Guided Kirk Johnson and his son, Destin, this morning for some speckled trout and redfish in Pensacola Bay. It was a real pleasure to fish with young Destin who is an outstanding angler and really stuck it to the large speckled trout on a very difficult bite. Today, the water was coming in but last night with the combination of the outgoing tide and a very stiff north wind, there was very little water in our normally epic redfish and trout areas. Started early with topwaters and only caught a few small trout and really didn’t get any huge blowups. Made the obvious adjustment and moved well off the banks to produce some medium-large trout on Berkley Gulp! Jerkbaits. Found the fish to be very uncomfortable and unwilling to strike baits this morning. Moved to some deeper banks and slowing produced move fish but still not what we really wanted. Finally, I came through in an area with bottom structure in 12-15′ of water where the big trout were happily biting our baits. A few doubles on 3-5# fish was nice to see and by 900am we had an extremely impressive limit of quality speckled trout. Mission accomplished on the trout so we moved in for the redfish. Only one small fish cooperated and a few more nice trout. The redfish were difficult this week but we did get some very nice fish on Monday’s trip. All fish released except 15 super trout for a cookout. Great job, Destin, in tough condition. Thanks again.

Please click an image to enlarge and view slideshow.

p7290578