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"Team Rebel Fishing"- The Series has arrived

 You read right, we are going to start dabbling a bit into the online world of video to properly give everyone the "true" Team Rebel Experience. Don't worry, for all of those who read, the reports will not be going anywhere, as we think it is a lost art that is dying. But for our "lesser" trips, there will now be an internet series, that will slowly get better when our editing skills advance, but for a promo its not bad, and you will get a few cheap laughs! Make sure to secure some of the new LIMITED edition Barrett custom rods "Nightmare" inshore series! They kick all sorts of ass!

  And make sure to keep checking back for updates, or SUBSCRIBE on Youtube to our channel! \m/

Eyes of the South

    We are back! After an extended absence and a lot of top secret Snook fishing endeavors, we decided to shake it up a bit and draw up a new game plan and chase a different species for a change. The Snook fishing was decent up until a few weeks ago, when the legendary SFWMD decided the water level of Lake Okeechobee was too high, and opened the flood gates to release 2.5 billion gallons of fresh water into our Indian River eco-system daily. The forecast for fishing around here for the foreseeable future is very grim, so needless to say it was time for a change.

 I met up with a good friend of mine named Jayson to check out a few spots to see if we would get lucky and find a needle in a haystack, and get some lines tight on some Snook in our new freshwater lagoon after my Buckeyes trounced the Cornhuskers. Again, we were met with the same disappointment of a fish-less wasteland which has become the norm as of late.

 While we were mingling in the parking lot, we came up with the idea to head North to the only Bull Red stronghold in South Florida to see if we can get lucky on a late night tide. We were already tired, it was already late, and we were not geared up properly to handle the task at hand. But after a lot of coaxing, Rockstar energy drinks, and some soul crushing metal pinned on the speakers, we headed North to see if we could pull off a Hail Mary miracle in the 4th quarter.

 Driving down the pitch black road at 3 ain the morning, we noticed the moon had risen, and we were under what we like to call  the "Eyes of the South" moon, which we like to believe is a good sign of things to come, but little did we know what difficulties we would have to overcome in a short amount of time....

  Upon arrival at the Inlet, we discovered that all my cast nets had been removed from my assault vehicle. Strike one, and it might as well have been strike two as well. We had about 40 minutes to come up with some sort of bait, and we had no bait catching device, needless to say the outlook for this trip got grim very quickly. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and that's when we found a cooler left next to a fillet station for anglers to donate their Snook carcasses to science. I opened the cooler to find no Snook, but somebody had dumped two Flounder carcasses and a Black Grouper carcass in the Snook donation chest (guess somebody didn't know how to read). However they did know how to fillet a fish, leaving little to nothing on these carcasses we could scrap, but we need something, anything, as our window of time had been cut in half since our arrival. I go to get a knife out to work some magic, and realize the only knife handy is the one on my key chain.....Strike Two. With the utmost determination, and a dull pocket knife, I was able to get a few pieces of what I can describe as less than optimum baits for us to fish with during the extremely short bite window that was approaching quick.

  The bugs were solid, and the humidity in the air was thick, making the walk out to the end of the inlet grueling and very disheartening, but after the long drive, and the mishaps along the way, we had to make this work somehow or another. Under prepared was an understatement for what we ere experiencing right now, and this became even clearer when we realized that we only had had three leads to fish with in a rock laden war zone, if we were going to pull this off, our luck was going to have to change, as we were now on the clock for the bite time.

 I dropped the first bait on my 4/0 loaded with 60lb mono and an 8ft unlimited class Barret Custom rod, and within two minutes of the bait hitting bottom, I felt that awkward tugging, typical of a Redfish hit. I let it eat for a short moment, set the drag to terminate, engaged the reel, and proceeded to lay the lumber on this fish on the hook set. My violent hook set, was met with an equally violent reaction, and I soon found myself getting drug back and forth on the railing engaged in a brutal tug of war. I would not let the fish take any line, but the creature had other plans in mind. It tried to take me into the rocks, the the pilings, then into the current, I began to believe it was not a redfish at al, but possibly a nice sized stingray, until I saw it rise up in the light of the Eye of the South, and realize it was a legitimate South Florida pig. Jayson got the bridge net ready, and the monster had been beaten. A few quick pics and a hook removal and a quick change of luck, and we were out of the red and back in the green. She was released to fight another day, and we pushed forward to see what we could pile up during our short window of miracle fishing.

