This morning CaptJack, Nelson and I went to Double Branch in the kayaks. We got on the water about at 6:45am. We had a slow incoming tide, not much movement. Jack was throwing a Badonka Donk, Nelson had the She Dog and I had the Spook jr.

We headed down the trail and did the same loop that I did the week before pretty much. We stayed in the backwater areas of DB pretty much. Once we got to where we like to fish, it was Nelson that hooked up first with a small Trout. About 10 minutes later I got a nice 24" red on the other side of the mangroves from where he was. I was using the ultralight rod and I didn't have the drag as tight as I should have and the red was running straight for the mangroves. I wasnt thinking and tried to grab the reel to slow the spool and got ahold of the line, ouch! I luckily got him stopped before he hit the bushes.



We kindof split up a bit and started cruising thru the trails and I was casting as close as I could to the mangroves for about a half hour or so with no activity when all of the sudden a nice 25" Snook nailed the spook and went nuts! He took off and did his best to throw the lure. He must have jumped and thrashed around 5 or 6 times before I got him in the net


The bite slowed a bit, not much activity for a while. It was about 10:30 I guess and I had to get home to meet with a guy thats working on my house so we made our way back. I met with the guy and had some lunch and I still felt like fishing. DB is pretty close to my house so I decided to go back out around 4pm for a while. I headed back to the same area and started working the mangroves again. I might have been there 5 minutes, still throwing the spook on "the noodle" lol and hooked up with another nice redfish. He was about the same size as the one I caught earlier. As I was getting him in the net the free trebel ended up getting snagged in my net and was keeping me from getting him in and he ended up getting off. Bummer. About 20 minutes later I was casting around a different island and I saw a huge swirl around my lure and I just had that rush of anticipation waiting for the impending explosion.. Another swirl.. nothing... ... PA-TOOOSH!! Oh man... I knew he was a good fish. The little 1000 was squeelin pretty good. He was running pretty well but I managed to get him in the net after a nice tug-o-war.


I managed to whack the front of my kayak with my new rod and busted the tip off.. Awww man.. That sucks! Had the rod a week... Bummer.. I switched to my normal setup, still throwing the spook and carried on down the trail. The tide was going out pretty quickly now. Made a cast and started working it back and I'm sure it was a snook just took it and RAN.. He must have went 20yrds in 2 seconds. The reel was screamin then all of the sudden he managed to loose the hook. Damn.. Again?!? You gotta be kidding me. It was another good fish. Pretty sure it was a snook but never really saw it. Just kept on moving down the trail and went around a corner and I thought I saw a school of fish swirling but I realized it was a manatee. I really didn't pay attention to it and continued to cast, moving down the trail. Well, I wasn't paying attention and I managed to get over the top of a whole pack of them! I saw two pups on my right, pretty small and two enormous ones in directly in front and one on my left and of course they all freaked out as I was right on top. They rocked me a bit but didn't knock me out of my yak thank goodness. I decided to start heading back to the truck. As I was making my way back and starting to head up the main trail, about 100yrds after I made the turn north I heard a GIGANTIC splash behind me about 50yrds maybe.. I quickly turn around to see a HUGE splash that looked like somebody dropped a vw bug off a diving board. Maybe it was a manatee but Ive never seen one make that big of a splash like that. If I would have seen what it was I would have been cool but i decided I better get the hell outa there. What a great day fishing. Good seeing you Jack! Lets do it again soon.

Chris

Great report cw! Those are some nice fish

Excellent report, Chris. Nice fish on topwaters. Good that you didn't have problems with floating grass. I saw a bunch of it at the CCC today.

The rod tip can be fixed or maybe you can get the rod exchanged. I wonder if the big splash was a dolphin. I've seen them jump completely out of the water and smash down on a school of mullet to stun them.

Good report. That place sounds great. Nice reds and snook and no pesky trout. That red is fat. Bummer about your rod tip. Broke mine when the trolling motor sucked in my line and jerked my rod overboard. Nice work!

Those are some nice fish man! I also live close to double branch and was wanting to go there soon, where did you park if you don't mind my asking? I wonder if that splash was a gator or possibly an american crocodile. Hopefully just a bird, lol.

Thanks. :). I think it was a fish of some sort. I don't think an aligator or a manatee could get that high out of the water. I have seen some good sized dolphin in that area lately. I sure wish I could have Id'd it because it kinda gives me the heebeejeebees not knowing what it was.

Sounds like a pretty good day, wish I was there...I cant wait to get out that way. Could have been a dolphin doing the "tail slam thing" sounds like a guy doing a jack-knife off a high dive.....What kind of rod was it... the brand name? And where did you get it? I took back a rod six times when I kept breaking it and kept on taking it back...this was a K-Mart, like 12 years ago, I had the receipt and they didn't ask any questions SIX times...lol. But I probably wouldn't do that at a private tackle shop, I was young and still buying my stuff at Big Chain Stores....not any more though, TFO all the way baby...lol

It's a St Croix 2-6lb class rod. Ultralight. Got it at TFO. Going back to replace it today. That rod is soo much fun and I think it throws the Jr very well.

Tesilential wrote:
Thanks, it was a fun day for sure. We launched from State street. The end of the road just dumps right in to the trail.

Chris

Great day, Chris. My shoulders / arms are pretty sore today. I'm getting too old to keep up with you "youngsters!" Gotta get myself a 'yak with pedals, LOL.

Barry, it's not that there was no grass, it's that the spook sheds it really well. My Badadonk would foul after a foot of retrieve. Oh, and Chris was hitting those fish on the head with his plug, I saw it! HA HA!

Great place to fish. It was a beautiful weekend morning and I think we saw a total of 5 people on the water. Almost like "Old Florida"

CaptJack_1 wrote:
It was a nice day for sure. Very scenic back there. I had fun. Let's do it again soon!

Do you go pretty deep into double branch?

Yeah. I think the fishing is better back there. But I've been back there some days and haven't got a thing of course. Last week there was a lot of manatee back there. Bet I saw 10 of em.

cwegescheide wrote: That's sweet, I was driving around the area looking for places to launch and ended up wading a bit around state street. Felt kinda gatory so I didn't venture far. I also noticed a ton of little crabs (fiddler?) right on the end of the road.

I'd love to join you out there, let me know when you're heading back out. I'm probably gonna play hookey from work one day next week.

If you put live threadfin in the deep center channel of double branch just in the opening you will find out what that big splash was.

And when the tarpon jumps, make sure you bow down and give him slack. Bow to those kings :) I have had days where we jumped a dozen 100 pounders there. The month of Sweetwater, too.