Rat Reds In The Creeks

This afternoon I found out that there were a lot of rat reds in the creeks around Shiloh Road.

I packed up a couple of rods and around 4:00 pm headed out to Shiloh Road to see if I could get in some topwater fishing.

The culverts were still flowing and the water levels are still up.  The water in the creeks were dead calm and absolutely nothing was happening when I pulled up to the first set of culverts.

I was beginning to think I should have stayed at home, but I decided to toss around my favorite Chug Bug for awhile to see if I could rattle up something.

After a few casts I quickly realized that the first set of culverts were not going to be productive with topwater baits.  A small gator kept following my lure trying to eat it at every cast.

Since it was getting late and I didn't want to waste any more time trying to keep my plug away from the gator, I moved up the road to a bend in the creek to give it a try.

Yesterday I briefly got into a juvenile tarpon, but today when I pulled up and parked there wasn't a wake in sight.

I walked down to the water and started casting my Chug Bug as parallel to the banks as I could without getting hung up.

After several casts, I had a hit from a fish but missed the hookup.

I started fan casting around the area and varied my retrieves to mimic an injured fingerling mullet and after several (many) casts, I finally hooked into a redfish of about 22" that I landed and released.

The fish put up a nice fight for it's size and  I didn't feel like cleaning any fish tonight.

After letting the area calm down a bit, I started casting the Chug Bug again using the same "injured mullet" retrieve and after letting the bait pause on one of my casts, another rat red nailed the plug.

This time I pulled out my cell phone and tried to take a video of the action as I was trying to land the fish.  I thought it was a big sea trout at first, but as it got closer I saw the familiar reddish bronze tint of a redfish.

The video was shaky but I managed to get at least part of the fight below.

I unhooked the fish and released it to grow up and fight another day.

The mosquitoes were getting to me so I decided to head for home.

As I was walking to the car, I was telling myself to put my Go Pro Hero 5 in the truck as soon as I got home.

Maybe next time!

Tight Lines.