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.
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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.
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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 🙂
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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.
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Really fun day with my good friend Ed. Hope you enjoyed dinner, and an honor to be with you for two of your Firsts…
David – Ed still has a big smile on his face from this experience!! Thank you !! Ilona