was too late. The fish had pulled the treble hook right out of the back of the lure. It was probably a combination of being an older lure, catching mangroves and snatching it out again all day and tightening the drag on a solid redfish. All of this stress is what I believe made the hook anchor finally come loose. I could see right before it popped off that it was a solid redfish. Soon after that heartbreaker, I saw a head wake chasing some bait about 30 yards away. I made a cast, and a bull shark followed my lure all the way up to the boat. It always amazes me to see these sharks in the Banana River, I grew up swimming out there every weekend as a kid and never have seen them until recently. In the last scene, the shark comes back about 10 mins later attacking bait near my boat.

A lot of action for the first time back out in a while. Some rust was shaken off, but a lot of mistakes were made. The struggle was real. Despite all that, it was an awesome time out on the water and I need to practice social distancing again soon (aka go fishing). I need to make fishing more essential in 2020.

Spanky (=