Had the pleasure of guiding my good friend and Ascension Bay, Mexico fishing buddy Pete Richardson on Saturday afternoon and man did we have a good time. Pete has been a real dedicated casting student of mine and his casting really proved to be "on target" on Saturday.

We had a good falling water tide on Saturday and decided to fish from 12:00pm until 5 ish which allowed the flats to warm up and get the baitfish and redfish both very active. By late afternoon the water was 68 degrees farenheit. If the wind is nice to us this is going to be the break out week for spanish showing up, flounder coming inside and redfish infiltrating all of the "usual places". Pete and I started our trip fishing in one of the creeks on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway and failed to find a lot of baitfish or shrimp. We actually ended up leaving the creek after seeing only one redfish of about six pounds that was hanging out with some mullet.

We moved out of the creek and out into the inland lagoons and bays that seperate the waterway and the ocean and worked our way through the labrynth of creeks and bays until we found a large school of reds quietly finning in the shallows of a protected bay.

We missed the first two opportunities and capitalized on the latter part of the falling tide as thes fish staged for a retreat off of the flat. Our tactic was to stake the boat out about a sixty foot distance from the school and have Pete cast in front of the lead fish and strip the fly all of the way back to the boat. It worked as the fish didn't want to leave the flat and they kept oscillating by the boat in search of food. At one point Pete saw a fish that I didn't see and made a perfect cast, retrieve and hook up to a nice fish. We finished the afternoon with four fish landed and three pulled off of the fly at the hookset.

Try and get down to the coast or out on the water as soon as you can as things are definately heating up in the Cape Fear Region.

Tight Loops and Lines,
Capt. Seth Vernon