Post by glitchmo on Nov 18, 2020 19:27:51 GMT -6
Another (and last, I suppose) trip down to the beach here in Texas. I didn't catch a lot of big fish, but I did catch a lot of different species, which is fun in it's own right. Post is mostly conventional fishing, but there's a guided fly trip kind of at the beginning.
I spent most of my time wandering the jetties between Port Aransas and Corpus Christi, just because that's the easiest place for me to find fish. I know the surf fishing can be good (and I can basically always catch at least whiting), but it's never been on fire for me like I know it can be.
Texas this year has been plagued by high, dirty water all year (largely because of the nonstop succession of storms in the Gulf) and this trip was no exception; the water level was about a foot higher than "normal" on every day except the last. In addition, the tides on a big day here are only +/- about a foot, unlike the six foot swings you guys get in SoCal routinely. Coupled with the shallow nature of the Gulf in general and the bays especially, all of that means that water movement has a lot more to do with prevailing wind than it does with tide phase. The only exception to that is at the few major cuts/passes between the bay and the gulf, where the current can be absolutely ripping if there's a big (in relative terms) swing.
Unfortunately for me on this trip, I had pretty lousy tides and high water on most of the days with very little water movement and thus not much of a bite. On the days when the tide was running, the fishing picked up tremendously and I had some better days.
I think all of my fish this trip were caught on either the big 6" spoon or live shrimp on a carolina rig or below a float (either as a lemon rig or in-line).
We drove down on a Saturday and stopped in Lockhart, which is kind of the spiritual home of Texas barbecue for an early lunch at Black's. This place is one of the real institutions in TX barbecue and it was every bit as delightful as we had hoped.
We made a quick stop at the Packery jetty that night, but nothing much was happening and the place was packed, so we bailed early.
Sunday we tried the state park jetties. Fishing, even with live mullet, was fairly slow for most of the day -- I got bitten off twice by sharks (probably mid-size blacktips) and got one ladyfish to hand.
One thing I did note was the absolutely insane number of mullet in the area. You could just see the texture of the water change as they went through, and there must have been millions. Fortunately, they did eventually attract some predators to the party and I got to watch as a blitz of Spanish Mackerel popped up and down along the beach for about an hour just turning the water to foam. Occasional they'd pop into casting range with the big spoon and I landed a few, but they were all small/short. Once they came right up to the rocks below my feet and you could actually watch the individual Spanish coming out of the water after the bait. Very cool sight.
Monday I had booked a day of flats fly fishing with a local guide, Ken Jones. I've lived here four years and I fly fish probably a hundred days a year, but I still hadn't gotten a red on fly. So I wanted to fix that.
We tried a few different spots and saw fish, including reds, everywhere. But with the dirty water there was a lot of fish seeing us right before or right as we spotted them. But we moved into a back bay and then I started connecting. The first red I spotted out of the corner of my eye not 20 feet away, floating up high in the column while most of the others had been sitting on the bottom or in the weeds. I managed to flop a feeble sidearm cast into its general vicinity got an immediate whirl and eat, strip, fish on! After a couple minutes of tug of war I had my first redfish on fly to hand, at maybe 19" estimated.
A few minutes later a black blob scooting across the bottom of a deeper part of the lake choked down the same fly and I had my first black drum on fly or conventional to hand.
He went in the box for dinner, and we moved on. I think we landed another black drum and another red in that lake. I wanted to switch to one of the flies I had tied, so we put on a little Borski slider I had made and then moved just outside to the main bay where we spotted another couple of reds floating up high. Another bad cast, another whirl, another fish to hand.
After that we couldn't find the rest of the school, so we grabbed lunch and then made a run to another back lake. There we connected with another couple of black drum and I missed a couple good shots at reds. We did spot a couple of whooping cranes off in the distance, which I understand people will pay good money just for that, so cool bonus for me. I took this excellent picture to prove that I had actually seen them.
Those two white dots just left of the center of the frame.
