April is definitely our strongest “transition” month for both weather and fish. Wide ranging temperatures, wind, rain, fog, and sunshine may welcome you on any given day, and sometimes ALL on the SAME day! The fish in April can also be just as unpredictable! The good news is many patterns remain fairly consistent and we welcome many of our warmer weather species back to the Golden Isles!
First, go ahead and tighten your drags, and you might as well throw in a little extra terminal tackle as well. Fishing structure, as many of you already know, is not for the faint of heart. Your going to lose tackle, fish, and possibly a small bit of your sanity. Fish holding structure, serious structure, comes in many forms, as well as many techniques to approach it.
While listing every fishing report from every trip is darn near impossible, I felt like this one has merit for several reasons. First, let me start off by letting you know that my two LEAST favorite sayings are “you should have been here yesterday” and “that’s why they call it fishing, not catching”. Well I’m here to tell you it IS about catching AND today IS going to be even better than yesterday. But alas, it is fishing, and sometimes it’s about eliminating water and a down right lesson in perseverance.
Here’s to hoping this forecast is slightly better than the weatherman’s. After digging into the log books, one thing usually stands out going into spring…water temperature. It seems like 68-72 degrees is a fairly magic number. Trout spawn, redfish tail, flounder file in, triple tail start to show, sharks are on the prowl, baitfish are abundant and those white shrimp start to grow and move.
A plastic shrimp. Never work. That’s what I thought until I met Mark Nichols about 20 years ago at the old Pine Island Fish Camp in St. Augustine. Mark explained the key to this bait, was nothing. Do nothing. I didn’t completely understand that at the time, but over the years I’ve figured it out. Mark had explained that a shrimp actually moves forward at a slow and meticulous pace. That is the real magic of probably the best shrimp imitating lure on the market. I guess the “do nothing philosophy” probably needs to be explained. This bait needs to do nothing but look natural. It is the angler’s mission to keep this imitation crustacean looking “au natural”.