TROUT IN MUD

12-29-2011--My one fisherman limited on trout today and released some. We fished several areas but all the fish came from deep mud/shell/grass mixture.

DUKE'S MIXTURE

11-22-2011--Had a couple today. Started out on trout with a slow to medium bite that slowed to nothing after 7 keepers. We moved 8 to 10 times and caught keepers of some kind at most places. Ended the day with a fairly nice box of fish including 7 trout, 2 reds, 4 drum and 3 sheepshead.

AFTERNOON FISH

11-16-2011--Had one fisherman today. We started after 3 PM and fished about 3 hours for 2 reds and 3 black drum. He had a god bite for the first hour but afterwards it shut off. I don't think he caught a keeper after the first hour.

LIMITS OF REDFISH

11-13-2011--The 20 plus mile per hour wind forecast for this morning turned out to be zero. Beautiful morning on the water but the lack of wind made catching keeper fish difficult. The wind finally came up later in the day and made the catching a lot better. Early we caught lots of trout but only 5 of them were keepers. The couple ended the day with a good box of fish with the lady having caught a grand slam including redfish, trout, black drum and flounder in addition to some large sheepshead.

SATURDAY FISHING

11-12-2011--Spent most of the day trying to catch trout but all the places where there had been keeper trout now only had short trout. My crew included a couple and their 9 year old son. The 14 and 1/2 inch trout kept the 9 year old interested. After switching to redfish they did manage to put 3 nice reds in the box. The youngster was excited about catching his first redfish.

THREE TROUT LIMITS BY 7:40.

11-07-2011--Waded the same reef where we caught trout on Saturday. We used artifical baits, mainly gulp 3" shrimp, and were back in the boat with 30 trout at 7:40 AM. Makes for happy fishermen.

EARLY TROUT BITE

11-5-2011--Today I had a couple for their third trip with me. Last trip we limited on redfilsh including two oversized reds but today was a trout day. They limited on trout before 8:15. The rest of the day we looked for black drum and redfish. Ended the day with 20 trout, 5 or 6 black drum and 1 redfish.

The bait of choice for the trout was live shrimp. The rest of the fish were caught on fresh dead shrimp except two of the largest black drum took artifical Gulp 3" shrimp.

FISH GODS SMILED ON US TODAY

10-30-2011--Had a Mother/daughter/son and fiance today. Spent two to three hours in the flats for a few throwbacks but not a single keeper. Moved to a channel where the fish congregate when the water is low because the water was falling all day. Right away we started catching some smaller keeper black drum mixed in with small reds. All of a sudden the big black drum and redfish started to bite. It was two and three at a time after that. Our only problem was keeping enough baits in the water. We filled the ice chest and used a live well to store the others. Luckily I brought more ice than normal so we had ice to put in the livewell. We ended the day with 20 black drum and 12 redfish for the party of four. They are convinced I do this every time out.

FISHING IS BETTER

10-28-2011--Had a lady and her two brothers today. She was very excited about getting to fish and even more excited when one bit. That made it a great day for the rest of us. Having someone excited is really contagious. We managed 5 redfish, 2 flounder and 3 sheepshead today. One of the flounder measured 21". By the way the lady caught the largest redfish and she was very proud of it.

TOUGH DAY

10-22-2011--Last night my fishermen for today said they wanted to wade fish today. While two of them were getting out of the boat and I was getting my boots on the third fisherman told me he wanted to fish out of the boat. I told them, based on past experience that dividing up the team never works very well. To my regret I relented and told the two to wade fairly fast down to a cut between two reefs while the boat fisherman and I went outside the end of the first reef. When we got there the trout were feeding aggressively. The bite only lasted 45 minutes and then it was over. The waders didn't get close to the cut until the bite was finished and when I picked them up they only had one trout. We moved many, many times the rest of the day to catch two keeper black drum.

BIRTHDAY PARTY

10-21-2011--Had a father son team today. They have joined me for the father's half day birthday trip the last two years. This month he was 81 years young. He managed to catch a grand slam with several extra black drum. The morning started slow. We moved six times before getting keeper fish about 11 A M. We had to leave with the bite going fairly strong although the fish were all on the small side, about 2-3 inches over the minimum size requi8rements except the flounder which was a nice size fish.

