Fishing The Thunderstorms

Fishing the thunderstorms has always been productive in our area, especially during the summer months so after I finished mowing the lawn this afternoon and a thunderstorm moved into the area, I headed down to East Gator Creek to toss a few topwater plugs into the weeds.

When I left the house the air temperature was in the low 90s and the humidity was 100%.  There was not much wind blowing which made conditions for topwater fishing almost perfect.

By the time I drove into the easternmost entrance to Gator Creek, it was drizzling enough to cool down the air temperature to a pleasant 79 degrees.

Except for a few jumping mullet, there was no sign of any topwater activity but I tied on an XPS Slimdog topwater bait, smeared it up with some Pro-Cure, and started blind casting across the flats into a deeper canal that parallels the bank on the other side.

It took only a couple of casts before I hooked and lost a large ladyfish.  Several casts into the same area produced a smaller version that was quickly released.

It started lightning and the rain ramped up enough for me to pull on my Frog Toggs.  A sane person would have remained in the truck until things died down but I'm not sane enough to do that so I continued tossing the bait into another area.

At a bend in the dirt road, I briefly hooked into a juvenile tarpon that hit my plug while I was trying to untangle a minor birds nest on my spinning rod.  

I use 30 pound Power Pro with a 20 pound fluorocarbon leader in this area because of the heavy vegetation along the edge of the road.  The problem is that braid occasionally tangles when you "walk the dog" in windy conditions.

Needless to say, I lost the tarpon.

I continued fishing until the worst of the storm passed by and landed three more ladyfish before moving on to another spot.

As I got to the culvert heading to Catfish Creek Loop, I flipped a another XPS topwater bait into the flowing water where I hoped some fish would be holding in ambush.

A large sea trout immediately nailed the plug but for some reason didn't hook itself.  I waited a few minutes casting to the other side of the road and when I resumed fishing the culvert, I tied on a Chug Bug smeared with some Pro-Cure and immediately got a hookup with a sea trout.

Till next time,

Tight Lines