I took the Village people out fishing a week ago. Yeah, really. Five residents of the Villages in Leesburg, Florida, a large retirement community. Some of the folks there have formed a fishing club and schedule trips out of the Cedar Keys.
Five gentlemen and I headed out into the keys on a beautiful calm morning around 8 a.m. High tide was at l0 a.m. Our excursion was for four hours, so we would have two hours of the incoming tide to fish, and then the first two hours of the outgoing tide. We anchored up at a favorite spot of mine at Seahorse Key and very quickly hooked into 5 or 6 redfish around 15 to 16 inches each. A keeper, or legal-sized redfish being 18 inches meant we hadn`t kept one yet. With the tide still coming in, I moved us over to Deadman`s Key and anchored off some oysters, grass and sand. In about two minutes all the guys were yelling for the dip net to scoop up their keeper reds. We ended up catching 25 plus redfish that day. We had to release many fish that were an inch or so shy of the legal 18 inches. We released two redfish that were over the limit of 27 inches. That's a lot of tasty meat to release back into the water. We really didn`t mind though because everybody had a keeper red of 21 or 24 inches in the cooler to take back to the Villages.
Towards the end we had used up all the fresh shrimp I had provided for bait, so I caught 3 pinfish and filletted them and stripped them out. Excellent bait. All in all, it was an action packed fishing trip into the Cedar Keys. One fightin` fish after another. I was running from bow to stem netting redfish. I`d measure them and hold them up for a picture then flip `em back into the water, then off to net up another. It was a really fun trip that went by too fast. Folks, you can call up Capt. Paula of the Lady Pirate and she will take you fishing all around the Cedar Keys, or.........you can call me at 352-486-1656 or e-mail me at shanadan50@hotmail.com and I will escort you and your party on my new 24ft pontoon boat from the mouth of the Waccasassa river into hundreds of mangrove islands with oyster bars and grass flats. Perfect habitat for redfish and speckled trout. Meet me at the fish camp boat ramp in Gulf Hammock approximately 5 miles west of hwy 19, on hwy 326.(a straight shot from Ocala), and we`ll schush out the river and along the coastal area and get in some fine fishin`. Y'all call me and I`ll tell you more about it. Capt. Dan | 