I had two calls from customers yesterday asking about the red tide. I told them there was none in any of the places I've been fishing. Later another guide at the cleaning station told me he ran into to two spots of red tide north of Mesquite bay. I called the one customer that I could remember and related to him that there might be some red tide in the general area. Today I noticed the water in mesquite bay was a putrid color but had no red tide smell. I only observed one dying fish that looked like a mullett. Anyone wanting to know more about the red tide status can access TPW's reports at:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/water/environconcerns/hab/redtide/status.phtml

NORTH WIND REDFISH

10-20-2011--Three fishermen limited on redfish today and also caught 3 black drum and one flounder. The "Norther" that started Monday was winding down with north wind less than 15 MPH becoming easterly about noon. The day started slow at three of my favorite places for redfish and black drum this time of year. Things picked up on our fourth move. We found lots of redfish in water about 15" deep. They caught around 40-50 redfish to get the nine we needed for a limit. It was two on at a time quite a bit. We had at least six reds that were only short 1/16th of an inch and many others that were 19 and 1/2 inches. The constant bites made it a fun day of fishing even though the keeper fish came slowly one at a time.

CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER TIMES ARTICLE

There is an article today in the Caller Times about a trout fishing trip to the surf with outdoor sports writer David Sikes, businessman I.J. Cohen and UTSA track coach James Blackwood. You can read the article on the Caller Times web site and there is a video of the "ball of bait" with pelicans scooping it up and our visiting dolphin.

http://www.caller.com/news/2011/sep/04/finding-trout-in-the-coastal-bend-surf/

REDFISH ON CUT SKIP JACK

9-3-2011--Had one of my favorite couples today. Beautiful sunrise and overall a very nice morning until it started getting hot about noon.

I knew the high tides and northwest winds would make catching trout difficult so I opted to start out looking for redfish and black drum. No black drum but the redfish bite was fantastic. We had live shrimp, dead shrimp, menhadden and cut skip jack. The only bait the reds wanted was skipjack. If we had not had skipjack I fear we would not have gotten the reds. By 10:00 o'clock the fishers had 6 slot reds and 2 tagged oversized reds for a total of 8 redfish.

HUGH HEFNER AND HAREM

9-2-2011--Today's fishermen were 3 ladies and one man. I called him Hugh Hefner. We had a great time. They make one or two trips to Rockport each year. This trip resulted in some personal bests for size of black drum and redfish. We tagged one oversized red and had another right at 28 inchs.

The storm to the east and north of us has the surf up to 7 foot waves so we couldn't go out to the surf. I thought about going to the mid-bay wells and/or reefs but the standing tide made me think that wouldn't work. We spent the half day fishing the Matagorda Island shoreline, Ayers reef and Dunham bay with shrimp and cut skip jack.

ARTIFICAL BAITS IN THE SURF

8-29-2011--Waded in the surf about 20 miles north of Port Aransas with two fishermen today. I had a lot of croaker left over so I used croaker while they used arifical baits. They caught more and bigger fish than I did until about 11:30 and then the croaker were better until we quit. They used top water baits early and got lots of blow ups plus several good fish. After about 8:30 the best bait was on Norton sand eel jrs in pumpkin seed/pearl with a chartreuse tail. We kept some fish for me to take to Elk camp and released the rest. We estimated that we caught around 40 to 50 keeper fish all total.

"SALTWATER TEXAS " ARTICLE

The August/September edition of "Saltwater Texas" has a very nice article starting on page 11 written by Mike Price about a fishing trip with me. The article is entitled "Fishing Redfish Bay in a Howling Wind". The author noted that the group of four fishermen had several double hooks of redfish during a day so windy that most folks would have stayed home. For anyone who isn't familiar with Saltwater Texas it is the most widely distributed saltwater fishing publication in Texas. It is available in Academy stores, other retail outlets and boat shows.

REDS IN THE SURF

8-27-2010--Fished the surf today with two fishermen. The waves were the lowest I've seen this year. With the wind down we could get up close to the shore. Caught 12 trout up to 24 inches before the current stopped and the bite slacked off. We then fished for reds and caught 5 up to 27 1/2 inches plus a spanish mackeral. The fishermen had to get back to check out of their rooms so we quit fishing at 11:00. I failed to get any pictures of the catch.

CATCH AND RELEASE

8-26-2011--Had a very nice couple for a half day of catch and release fishing. They caught reds, gafftop, and some nice sized trout. We launched at the Saint Charles ramp and went north to San Antonio bay. The fish were caught on croaker and live shrimp.

