Team Bad Fish was feeling a little antsy Sunday. All of us were (NOT!!!) ready to go back to work the following day- Dale and I had both been on Christmas break from teaching at our respective schools, Ultralite was on a seemingly permanent holiday....
.... and Mike Potter? Well, he just gets antsy if more than 24 hours passes between fishing trips..... 
LOL We ate breakfast together Sunday morning and after some debate, finally around 1pm we splashed the Reel@Work and headed to the 3-mile bridge just for the sake of being able to GO. It was our first trip as a team to 3-mile.We anchored over one section of rubble, and the fish decided they had an appetite after all. One shrimp, first down, BAM! I have the first white trout in the boat. It's not long before the rest of the team finds hungry trout awaiting bait and the light tackle strained under the weight of some pretty studly whites. Ultralite Mike tossed a shrimp nail-bitingly close to a bridge piling- and with finesse he lands the striped bandit:
Dale brings in one of many fine trout:
Occasionally a roving Southern Kingfish ("ground mullet") would find the bait, as Mike shows here:
What would a winter trip to 3-Mile be without the company of these characters?? Dale has better photos, but these fellows darn near boarded us. The game of the day was Keepaway with the pelicans, and we named one of them "Hank" after a particularly impish little Jack Russell.....
The trout ate steadily- another pretty fish caught by Mike:
Among the trout there were a few other "goodies" that took our baits- large pigfish, more kingfish, a couple of small grey snapper, and Dale found Mongo, King Of All Pinfish! (This picture was taken later at the dock)
We moved a section down to see if we could find another gathering of trout, and on my itty-bitty light rod I put a rather large shrimp. I took a cue from Ultralite's earlier success with the sheepie, and tossed the shrimp just within striking distance of a piling.
Tap. Taaaaap...... pull? ZZZZZZZZZZ! Ten pound test screams-this was no sheepie and if it was a trout, it was a mutant! One good run, two good runs, a head shake and I know I have a redfish hooked. Got him away from the piling and let him make another couple of runs, and surprisingly enough the pelicans got ambitious and tried to check out this fish as it came up- fortunately Mike was quick with the net and the red was safe from the birds. Ooooooh, the fish looks close- and he was- a 26.5 inch slot fattie was mine!
This one will provide the base for a new redfish print. We fished that area for a few more minutes- surely the red had buddies down there? We caught a few more trout, the smaller of which went into the livewell for our final stop- our grouper hole.
The sun was setting as we left the bridge. A thin veil of mist hung low over a glassy bay, shot through with the last vestiges of sunlight to impart a surreal glow in the building patches of fog. Not another boat was in sight- the bay was ours!
We dropped live baits over the grouper hole and though the baits were nervous, they were not taken so we headed for home. Here is the dockside photo of the catch- a sheepie, a redfish, lots of white trout, and 3 Southern Kingfish:
Not too shabby for an impromptu trip to grasp hold of the last of our vacation time!!
Thanks again, y'all, for another great trip out!! Let's remember that piling for the Redfish Regatta......