No, not those dots.
Those dots.
The one on the right looks kind of crane-ish if you squint enough?
Here's a slightly better photo of some spoonbills.
Anyways, fishing got pretty slow after that. We didn't see many fish, and the ones we did see were either small or already running. I had one or two more real shots, and got a couple of taps out of them, but no more hookups. A tough afternoon, but the morning was excellent and I had accomplished my goals. I think it's really important for guided trips like this to set realistic goals. Otherwise you spend the whole day feeling anxious and frustrated about spending a bunch of money on lousy fishing.
So that was, uh ... Monday.
Tuesday I hit Packery in the morning with live shrimp and netted one trout for my trouble, plus some miscellaneous rascals.
A rat red
A small jack
A ribbonfish
And whatever this thing is
Plus some of the ubiquitous and very annoying pinfish.
In the afternoon I took the rest of the shrimp to Port A. I eventually realized that the bait thieves here weren't actually pinfish. Instead they're all small to medium mangrove snapper. By changing the rigging a little I managed to get the hang of hooking them and scraped out one eating sized snapper off the rocks.
After that I took the big gear out to the end and managed a couple of Spanish to hand, one of which came home with me.
Wednesday was tough. I tried Port A early and blanked, fishing both fly and spoons. There was a switch in wind that I had hoped might change things up, but it seemed to mostly make it really foggy, still, and humid.
I tried a few other areas later, and I think I might have gotten a single spanish out of the day.
We took a lovely walk on the beach at sunset, which was very pleasant.
Thursday I managed to convince Christina to try fishing live shrimp with me, but the swell was way up and the bite was way off, so we bailed and I went back to my snapper honey hole and landed another dozen or so and kept the biggest few.
Last fish of the evening was a bonus snook, my first ever after just barely missing two at Packery last year and one in Belize the year before. A little guy, but you've got to start somewhere.
Friday we FINALLY had good tides again. I fished the surf in the morning for fast action on whiting, but was a little deterred by these guys.
In order to get out of the water we hit Packery in the evening for a good bite on a mix of ladyfish, spanish, and bluefish.
Saturday was our last day, and I wanted to get one more round in before hitting the road, so we stopped at the Packery south jetty for an hour or so. Water was moving again, and the fish were biting again. I lost a couple of ladyfish and landed a couple of spanish in an hour or so of casting. There was a guy to my right fishing with his like eight year old son, and they were keeping fish.
I hauled in a spanish, and it was hooked in such a way that I didn't think it had much chance of surviving if released. I asked the guy to my right if he wanted it and he said yes, so I put the fish in his box. Happens all the time, not a problem.
Ten minutes later as they're leaving, the dad pulls the (now very dead) fish I gave them out of the box along with the one they had already, and throw both back in the water.
I was speechless/furious. Why did he say take my fish? He could have just said no, as there were plenty of other people who could and would have taken it happily. The kid apparently saw my face and tried to explain that they "hadn't gotten enough to feed everyone so they had to put them back" which is fucking nonsense, but I'm not going to go off on the eight year old and I'm also not going to go off on the dad in front of his kid. I settled for a lot of head shaking and glaring, but I was very frustrated. Not so much about the guy, because shit like that happens all the time in Texas, but because of the bad example of ethics for his son. Blegh.
A little bit of a sour note to end on, but it was otherwise a pretty good trip. I think I made the most out of some non-ideal conditions.
Last stop out at the car wash on the way out of town kind of illustrates why I love it so much down there. Fucking everybody fishes. There's rods hanging out of trucks constantly, it's just part of the culture. Plus its pretty, plus the fishing is always at least OK, plus it's not too expensive. Just a nice place to be.
Anyways, You've seen a lot of pictures of fish in bags or boxes so here goes the results, a little food porn.
Blue corn crusted black drum with pico, beans, tortillas, and avocado.
