I haven’t been fishing on my kayak for a long while. I’m currently enrolled in school trying to obtain a master’s degree and I should be graduating in a few weeks. In addition to the work I’m putting into that and some other personal stuff, I haven’t really had the motivation to fish.

This weekend was my birthday though. I decided I needed to get on the water and do something that would make me happy. My sister and bother-in-law brought my nephew into town to celebrate with me so I told him we’re hitting the water. I took him out to one of my favorite spots I’ve fished in the past and had high hopes for a good day on the water.

The day didn’t exactly go as planned. The weather was really nice, but it was his first time in a kayak. Let’s just say I did all of the paddling and one of us constantly make the kayak tip near the point where we fall off.

After a few hours, I managed to put him on his first Redfish. He caught it on a gold spoon which was pretty cool. I’ve only ever caught reds on topwaters and shrimp. It was good to see the reds chase a gold spoon as well.

Since we were playing catch-and-release that day I made him kiss the fish before putting him back in the water to send a good vibe to the fishing gods. Since we didn’t see another fish the rest of the day I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that good of a kiss.