One of the things that I love about fishing is that its a great equalizer.  It doesn’t matter your age, your economic standing, race, religion, etc – it makes grown ups act like little kids again.  It gives all of us common ground, and can make lifetime memories.

I distinctly remember when I started getting into inshore fishing – I was really clueless.  Many skunks came with me on a trip.  But my goal was to learn enough about it to have the confidence to take others and share the joy that comes from having a good day of catching.  Flash forward, and although I still feel I have a ton to learn, I do feel that I have the confidence to put others on fish.

Which leads me to our story.

We are all on our own trajectory of learning, and I finally had an opportunity to take a friend from Summerville Saltwater Anglers out on the water.  Ed is relatively new to inshore fishing, but already I can see his improvement.  So it was going to be fun to bring him and show him a few things.  The day before, he got his personal best redfish, a beautiful 25″er on artificial (on a TexasEye, incidentally) while fishing with another club member and guide Shane Shields.  

As we pulled away from the landing, he mentioned that he had never caught a flounder on artificial, nor an inshore slam.  Challenge accepted!

My first stop was a known trout flat and it was a matter of casts till we caught a handful.  Nothing large but the slime was on the boat.  I tried a few more spots with a couple fish here and there.  Then I decided to try a piece of structure I had fished often over the years, but not recently.  I said “Ed, let’s get you a nice flounder”.  As we rounded the structure I pointed out a pocket and Ed cast in there.  A solid Thump and a nice 17″ flounder comes in the boat!  That’s a pretty good flounder for your first.  That was fun, and I’m going to claim the Called Shot 🙂

I convinced Ed to keep that one, to surprise his wife Ilona with a delicious dinner.

A little while later once the water started coming in, I hit a bank that has been good on that tide.  We worked down it slowly, and ended up finding a school of 14-19″ redfish, that we proceeded to pull about 10 out of.  For a while it was an every-cast kind of bite.  Fun!  And….Ed’s first inshore slam accomplished. 

Really fun day with my good friend Ed.  Hope you enjoyed dinner, and an honor to be with you for two of your Firsts…