Feast And Famine On The Beach

After a stellar day's fishing Playalinda Beach a couple of days ago, I was hoping to duplicate my success today, so this afternoon I loaded a cooler and couple of rods into the truck and took off to the beach.

When I hit the beach it was about 4:30 pm and the tide was just beginning to head out.  The surf was not too rough and there was almost nobody on the beach.

I went to the same lot I fished the other day and noticed some birds about two hundred yards out from shore diving on baitfish.  I could see fish busting on the school but they were way too far out to cast to.

I was expecting some great fishing but there were no baitfish close to the beach.

Although I brought my cast net along today, I never got a chance to use it.  The mullet had apparently disappeared.

Undaunted, I pulled out a spinning rod with a Yo-Zuri SP shallow diving plug and started walking the beach fan casting into the first trough.

The lure almost perfectly mimicked a mullet in the surf but after more casts that I could count, I never got a hit.  I continued casting farther out into the second trough and still had no action.

I spotted another flock of sea birds diving on baitfish that were a bit closer to shore, but before I could get into the area and casting range, they were gone.

To make a long story really short, I spent the better part of two hours fan casting the area and trying to get close enough to the baitfish schools offshore before finally hooking up with a small flounder.

The fish was about 16" or 17" long and didn't put up much of a fight, so I unhooked it and let it go.

I would have taken a pic but I didn't feel like making the long walk back to the cooler to get my cell phone.

Finally, after another half hour or so, I realized that the mullet were well offshore today and it was a fools errand trying to duplicate my last surf fishing trip.  For today the Playalinda Beach mullet run was not happening.  It's feast or famine on the beach.

I loaded up my stuff and trudged back to the truck and headed home.

Maybe I'll have better luck next time, Tight Lines.