By Nick Simonson
I can recall my first smallmouth bass as clearly as the blue skies of the late spring day on which it came to my jig.
Sitting on the shoreline casting the eighth-ounce ballhead out over the small muddy point on the Sheyenne River just a few days after school had let out for the summer, an endless supply of slime-covered bullheads came to the nightcrawler-tipped offering I dragged up the break. In the middle of the two dozen or so spiny creatures was the odd sensation of a non-circular dash by the small bronzeback that bit, and after an impressive battle, I released the orange-eyed fish back into the flow and wondered how I could make more of that happen as I sorted through the continued selection of brown and yellow barbed denizens.
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On the Water: Beautiful weather to close out the month
By Capt. Bill Russell - | Mar 3, 2021
Photo provided
Nick and Jane Mohar of St. James City and friends took advantage of beautiful weather to fish nearshore reefs in gulf waters. They boxed good eating sheepshead, snapper and grunts on a morning fishing trip with Capt. Bill Russell.
Overall, it was a great week on the water with plenty of sunshine and blue skies to close out the month. Bottom fishing was good in gulf waters and the inshore bite was on and off.
In the Gulf of Mexico, fishing depths from 80 to 110 feet yielded red grouper, a mixed snapper bag consisting of mangrove, lane, yellowtail and vermilion, plus porgy and grunts. Sharks, amberjack and goliath grouper were caught and released as well. Within sight of land, in depths from 25 to 50 feet, large sheepsheads, plus mangrove snapper and grunts were caught, plus catch-and-release gag grouper and undersize red grouper. We fished 40-foot depths over several days