Sleep? Eventually..., by Alexi

Steve at first light

     Twice now we've made a trip to the Sedges with the intention of fishing pre-dawn and first light.  This usually means missing a night of sleep.  You could say that the first trip like this a couple of weeks ago precipitated the second, not because it was a success, but because of the experience.  As fishermen we hear of things, but quite often we haven't experienced them yet, and when it happens there is truly a "AHA" moment.  Seeing the flats of the sedges at first light in the summer is an amazing experience.

   In the middle of the night (when we launched) there were sounds of fish feeding.  We heard them, "sploosh, splish, splash"  but we still went to deeper water.   What we didn't know is that the fish were (only) up on the flats, not in the deeper water where they would move to after sunrise.  To know....When I say "What we didn't know"what I mean is, of course we had heard and read that the larger fish move onto the flats at night and feed, but we haven't figured out a way to target them..., yet.  (Fly rods may be in short order for next summer.)  To know where the fish are isn't enough.  To have the right tools for fishing for them is equally as important.  So after trolling around a tube-n-worm along the sedges and casting around bass assassins, we agreed to move to a different spot.  During this move, going through about one to two feet of water I began to hear what would eventually become a cacophony of fish feeding.  The problem is that there are lots of weeds and almost any lure will get mucked.  I threw on a Zara Spook and started trolling it.  " SPLOOSH"  I wasn't expecting a fish trolling this lure, as it's not really a swimmer, but needs to have more of a walk the dog presentation.  But I did have a nice upper 20" class fish take it.  (it self-released at the side of my boat.)  I continued to fish it for a little while, then switched to smaller plastic baits because whatever they were feeding on was SMALL.  "SPALSH" As I stood there on a bank, I kept hearing larger splashes mixed in with the smaller ones.  Even the smallest popper I had was seemingly too big to match the hatch.  Eventually I caught a few on a small bas assassin, but they were really small bass.

one of many shorts
 

        After sunrise we found a new cut through to the buoys, and it was full of short bass.  We probably could have stayed there and caught a hundred.  But we moved on to another task, fluking.

     We drifted and battled wind and current out by the buoys in the channel but it was too challenging with the wind.  Eventually we ended up across the inlet.  Out by the Dyke we took a land break.  Afterwards, I started drifting with the end of the out going tide.  I caught several short fluke in and around a fleet of boats, but again, this type of fishing is frustrating for a kayak in the inlet.  I decided to

head for the quiet serenity of Snake Ditch where I met up with Steve again. Several drifts through Snake Ditch proved fruitful for short Fluke for me, and three keepers for Steve.  I was getting pretty frustrated with only getting short fluke.  I even had a double header of short bass when reeling in my fluke rig to check it for weeds.  Finally on what was to be our last drift I hooked up with a 19"fluke.  No doormat, but still what I was after.

This is mostly what we see

Sleepless disheveled kayak

     Many things come to mind when I think about the kayak as a tool.  I think about the boats in the inlet catching short fluke, the amount of resources it takes to maintain a boat.  I think about the recent news story of a boat that was 7 miles off shore fluking, and they saw a great white shark eating a dolphin.  I heard that story, and my first thought was, 7 miles of gas for some fluke?  I'm not suggesting people shouldn't enjoy their boats, I only mean to say if your goal is to catch fish, sometimes you don't have to go too far.