Guided Mike and Shawn today for some inshore redfish, speckled trout and flounder action. Mike’s last Redfish University trip back in December was an outstanding experience with a rare Super Slam(redfish, trout, flounder and stripers) and tons of quality redfish and speckled trout so the pressure was on to do the same or even better. Well, not so much but a pretty decent display of how to catch extremely uncooperate inshore fish. The upside of each extreme trip may be the recognition of how easy it can be and how difficult, but not impossible, our local fishery can be. Nonetheless, we always expect a high quality catching trip. Started out with a 4# speckled trout followed by some more legal trout with many short-bites and misses. Next, we covered an area infested with huge amounts of mullet of all sizes and could only stick the short redfish and dropped a very big speckled trout on a shallow flat. Poop. This meant the redfish were going to be a pain all afternoon and the statement stood true. Ran into some ponds to find some flounder and ended up with a few quality flounder in addition to those that we got while hitting the speckled trout. We even had a double-hookup on flounder today which was neat. Each area we fished was good for a few decent speckled trout and flounder but really failed to find a consistent group of cooperative fish. Just before dark we approached a shallow flat where several over-sized and legal redfish were tailing away. Well-placed Gulps!, spoons and topwaters were ignored. I dropped a few pinpoint spoons on the fish with no response. Maybe they were scratching their noses on the bottom. Anyway, we ended with several speckled trout in the 14-22″ range, 4 nice flounder and surprisingly, no legal redfish in the boat. Doesn’t happen often at this place called Redfish University. Most fish released and some went home for dinner. Back again tomorrow and I hope the redfish will wake up. Thanks, E...

After a quick four day break, I was very excited to get back on the water. Guided a fella stationed here for a few weeks that wanted to get out and catch some redfish and trout. We chose this afternoon since the water was coming in and the forecast indicated diminishing winds. Met with a pretty decent breeze out of the north and water that wasn’t moving in as fast as anticipated. Found plenty of really nice speckled trout in the 16-19″ range on our first stop and these fish were pretty particular about bait movement. Slow taps and deadsticks drew the most bites. Second stop produced some nice redfish in the 23-25″ range that were found inside small schools of mullet. At the third stop we found lots of flounder in the form of mud-trails and on our hooks. A few flounder were in the 3# range which was a pleasant surprise. We continued to plug away at the redfish and speckled trout as the sun fell and even had a few good topwater strikes right before dark. All-in-all, slow but steady fishing with very little movement from the stalling north wind. All trout and most redfish were released and a few better quality eating fish made it home for dinner. Back at it tomorrow. Thanks, E Holstman Please click an image to...

Sunday’s instructional/catching trip at Redfish University was a real drag. Met with extremely foggy conditions, calm winds and slow water. Instruction, techniques and areas is simple but we like to see some solid results and instill a high level of confidence in our valued clients. Started fishing at first light and found it shocking not to catch a fish in the first five casts. I let that go on for about 15 minutes before I opened the rodlockers and put a few sticks in my hands. Cast, cast, cast, cast, cast…. nothing. Switched areas and same result. Wow. Went to an area littered with redfish and found a few that seemed annoyed by our topwaters and got a couple nose-pushes from some sizable redfish. Hit a deep water area and no bites. How can I expect clients to catch a fish when I can’t? Not even the drop-shot rig worked! Instead of struggling all morning, Matt was gracious enough to reschedule and wouldn’t have been charged either way. It seemed impossible to us both especially with the huge numbers we’ve seen in the past weeks and months. Back to the ramp at 800am we went. Ran into a friend, a great angler and past client at the ramp who reported exactly to same frustrations so I didn’t feel so idiotic. Hit the normal Pensacola Beach Hilton Sunday brunch and even booked a string of trips with some anglers that apparently were very entertained by the “Sponge Bob” episode of “Sportsman’s Challenge.” The day wasn’t a complete loss. Monday and Wednesday were much more smooth. Better water and some much needed wind. The same areas produced decent catches of speckled trout and redfish but no flounder this week. Got down to business and hit them with smaller Gulp! baits on a drop-shot rig. Found the fish to be very lazy and uncooperative really but all clients gained the normal great information, techniques and productive areas and caught plenty of fish. We also took some redfish and speckled trout on Johnson 1/8 and 1/4oz Gold Spoons over broken bottom. I know these spoons are very small but that’s exactly what they...

Guided Kurt and Jim today for some inshore redfish, speckled trout and flounder. The guys are from Oregon and do some fishing there for steelheads and salmon. Our inshore fishing requires some very different techniques but it only took a few minutes for them to get very comfortble with sticking big numbers of fish. Very windy today so boat positioning was incredibly important. I did my part and they did their part by hammering the fish. Started with some very nice redfish on some shallow, wind-blown flats. Found redfish in the 15-31″ range along with some quality speckled trout in the same area. It didn’t take Kurt long to secure the prized Grand Slam with a nice flounder in the mix. Moved to a different area and found a speckled trout on nearly every cast. We probably got 40-50 trout with several being legal-sized including a great 5# fish. Today we stuck to the Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads in camo with 1/4oz Marsh Works jigheads because of the high winds. We also had a few really nice redfish and big trout slip the hook near the boat but plenty of great action nonetheless. The guys took home a few fish to eat for dinner and the rest were released happy and healthy. Hitting them again tomorrow! Thanks, E Holstman Please click an image to...

Took a much needed break last weekend and earlier in the week but got back to business mid-week. Business is GOOD. Big numbers of redfish, speckled trout and a few flounder each trip made for some incredibly successful instructional and pure fish-catching Redfish University guide trips. With the warmer weather as of late, we fished lots of mullet and bait infested flats and especially windy, unprotected banks. As always, a Gulp! 5″ Jerkshad is absolutely deadly but we did switch over to some Johnson 1/4oz. Gold Spoons and small Bongos in areas with large numbers of redfish. In some areas, the speckled trout can be taken on nearly every cast with most being legal in the 16-18″ range. In fact, we’re really seeing more quality speckled trout than years past and found consistent 3-4# speckled trout in some areas. The flounder are still found on current swept points around uneven bottom. I suspect if we were actually targeting flounder we’d catch many more per trip but our primary focus is redfish and trout. Speaking of redfish, some beautiful redfish in the 24-27″ range are coming to the boat pretty frequently. The 27″ line on my Redfish Cup stick hasn’t been tickled this much since my days on The Cup. Some close, some over and some just right. A perfect, 27″ redfish this Winter has weighed between 7.25-7.75# so they’re definitely eating well. Some catch and release trips, and then some “fill the cooler” trips this week but with one thing in common, lots of fun and lots of fish!! A blacked-out livewell is good. Heading out at 100pm today for more Grand Slam action. Thanks, E Holstman Please click an image to...