The first thing I did when I arrived at my starting point was to take the water temperature - it was 58°.  I proceeded to start fishing the new High Roller plugs.  I fished until noon before I hooked my first redfish.  After the first red I again took the water temperature and it had gone up to 61°.  I continued to fish and hooked one more redfish on the new High Roller plug.  As I moved up on the points of one of the numerous grass islands, I saw several reds holding in the many potholes.  I began casting my new gold Mylar fly with an epoxy head, and lo and behold I was able to hook up two nice reds!  Not counting the two I missed, I was able to boat 4 reds all over 26” and between 7 ½ and 8 lbs each.  But the encouraging thing was I saw several large schools of big trout moving across the flat, and I spooked a school of about 40 or 50 reds, so without question it is going to be a great spring!

This Week's Steinhatchee Fishing Report 12/7/00
Still no trout in the river except small ones.
There has been a mirage of boats trying though.

The big attraction for the January and February fishing are the Sheepshead, which migrate in to spawn.  Expect to catch them on the new and full moons when the tide fluctuates the most.  Sheepshead cling closely to structures so be sure to hunt them down and anchor over them
           at the Steinhatchee Reef.  Use a sliding sinker rig with a 3/4-ounce egg weight and one to two foot mono leader of 30-pound test line.  Mustad makes a special Sheepshead hook that does not straighten with the strength of the bite. Try a hook in the range of size 6 up to 1/O.  Be ready to set the hook quickly as the Sheepshead is notorious for stealing bait very quickly.  Sheepshead love fiddler crabs and sand fleas.
This Week's Steinhatchee Fishing Report 12/2/00
Flats Fishing Trip by Captain Sam LeNeave (352-498-6063 or in Gainesville 352-374-4003) of Lite-Line Charters
On Saturday, 12/2/00, my clients and I took advantage of the weather window that would occur between the front that passed through on Thursday and the one that was to arrive Saturday night.  We hit the flats Saturday with the tide falling.  I put my boat in as tight as possible and fished out with the tide.  We were using light spinning gear throwing top water plugs in the deeper potholes that cover the flats between Tater Island and Pepperfish Keys.  As the tide falls these hard bottomed potholes are easy to see and I just poled my boat from one to another site fishing for big reds.  We saw at least 100 individual redfish pushing large wakes and tailing all over this area.  We fished this area until the tide was dead low.  During this period, we caught 7 reds, all over 25” and weighing between 6 ½ to 8 lbs.  The tackle we were using was G-Loomis Spinning Rods, Penn Prion reels, Berkley 8lb test inshore big game line.  We were fishing top water plugs, High Roller original silver and black.  Gold and black Top Dog Jr High Roller white 4 ½” Rip Roller.  All worked equally well on these fish. Here are some pictures (click them to see enlarged):