Think outside the box for fishing success
With numerous cold fronts and strong winds from what seems like every direction, finding a window of opportunity to get out on the water seems futile.
With choppy seas consistently making boating a challenge, getting the motivation to venture out can be like pulling teeth. Well, don’t fret. There are other methods to get your fishing fix until the waters calm down. When the fishing withdrawals become unbearable, you need to think outside the box.
Recently, I had to do just that. The forecast was calling for light winds and calm seas so I decided to head out to some hard bottom spots I’ve wanted to explore. After buying shrimp for bait and gassing up the boat, I headed out from the Main Sail Marina. I no sooner exited the canal when I was blasted in the face by a 15 M.P.H. gust from the east. Well, I wanted to head out offshore,” I thought. Knowing what was going to happen I headed out anyway making to the north entrance of Bimini Bay by Galati’s. By now I was in a2 foot chop so going offshore was out of the question.
So, I stopped the boat and looked around debating on what to do. I already had bait. I wondered about Egmont, then thought about heading toward the Manatee River. Then it dawned on me. I was right at the entrance to Bimini Bat and I hadn’t fished it on probably a year.
Upon entering the small little bat I tried to remember what docks I used to fish in the past. I tooled along a little further and came upon a couple that used to hold some redfish from time to time. After anchoring the boat in a good position, I baited up with a live shrimp on a knocker rig and cast it under the dock. Not 5 seconds later, I has a fish on. As I put pressure on the fish it started tugging the rod tip and stayed in one place. I thought for sure it was a baby redfish, but instead it was a sheepshead.
Moving on to another dock, I managed to catch a black drum and a couple of flounder. Same method as before — a shrimp on a knocker rig cast under the dock. And then this same scenario occurred on numerous other docks in a span of a couple hours of fishing.
Needless to say, although rough water and wind curtailed my original plans of venturing into the Gulf, I was still able to take the edge off a little by catching a few fish in the sheltered calm waters of Bimini Bay. “Thinking out side the box,” by necessity I might add resulted in the exploration of an area I hadn’t fished in quite some time. And it paid off.
