Jasmine’s Jumbo Redfish

 

My Photos

 
My daughter, Jasmine, and I headed out to the Indian River near Titusville this past Saturday morning.  It was warm with a slight breeze . For the past few months, we have not had a lot of luck catching redfish, but we saw a lot of bait fish in the water so we were very optimistic some good things would happen. We approached the shoreline and set down the power pole.  I casted two cut ladyfish off the back and we threw our shrimp off the front.  Generally, we catch trout off the front and wait for the spinning reels with our heavy action gear.  I saw the water ripple about 50 yards in front of me and I casted toward the area with my light action gear. I was using my 10 lbs Suffix braided line, 10 lbs florocarbon leader,  a natural colored gulp shrimp, and #2 circle hook. About 2 seconds after my cast, the line tightened up and we were hooked up.  I knew we had something big on the line since the reel was screaming.  I tightened down the drag a little more, but I had to be careful since this one was on my light action gear. I handed the line to my daughter Jasmine and she was screaming in excitement.  She was working the line and making some progress, but every few minutes the reel line would start screaming again.  I brought in all of the other lines and we began to chase the fish down with the trolling motor.  It went all over so we began to use the drag more.  I told Jasmine that even if we lost the fish, we had to enjoy every moment. We starting making progress and once it came to the surface, we knew we had a jumbo redfish.  After a few tense moments with the net, we finally brought in this beautiful redfish. She measured 37 inches long and was probably 15 lbs.  This was our biggest fish we ever caught.  We took some time to revive the fish and she swam away unharmed. The picture of Jasmine holding this redfish is priceless.  What an awesome morning !