Fall into fishing this season!
In the Fall, fishing is more like catching. However, even in the midst of the best fishing of the year, an angler can have a tough day. After epic catches on Thursday and Friday, I was expecting more of the same on Saturday. Unfortunately, a gale blowing out of the Northeast made fishing extremely challenging. Whitecaps and rollers made the Wando River a treacherous place (especially in my technical skiff). To make matters worse, the Super Moon had tides running two feet above normal. If ever there was a day to cancel a trip, Saturday was the day. Yet, David (my brother), Mike (my brother-in-law visiting for the weekend) and I went fishing anyway.
Our ride up the Wando was rough and wet but (thankfully) uneventful. Given the conditions, the only place safe enough to fish was a tree lined bank (for the most part sheltered from the wind). The bite was slow but we were reluctant to leave the area. So we kept on casting our lures (StreakZ 3.75 on 3/16th ounce jigs) to points and pockets in the marsh. Every so often, one of us would catch a Trout. Fishing was not just tough, it was brutal but we kept on grinding. Our persistence was rewarded when we happened upon a creek that was draining over a large oyster bar. Simultaneously, we cast our lures to the bar and each of us hooked a Redfish. Triples! After hours of little or no action, it did not matter that the Redfish were tiny. We were happy. Turns out, there was a big school of small fish hanging around the oyster bar. So we made a bet on who could catch the smallest fish. For the next few minutes, we caught a fish on nearly every cast. When the biting stopped, I was the smallest fish champion!
Fishing and catching are not synonymous. However, fishing and fun are.