Chasing Trout and Redfish In My New Pathfinder 2300 HPS With a 250 h.p. Yamaha VMAX SHO four stroke, I can cruise at 4,000 rpm and get around 3.5 mpg By Eric Holstman Yamaha Pro Staff June is a time of the year when I’m on the water early, running in the twilight and fishing until mid-morning, then off the water in the heat of the day. There’s a great window from dawn until about 10 a.m. or so where the water temperature has cooled all night and the fish are comfortable and active. I start my day at about 5 a.m., make a long run in the dark so that I can catch the dawn topwater bite. This time of the year I like to look for the big schools of mullet, because the trout and redfish like to work the edges of the schools feeding on the shrimp and minnows the mullet kick up as they dig around the bottom. I can count on 30 to 50 trout a morning and 8 to 10 redfish. Most of the trout are fairly close to the banks, which is nice because that’s the same area that the redfish like to range. Then around 7:30 we’ll switch over to fishing jigheads with soft plastic jerkbaits, concentrating on marshy points and the occasional boat dock. With the big trout spawning right now, I’ve been concentrating on oyster bars in 8 to 12 feet of water, particularly if the tide is bad. We can usually catch a bunch of nice trout in the deeper water, but you don’t find a lot of reds there. Around 9:30 or so, I start moving to the deeper areas with stumps and rocks where I can usually get a good trout or redfish to bite along the bank. There’s usually two or three of those places I hit every morning. I recently switched boats. For the last four years I’ve been running a Hewes 21’ Redfisher, and this year I switched over to a different Maverick Boat Company product—the Pathfinder 2300 HPS. Both boats were rigged with 250 h.p. Yamaha VMAX SHO four stroke outboards, and...

Quality anglers and quality redfish/speckled trout make for swimmingly productive mornings of pure fish-catching, fishing “shop-talk” and some simply incredible dialogue focused on inshore saltwater fishing. Since Redfish University attracts and is most popular with the cream of the crop in both saltwater and freshwater anglers from all over the country, often times the learning process is mutual. Each trip, I am amazed at the skill-level of most Redfish University clients, the willingness to adjust, trust and accept our local inshore fishing techniques and the vast knowledge and interesting techniques shared by my clients. Redfish University’s inshore redfish and speckled trout guides trips in the last few months have been nothing short of astonishing. A very consistent topwater bite in the early morning for both redfish and trout and then some excellent blind casting and sight fishing opportunities have highly entertained Redfish U clients from all over the country. All techniques and baits are producing some true trophy fish including several 4-6.5# speckled trout and redfish in the 22-32″ range with a #35 mammoth beast crushing a bait in very shallow water in recent days. With the extremely experienced and demanding anglers that Redfish University services, it’s incredibly important to keep plenty of quality inshore species within casting distance of our valued anglers. The last few days, we’ve found plenty of redfish and speckled trout in both clear and off-colored water. The recent rains and high winds have created some tricky situations in some areas but with the help of some clever tricks and ingenius techniques, these inshore sport species don’t stand a chance. As always, artificials baits(Berkley Gulp!, Sebile, Johnson Gold Spoons, Berkley Powerbait, etc.) WILL out-fish live bait everytime and everyday….. especially at Redfish University. Thanks again, E...

The redfish and speckled trout anglers at Redfish University have been treated to some of the best inshore fishing the Gulf Coast has to offer. Every morning from 5am to 10am, we have been finding huge numbers of quality speckled trout in the 2-4# range with some reaching the 6# mark. We are targeting large schools of mullet with Sebile Bongas in white and chartreuse to produce the biggest numbers of speckled trout. As the sun rises, we will switch to Sebile Stick Shadds and Gulp! Jerkshads to clean up the rest. We have been finding our redfish in a number of locations as well as getting in some really solid sight fishing in shallow water. Targeting our redfish with topwater Sebiles and a wide variety Gulp! products depending upon the location and application. Covering productive water, cleverly selecting your artificial baits along with properly and intelligently demonstrating superior techniques will always produce greater numbers of fish than sitting with live bait. Always and every time at Redfish University. Thanks, E...

I love my hobby. It’s been a wonderful stretch of excellent trips over the past week at Redfish University. Fishing every morning from 500am-1000am with experienced and new anglers alike Most mornings begin at 500am and the action continues straight through 1000am. A typical morning consists of 40-60 quality speckled trout, 5-15 redfish and few bonus flounder in the mix, all on artificial baits. Anglers are kindly taking appropriate numbers of fish for dinner and we’re releasing the rest to be caught by Redfish University clients in the future. Thanks again, E...

Here’s a recent group of great fishing, sailing, diving, lounging and general chaos photos from Ambergris Caye a few weeks ago. Good times with some great friends and anglers. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate a birthday. The bonefish, permit and tarpon were on fire and a big thanks to my favorite guide in the world, George Bradley. The lobster and conchs were plentiful and thank you to Genie Matura, Randy and Roberto. And finally, the birthday sailboat day to Caye Caulker and beyond was epic. Big thanks to our private captain, crew and private chef, Capt. Luis, Genie, Martin and Jose. Enjoy the photos. Cheers, E...