My nephew, Tulsa, shares a birthday with me and the same middle name (Daniel) and we also share a love of fishing.

With that in mind, I took him with me on a trip to beautiful Ponce Inlet. Tulsa lives on Florida's west coast, so he seldom gets to see our inlet.

It was a beautiful morning when we launched my 17-foot Polar from the public ramps at New Smyrna Beach's North Causeway. As we cleared the bridge, the lighthouse sparkled in the morning sun.

I had brought along dead shrimp and mullet for bait, so my first try was for bonnet head sharks around the sand bars just north of the bridge. The clear, deep water between those bars are usually home to three to four feet long sharks. We both baited mullet and sat back to catch up on family happenings.

My first hit looked like a shark, but turned out to be a large catfish. That was all that came up there, so we soon moved on.

Now I had us in the flow of the inlet with the tide running out and we anchored near the big buoy on the New Smyrna side. Almost right away my nephew had on a large red drum that really put up a fight on light tackle. After 15 minutes or so, I put the net under a 32-inch red that was too large to keep. A great start!

With the state making Mosquito Lagoon reds catch and release, the inlet would be my best place to catch a possible keeper. As good a start as that was after that things became very quiet as we shifted between shrimp and mullet baits. Nothing happening.

As a couple hours passed, it seemed we were just soaking bait until I made a cast near the buoy and had a good fish hit a shrimp. I knew from the start this was not a red, but had hopes it was not a catfish either. With the fish under the boat, I finally saw flashes of black and white and knew it was a big sheepshead. What a beauty it would be at nearly five pounds. The thing was the size of my steering wheel. We were happy to box that one.

Even with that I knew fishing there was too slow and decided to drift the inlet while baiting with cut mullet. On our first trip we had not a bite, but I decided to try it a few more times. Over the years drifting the inlet has always paid off for me.

On the next drift, I saw a medium-sized blue crab swimming out with the tide and was quick enough to get the net under it. I cut the crab in half and we both baited with it for the next drift. About half way out, I had a strong pull and knew I was on with a red. The only question was would it be a keeper or a throw back?

The strong fish really kept my rod bent and, before long, we were all the way out near the bell buoy. By then I realized the fish would be too big to keep and sure enough it turned out to be a 30-inch red. Great fun, but nothing to eat.

Our day was over and I was able to send my nephew home with the nice sheepshead, but that was it. Still, it was a great day at Ponce Inlet!

Dan Smith has fished the waters of Volusia County for more than 40 years. Email questions and comments to fishwdan@att.net. His book, “I Swear the Snook Drowned,” is available for purchase for $10.95 at (386) 441-7793.

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