Living la vida lucky

On Saturday, I did some early morning top water fishing. As summer approaches and our waterways become more crowded, early morning fishing trips will become the norm. In warm water situations, first light is when the fish will be actively feeding. So, it is the optimal time to fish. 

 

After catching a few trout and redfish on top water lures, I had the Pathfinder back at the dock around 9 a.m. This left the rest of the day to do chores or have fun. I selected the latter and re-launched the Pathfinder at noon to have lunch at Kingstide. Docking the boat was easy. There was lots of room and even dock hands to help tie-up. If you visit Kingstide via water, make sure to bring your boat fenders. Boat wakes in that area of the Wando River are inevitable. With proper deployment of your fenders, the wakes should not be a problem.  

 

While eating lunch, an acquaintance stopped to say hello. She mentioned how lucky I was to fish so often with my brother (Dave), son (Elliott) and dog (Brody).  Shortly thereafter, another friend dropped by and said the same thing. I began to wonder if I was getting set-up for some type of joke. However, the punch line never came, and I got to thinking – “you are pretty lucky.” Before leaving the restaurant, I sent a group text to Dave, Elliott and Brody asking them to fish early Sunday morning. Dave and Elliott immediately replied yes. Brody wanted to know if breakfast would be served.

 

We met on the dock at 5:30 a.m. It was still pretty dark. So, we idled to our first fishing spot, a shallow oyster laden area of Beresford Creek. Our plan was to fish target trout in the creek and redfish in the Wando River when conditions got brighter.  

 

The top water trout bite was solid. We released several and kept a few for lunch. When the sun came up, we left the trout biting and ran to the Wando. We stopped at a shallow oyster bar that was adjacent to a slightly deeper channel. A school of redfish was milling about in the channel. Dave and Elliott cast their top water lures to the school and just let them sit. We watched the fish move toward the lures. Dave gave his lure a slight twitch. A redfish shot forward and ate it. After a short fight, Elliott was taking a picture of Dave releasing the fish. We laughed because Brody was photobombing the shot. Taking in the scene, I thought “you are pretty lucky.”

 

Contact Greg Peralta at captgregp@gmail.com or call 843-224-0099.