Blackened black drum with a southwest salad and avocado
Whole fried snapper Hmong style
Broiled mackerel with Zhoug and yogurt sauce over roasted chickpeas
And, yes, of course, bread it and fry it. The speckled trout in this case.
I spent most of my time wandering the jetties between Port Aransas and Corpus Christi, just because that's the easiest place for me to find fish. I know the surf fishing can be good (and I can basically always catch at least whiting), but it's never been on fire for me like I know it can be.
Texas this year has been plagued by high, dirty water all year (largely because of the nonstop succession of storms in the Gulf) and this trip was no exception; the water level was about a foot higher than "normal" on every day except the last. In addition, the tides on a big day here are only +/- about a foot, unlike the six foot swings you guys get in SoCal routinely. Coupled with the shallow nature of the Gulf in general and the bays especially, all of that means that water movement has a lot more to do with prevailing wind than it does with tide phase. The only exception to that is at the few major cuts/passes between the bay and the gulf, where the current can be absolutely ripping if there's a big (in relative terms) swing.
Unfortunately for me on this trip, I had pretty lousy tides and high water on most of the days with very little water movement and thus not much of a bite. On the days when the tide was running, the fishing picked up tremendously and I had some better days.
I think all of my fish this trip were caught on either the big 6" spoon or live shrimp on a carolina rig or below a float (either as a lemon rig or in-line).
We drove down on a Saturday and stopped in Lockhart, which is kind of the spiritual home of Texas barbecue for an early lunch at Black's. This place is one of the real institutions in TX barbecue and it was every bit as delightful as we had hoped.
We made a quick stop at the Packery jetty that night, but nothing much was happening and the place was packed, so we bailed early.
Sunday we tried the state park jetties. Fishing, even with live mullet, was fairly slow for most of the day -- I got bitten off twice by sharks (probably mid-size blacktips) and got one ladyfish to hand.
One thing I did note was the absolutely insane number of mullet in the area. You could just see the texture of the water change as they went through, and there must have been millions. Fortunately, they did eventually attract some predators to the party and I got to watch as a blitz of Spanish Mackerel popped up and down along the beach for about an hour just turning the water to foam. Occasional they'd pop into casting range with the big spoon and I landed a few, but they were all small/short. Once they came right up to the rocks below my feet and you could actually watch the individual Spanish coming out of the water after the bait. Very cool sight.
Monday I had booked a day of flats fly fishing with a local guide, Ken Jones. I've lived here four years and I fly fish probably a hundred days a year, but I still hadn't gotten a red on fly. So I wanted to fix that.
We tried a few different spots and saw fish, including reds, everywhere. But with the dirty water there was a lot of fish seeing us right before or right as we spotted them. But we moved into a back bay and then I started connecting. The first red I spotted out of the corner of my eye not 20 feet away, floating up high in the column while most of the others had been sitting on the bottom or in the weeds. I managed to flop a feeble sidearm cast into its general vicinity got an immediate whirl and eat, strip, fish on! After a couple minutes of tug of war I had my first redfish on fly to hand, at maybe 19" estimated.
A few minutes later a black blob scooting across the bottom of a deeper part of the lake choked down the same fly and I had my first black drum on fly or conventional to hand.
He went in the box for dinner, and we moved on. I think we landed another black drum and another red in that lake. I wanted to switch to one of the flies I had tied, so we put on a little Borski slider I had made and then moved just outside to the main bay where we spotted another couple of reds floating up high. Another bad cast, another whirl, another fish to hand.
After that we couldn't find the rest of the school, so we grabbed lunch and then made a run to another back lake. There we connected with another couple of black drum and I missed a couple good shots at reds. We did spot a couple of whooping cranes off in the distance, which I understand people will pay good money just for that, so cool bonus for me. I took this excellent picture to prove that I had actually seen them.
Those two white dots just left of the center of the frame.
No, not those dots.
Those dots.
The one on the right looks kind of crane-ish if you squint enough?
Here's a slightly better photo of some spoonbills.