  On my next drop I came tight again almost instantly. But this time I was able to manhandle the fish to the surface in a moments time. Jayson was able to maneuver the net into position, and in a matter of minutes the second bull had hit the deck. This guy has lived an interesting life judging by the missing portion of its tail. A couple quick pics, a nice release and we were back in the game again.

Over the next 20 minutes Jayson had a couple of hook-ups and losses along with myself. Until I was able to get another 30lb class fish to the jetty. However the hook pulled out from head shaking before it could be netted. The window was closing, and our one hour bite time was nearing the end, and daylight was approaching quickly. Jayson insisted he fish one more bait before we leave though. and On his final drift he came tight on a nice one on spinning tackle. After a short but belligerent tug of war on braided line, he was able to get this textbook looking redfish to the jetty for a couple of quick shots and a sweet release before we packed up.

 Driving South down the Wilderness road toward home as the first light peered over the distant clouds on the horizon, we had a long haul home smelling like red drum and fermented fish. We were soaked in sweat, riddled with bug bites, and I could feel the facial hair growing on my face. A long miserable sun-rise drive home was not what I was looking forward to after being awake for 24hrs. But knowing we had beat the odds and overcame everything that went wrong to get into some trophy Red fishing made the drive a little less miserable. The light in the sky was peering higher over the clouds, as the Eye of the South was still visible above, illuminating the ocean wilderness road southbound toward home, I rolled down the windows, turned up the radio, and stomped the throttle down a little harder, knowing that sleep would be a little bit easier after our last minute expedition, accompanied by some last minute luck.

King of the Rotten

    Once in a blood moon, somebody comes along that we at Team Rebel believe has the same thought process as our tight knit group. They also have to have such a high degree of metal fortitude, that metal detectors go off just from being in proximity of one. And though he has been around for a long time, the time is now right for the King of the Rotten to be annexed officially into the Team Rebel metal militia.

 Cody Davis is known far and wide for not only his appetite for metal and appetite for lead bait weights in a bowl of WD-40 for breakfast, but for his land based King fishing skills. He has produced time and time again when nobody else ever can, and produces in a variety of different places, so needless to say this was expected of him eventually.

 The day on the pier was long, and full of a lot of tourists that were bunking up the local fishing scene as usual. The decision was made on the fly to move to a different location and put forth a valiant effort in an area which many deem a wasteland right now. The plan was set and Cody and his crew mobilized northward in search of the might King.

 Upon arrival they found an empty pier, with what few locals were there expressing their feelings on how he would fail on this particular day on their quest for king. Not dettered by these claims, they pushed forward on their somewhat hopless endeavor.

 A raspy voice came across the piers intercom system, signaling that there was only 15 minutes left to fish before the police came and forcefully stopped you from fishing any longer. As all hope was almost a faint memory, Codys reel lit up like a train hit it, with a monster King doing a back flip 15ft above the surface off in the distance. The line instantly came tight and the battle was on, full of blistering (almost reel spooling) runs.  As the pier attendant was making her way onto the pier to clear out Cody and his crew, the fish was finally straight up and down and ready for a a gaff shot to prematurely end its existence. Needless to say, it went off without a hitch.......

Cody and his crew loaded up and headed back to the southland, with spirits high, as not only did he prove that the area is not as much of a wasteland as people believed, but had a 50lb class king-fish in the bed of the truck to prove it. Congrats to Cody on one of the largest Kings taken off the East coast in years, and a big welcome from all of us into the Team Rebel society! Keep your eye out, because with the King of the Rotten, this is the norm!!

 Until next time.... Heads down! Horns up!

Team Rebel Out.........

Monster Snook, Team Rebel Style 9/11 Report

With the change of seasons looming in the air, the time is upon us that the mullet make their suicidal migration southward in massive schools down the beach and the intra-costal waterways. Thus meaning it is now the time for football, the time for tarpon, and most of all, a time for snook ravaging baits in every body of water that mullet schools have access too. So naturally, we loaded up the truck and headed north to intercept the largest schools of mullet on the beaches, and see if we couldn't try our luck with some of the beach bound tarpon and sharks. I will spare you the details of this trip, for the fact that we didn't catch a thing. We did encounter some massive mullet schools with dozens of tarpon losing their minds on the outer edges gorging themselves with huge black mullet, never less, they were too far out for us to take a legitimate shot at one from shore. So after cleaning off the stench of failure, we packed the trucks and headed home, but not before the trip got even better, with a massive tire blow out at high speeds on the highway.

