My family had rented a place at Holden Beach and I was able to join them from June 25th-27th. I brought along the kayak and worked in as much fishing as possible around other family events. I had never fished this area before, so I attempted to focus on boat docks and the grass areas that were located between them, using a variety pack of 3 inch gulp shrimp. The first evening I battled a consistent wind and heavy boat traffic, while only boating a short trout. I set out the next day, with a renewed spirit and quickly hooked into two flounder, both of which were a little short. After releasing the flounder, I fished the next couple of hours without any bites, before hooking into a redfish that was around the 18" mark. Having only caught a few redfish before, I was quickly reminded of why I love catching them as that relatively small red fought like a maniac and in my opinion, they are one of the coolest looking fish out there. I quickly cast back out and as I began jigging the shrimp back to me, saw my line begin traveling sideways. I set the hook and my drag immediately began screaming. I had previously anchored up, so I could combat the wake from all the boats, and as I cranked down my drag, I noticed the fish was now towing my anchored down kayak in an area between two boat docks. I was using a Medium action rod, with ten pound test, and after one of the most fun battles I have had with a fish, boated a 26" redfish. Unfortunately I did not have anybody else out with me, so I did the best I could in quickly getting a few pictures and getting the fish back into the water. The next hour resulted in a total of 7 redfish caught, with multiple in the 26" range. Again, it was so much fun to feel the brute strength of those fish and see how each one was colored/spotted a little different from the last. The last red I caught made a long run toward the shallows and as he did, I saw the shoreline explode as other reds suddenly vacated the area. While I realize they were far from the largest drum, catching them on a medium action setup, from my kayak, was one of the most fun times I have ever had fishing. As I paddled back to the launch, I made a few casts at one last dock and boated an 18" trout; a good end to a great day fishing. The last day there, I set out again, hoping to match the previous days success, but only managed a couple short flounder and a small red. Unfortunately, I had to leave and make the trip back to the mountains, having felt like I barely scratched the surface of what the coast can offer and feeling like I have so much more to learn about locating fish in a totally different area from the mountains. Any advice for a future trip would be much appreciated, as I definitely have redfish on the brain now and can't wait for another shot to battle them. As expected, the pictures I took weren't great, so I have only posted a couple of the larger reds.
Tight Lines,
J.R.
Tight Lines,
J.R.
Catching trout last week just furthered the itch. I have 4 weeks of vacation to burn through, I know exactly where it will be spent.