Anyways, fishing got pretty slow after that. We didn't see many fish, and the ones we did see were either small or already running. I had one or two more real shots, and got a couple of taps out of them, but no more hookups. A tough afternoon, but the morning was excellent and I had accomplished my goals. I think it's really important for guided trips like this to set realistic goals. Otherwise you spend the whole day feeling anxious and frustrated about spending a bunch of money on lousy fishing.
So that was, uh ... Monday.
Tuesday I hit Packery in the morning with live shrimp and netted one trout for my trouble, plus some miscellaneous rascals.
A rat red
A small jack
A ribbonfish
And whatever this thing is
Plus some of the ubiquitous and very annoying pinfish.
In the afternoon I took the rest of the shrimp to Port A. I eventually realized that the bait thieves here weren't actually pinfish. Instead they're all small to medium mangrove snapper. By changing the rigging a little I managed to get the hang of hooking them and scraped out one eating sized snapper off the rocks.
After that I took the big gear out to the end and managed a couple of Spanish to hand, one of which came home with me.
Wednesday was tough. I tried Port A early and blanked, fishing both fly and spoons. There was a switch in wind that I had hoped might change things up, but it seemed to mostly make it really foggy, still, and humid.
I tried a few other areas later, and I think I might have gotten a single spanish out of the day.
We took a lovely walk on the beach at sunset, which was very pleasant.
Thursday I managed to convince Christina to try fishing live shrimp with me, but the swell was way up and the bite was way off, so we bailed and I went back to my snapper honey hole and landed another dozen or so and kept the biggest few.
Last fish of the evening was a bonus snook, my first ever after just barely missing two at Packery last year and one in Belize the year before. A little guy, but you've got to start somewhere.
Friday we FINALLY had good tides again. I fished the surf in the morning for fast action on whiting, but was a little deterred by these guys.
In order to get out of the water we hit Packery in the evening for a good bite on a mix of ladyfish, spanish, and bluefish.
Saturday was our last day, and I wanted to get one more round in before hitting the road, so we stopped at the Packery south jetty for an hour or so. Water was moving again, and the fish were biting again. I lost a couple of ladyfish and landed a couple of spanish in an hour or so of casting. There was a guy to my right fishing with his like eight year old son, and they were keeping fish.
I hauled in a spanish, and it was hooked in such a way that I didn't think it had much chance of surviving if released. I asked the guy to my right if he wanted it and he said yes, so I put the fish in his box. Happens all the time, not a problem.
Ten minutes later as they're leaving, the dad pulls the (now very dead) fish I gave them out of the box along with the one they had already, and throw both back in the water.
I was speechless/furious. Why did he say take my fish? He could have just said no, as there were plenty of other people who could and would have taken it happily. The kid apparently saw my face and tried to explain that they "hadn't gotten enough to feed everyone so they had to put them back" which is fucking nonsense, but I'm not going to go off on the eight year old and I'm also not going to go off on the dad in front of his kid. I settled for a lot of head shaking and glaring, but I was very frustrated. Not so much about the guy, because shit like that happens all the time in Texas, but because of the bad example of ethics for his son. Blegh.
A little bit of a sour note to end on, but it was otherwise a pretty good trip. I think I made the most out of some non-ideal conditions.
Last stop out at the car wash on the way out of town kind of illustrates why I love it so much down there. Fucking everybody fishes. There's rods hanging out of trucks constantly, it's just part of the culture. Plus its pretty, plus the fishing is always at least OK, plus it's not too expensive. Just a nice place to be.
Anyways, You've seen a lot of pictures of fish in bags or boxes so here goes the results, a little food porn.
Blue corn crusted black drum with pico, beans, tortillas, and avocado.
Blackened black drum with a southwest salad and avocado
Whole fried snapper Hmong style
Broiled mackerel with Zhoug and yogurt sauce over roasted chickpeas
And, yes, of course, bread it and fry it. The speckled trout in this case.
