The Ranger Ghost with Captain Hoginator at the helm. Thanks to a number of tracks on our GPS we can travel relativley easily and safely to our favorite fishing areas North and South of Cedar Key.

Our first stop was to a flounder area we like. We quickly caught two flounder, a short Red and Black Drum then moved on to areas North into the backwater on the rising tide.

The flounder we caught were over hard shell bottom. A lesson learned about finding that king of bottom is pole the boat or throw a gold spook with a slow enough retrieve to "feel" the type of bottom.
The next few spots only produced short Redfish and Trout. But after running further North we found some keeper Redfish. And finally Captain Hoginator connected with a nice Redfish (the last few trips he has been wasting time, incessantly  throwing his top water lures, while I catch our limit of Redfish).

Lessons Learned:

• Carry multiple rigs (our typical rigs):
  • A circle hook under a small weighted popping cork
  • Top water
  • Gold spoon
  • A bottom rig

We are typically using spinning gear with #20 pound Power Pro-Slick braid with a #20 pound fluorocarbon leader.

Captain Hogintator also caught the smallest fish of the day, a juvenile Trout.

It's time to have cameras out and put t yourself through the misery of 90+ degree heat, bugs, etc. You can see from the photo above the at 7PM it was still 87 degrees. But more importantly the deer are growing rapidly and the three young bucks in the photo are going well and finding plenty of browse.
We have been seeing fawns staying close to the does as well. 
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Finally, we are getting enough rain to green the woods up and make the mosquitos and yellow flies happy! The open hammock above is typical of an area I would scout and hunt.

The backwater fishing has been great. Redfish, flounder and an occasional trout are now dependable catches. We have caught more flounder recently then every before, not sure why but we are enjoying it. We are finding the flounder around the oyster bars and shell bottom where we would typically look for redfish. 
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A circle hook under a small weighted float with a mud minnow, shrimp or cut bait are working. Keep bait bumping along the bottom and if you can do it wait a second or two before setting the hook.

When the tide is up, don't forget to fit the grass edges and a gold spoon through the grass or a top water lure.

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The fish tacos have been nice to have on a regular basis too!