With the first cool down of the year, I was stoked to get out. OK, that’s not the truth. With cool downs, come the winds. I’m not a big fan of wind lately. With yet another nagging medical condition, I don’t seem to have the strength to fight the wind like I used to. But as always, I dragged myself out of bed and hit a local flat that was protected from a howling north wind. I don’t like to paddle against a north wind, but I sure do like to fish them. For us her in Tampa, a north wind push’s the water out of the bay, making for some skinny conditions. My kind of fishing.
Between the four of us we managed a bunch of redfish, mostly cookie cutter lower slot fish. But the really cool thing was that all of them were multi-spot fish. Some trout and flounder rounded out the catch’s.
Well the winds died down and so did the bite. Once the tide turned we started seeing tails, the only problem was there were so many mullet on the flats that you would push them right into the reds as they were tailing.
Oh well, there will be another day. This is a great time to be on the water, its cooling off and with that, the fish are feeding. Should be a great Fall.
About the Author: Bill Howard is a Pro Staff Member at Yakangler.com, as well as Malibu Kayaks. He is also on the Columbia Sportswear Pro Team. Bill is an avid photographer and writer, contributing to numerous websites and publications in the Tampa Bay area. In 2008 he completed a 17 day, 129 mile trip around Tampa Bay raising nearly $4000 dollars for the American Heart Association. He is also a board member for the Tampa Bay Chapter of Hero's on the Water.