Our "Fun Meter" was having an overload after all this wonderful excitement throughout the day and early night, with a big hole left that had not yet been filled with out dreams of tarpon and snook. While barely able to function from over tiredness, Chris convinced me to take a ride over to a couple of bridges with a hot bite during the mullet run. So Tyler, myself, and Chris headed out around 2 a.m. just to take a "Peek" and see what was lurking in the shadows of the concrete links to land.

 We arrived at the first location with no intention of fishing, but shortly after we ventured up onto the bridge span we witnessed a line of black shadows, darker than the shadow line being cast off the bridge from the street lights, with all these shapes prepared to pounce on any foolish little creature that wandered into the dark zone. Tyler couldn't help himself, so he ran back down to the car and grabbed a rod with a Storm lure, and within a matter of seconds he was hooked up on a nice little tarpon (his first if I may add) and pulled her up in the net to remove the hook, so she didn't have any jewlery hanging in her mouth when we lowered her back down in the net for a safe and smooth release.

After Tyler landed that tarpon, all the other ones got spooked and went down low and proceeded to get a case of "the lock jaw". So we pressed on to take a look at the mullet situation at one more bridge before heading home to central air conditioning and comfortable beds after a long day of heat and misery. But when we arrived at the bridge, something seemed oddly awry for this spot, which was very unusual to say the least. We stood around and watched the water closely for a few minutes, until a small school of finger mullet ran into the shadow line and half a dozen explosions lit the poor mullet school up, leaving them with half their family missing. So we went down to the truck and grabbed a couple of rods and the small cast net to see what damage we could do in a few minutes of fishing. I cast netted a few small mullet, one of which Chris took and dropped down into the shadow and immediately hooked into, and landed a 20-30 pound class tarpon, which was safely released without being taken out of the net.

I then was blessed by the bridge gods with a tasty, twelve inch, ladyfish morsel, and quickly tossed the "guarantee" bait into the shadow. Instantly a MASSIVE shape rose up to suck down my ladyfish off the surface, and in a mere split second, the whole ladyfish disappeared into a gigantic boil in the dark underbelly of the bridge and I was now pinned to the railing with the drag set to lockdown on the fifty-pound test line, trying to keep this beast away from the pilings. After a brutal minute or two, I got the fished head out of the water, and as Chris was getting the net the hook came flying back at the bridge after one of the most brutal head shakes I have ever seen come from any fish. As fast as it happened, the giant crept back into its barnacle ridden wood home to vast in the glory of its win. "Oh, Well" I said, "It happens" and proceeded to get another bait and drop it back into the shadow of hell. Before long, My line came tight again and pulled up this nice little guy without meeting any resistance. After a quick snap shot, we lowered it back into the water inside the net, and it was off.

 Around 4:30 a.m., my morale was low along with my eyelids as I was ready to go home before any hint of light broke the horizon offshore, but Chris on the other hand was persistent and wanted to get a snook for the night. After a little teasing, Chris shouts at me from up the bridge "GET THE NET!!" so without hesitation, I bolt down the bridge to assist him in the landing of whatever is on the other end of his line, and to grab a quick snap-shot of whatever the mystery fish may be. After a VERY dicey two-three minute battle, the denizen rears it head on the surface, I was absolutely STUNNED with how big it was, especially for this particular spot. I didn't waste any time throwing the net up current and pulling tight and forcing the fish into the net which it BARELY fit inside of. As I hoisted the beast over the railing, Chris and I were both stunned on how huge this snook really was!

After a couple quick photo op's we lowered the monster back into the water inside of the net, as always, and watched her lumpy and rugged figure slowly but surely make its way back to the bottom to full-fill her destiny as a breeder and mullet destroyer. All in all it was a great way to salvage a bad day and night, not only did we not even intend on fishing these bridges, but we have a great story to tell at the end of the night. We will be back after some more lunkers this week hopefully, so until next time....

Team Rebel Out!!!!