[Capt Charlie Farrell]

CAPTAIN CHARLIE FARRELL’S
PORT MANSFIELD FISHING REPORT
AUGUST 4-7, 2004


Hot weather, no wind, big trout and tailing reds in shallow water.

Wed., August 4: Fished the back bays in foot deep water for tailing reds. Fish were abundant but slow to bite. Most action came from Bone Skittlewalks aggressively retrieved. Caution was needed to prevent spooking the fish. Times like this require patience coupled with a little luck. Though the water was shallow the deep mud prevented rapids movement to get to the school of tailing reds.

Thurs., Aug 5: Started the day drifting the deep grass where a large school of reds had been pretty active. The key word is “had”. On the third cast a big red was hooked and quick released. The remainder of the drifts resulted in numerous small trout being hooked. TTKs in red and white worked best. We continued our search for reds by heading back to the skinny, crystal clear water, of the back bays. As in the previous day the reds were still tailing. Unfortunately they would not hit a spoon, soft plastic or topwater with any consistency. The reds caught were mostly undersized. Heading further south we encountered a huge school of really big reds. The water rose when they surfaced as we entered the cove. No wind, pristine water, no boat traffic, huge school of reds and absolutely no action. We followed the heard for close to two hours throwing spoons, soft plastics and topwaters. It happens (sorry Jennifer).

Fri., Aug 6th: Started with topwaters on the flats northeast of the Port in search of large trout (quality over quantity). A bone Skittlewalk produced a solid 25 inch trout and a really, really big trout hit a black and chrome Top Dog Jr. Unfortunately the fish was lost within a couple cranks of being landed. On the bright side we were all able to get a look at this beautiful fish. We finished the day on the northeast flats catching numerous reds and trout on salt and pepper and pumpkin seed TTKs.

Sat., Aug 7: Returned to the northeast flats (now better known as Pancake Flats) where we had non stop action on avocado, black and red TTks. While some of the trout were undersized we were able to catch and release several keepers that were 20 plus inches. The bite was light but the action was consistent. Fish slow in the heat of the day.


Capt. Charlie Farrell
www.sweetspotcharters.com