Fishing Patillo Creek

Fishing Patillo Creek was the last thing I had in mind today, but it turned out to be a productive afternoon fishing.

After I finished weeding the lawn and taking care of some other chores, I decided to give Shiloh Marsh road a try.

It looked like rain and the wind was blowing up a storm so she decided to stay home and work on my sister's stained glass suncatcher project.

I packed up several rods and a cooler to put the fish in and headed for Shiloh road.

As I got on I-95 heading towards the Scottsmoor exit, it began to rain and continued until I got to the barrier that closed Shiloh Marsh road to vehicle traffic.

I don't know why it was closed but I wasn't all too thrilled about it.

I decided to head to Haulover Canal and try for a big redfish.

As I got close to the geodetic tracking dome, I remembered a promise I made to one of my readers and decided to give Patillo Creek a shot.

I turned into the muddy road and headed for the deep canal.  No one was fishing in the area.

 I drove slowly avoiding the potholes, looking for signs of fish and finally decided to stop at a likely looking culvert.

The tannin colored water was clear so I decided to try a natural colored soft paddletail bait that I picked up from Bass Pro.

The lure looked like a Creme lure but I think it was manufactured by Offshore Anglers.

Anyway, it looked real so I tied it on and started blind casting.

I had a couple of taps but no solid hits until I flipped a cast to a culvert opposite where I was fishing.








The bait didn't travel more than a couple feet before a nice 20" sea trout nailed it.

The fish put up a respectable fight on my 10# outfit but I finally landed the fish and put it on ice in the cooler.

I normally don't keep what I catch, but I promised some friends of mine some fresh sea trout or redfish so today was the exception.

I had a couple more hits before I switched off to a topwater Zara Spook Jr.

On the first cast as I was "walking the dog" back, a ladyfish about two feet long hit the plug and danced all over the small creek.

I unhooked the fish and decided to move on to the deeper canal and try for a drum or sea trout.

This area produces some nice sea trout, redfish, black drum and occasionally small tarpon; but today, nothing was hitting any of my offerings.

   

I was wet and getting chilly so I decided to head for home.

On the way out, I stopped at the culvert and decided to try the "pond" side of the road to see if a redfish was in the vicinity.

On my second cast into water that was no more that two feet deep, I thought I snagged some weeds.

When I tried to jerk off the "weeds", a redfish that was at least 36 inches long took off leaving a huge wake.

I ripped the gold Johnson spoon right out of it's mouth.

I made several fruitless casts in the same area before moving on.

I got to the last culvert before the main road to the VAB complex and it looked "fishy".

The water was extremely shallow and colored, so I decided on the paddle tail bait again.

My second cast hooked me up to a 26" redfish that put up a nice battle before giving it up.

I stumbled down the bank, lipped the fish and crawled back up the bank to the road.


It started raining again so I put the fish on ice and headed for the house and some dry clothes.

Although fishing Patillo Creek didn't pan out, fishing the culverts into the area made my day.

Until next time,

Tight Lines.