RAIN IN THE GULF

8-25-2011 - We fished the surf today. There was some lightening early but it ceased by the time we launched at 6:15. Once we started fishing several miles north of Port Aransas, there were two rainstorms in the gulf headed west. One was to move south of us and the other to the north. Both of them crossed on to land while we were fishing but barely sprinkled on us. The first 10 fish came quickly and easily but we averaged about one fish every 30-45 minutes the rest of the day. The problem was that the wind turned NW and blew us off the second bar. We tried anchoring several other ways but could not get back on the fish. We also caught several large skip jack and a good sized Spanish Mackerel.

SURF FISH

8-23-2011--Fished in the surf today. The waves were at the upper edge of the limit where I don't take people to the surf. For some reason the fishing is never as good when the waves are high and today was no exception. We fished hard and ended the day with 28 nice trout and one large spanish mackeral. In between we caught more than a dozen large skip jack. I brought most of the skip jack home and froze them for future redfish bait. We lost several hooks to shark but didn't land any. On the way back we stopped on a large group of gulls and pelicans working over bait. We saw two large masses of bait about 8-10 feet across and a couple of feet deep. Fish that looked like small spanish mackeral were pushing the bait to the top and the pelicans were waiting. We threw croakers into the melee but got no takers.

Yesterday, I took two guests to the surf but one forgot to take his dramamine so we had to come back in after catching seven trout. When we left the area the bite was better and the waves much less than we experienced today.

ARTIFICAL LURES FOR TROUT AND REDS

8-20-2011--Had two fun days fishing the annual "Cast for the Cure" tournament benefitting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. It's all catch and release with three divisions i. e. general, artifical and fly. My team competed in the artificial category. Each team of two anglers is allowed to weigh in two trout and two redfish each day for the two day event. Copano Energy did another great job of putting on the tournament which just gets bigger each year.

The folks in "general" did better than most years. Three or 4 boats in the other categories did well while the rest of us struggled. I didn't feel good about my team's catch but when the final numbers were added up they were fourth in our category. Of course there were only prizes for first, second and third.

I'll be fishing the surf and mid bay reefs this week since the wind is down.

HOT AND DRY

8-18-2011--The weather forecasts have really gotten monotonous --every day it's hot and dry with winds that get up some in the early morning hours, lessen about 8:00 AM and then increase until evening. Fishing in the surf has been fantastic. Twenty trout in about 2 hours on Monday and then 20 nice trout in less then one and a half hours today. Picture is today's catch.

Tuesday and Wednesday we fished in the bays with artificial baits. I'm getting ready for a tournament Friday and Saturday and my fishermen are interested in the artificial division so I needed to know where some redfish and trout that would bite artificial baits were located. Catching fish with artificial lures was much more difficult than croaker fishing in the surf. We caught shoreline trout on top water lures the first day but no reds. Wednesday, we found the reds and after catching and releasing 3 we moved on looking for trout. The trout didn't show very well for us but at least I now have some places to go for the tournament.

TOUGH FISHING

8-11-2011--Catching fish has been tough the last few days. Water is very hot and the fish have mostly moved deeper but the wind has been keeping us from the surf, mid bay reefs and the wells. Tides have been late in the day if at all during daylight hours. Salinity has increased significantly due to no rain and no run off from rivers entering our bay systems. Shrimp, crabs and oysters are all having a tough time. The fish are still here so hopefully we'll catch them as soon as conditions change.

Today, I had four fishermen for a half day. Right away we had a large redfish on but it eventually went around the front of the boat and the fisherman didn't move forward fast enough to keep it from breaking off on the trolling motor prop. We moved after catching a few short fish and ran across a school of jack cravelle. They threw out two lines and immediately hooked up two large jacks. Thankfully one of them broke off. It took 30 minutes to land the other one even with me following it with the boat. It measured 39 inches.

We tried several more places for redfish but ended the half day with two black drum.

GOT MY MOJO BACK

7-11-2011--After a furstrating weekend trying to find fish I took my three guys south today. We fished an area called the Meadows located northeast of Baffin bay. They caught lots of trout but had to sort through a lot of small ones to get limits of keepers. Over half of the fish were very skinny. I guess there is just not enough food in that area for them. Two weeks ago when I was there both the bait and keeper fish were plentiful. Now all the rafts of bait are gone. The bait we saw was mostly large mullett. We had an eight grader new to fishing. It was good that we had a lot of small fish to give him a opportunity to learn to set the hook. Most of the day it was a fish every cast but 3 out of 4 were too small to keep.

SALTWATER SWEETIES

7-10-2011--Fished the Saltwater Sweeties tournament today with four young ladies. I think they had a good time fishing. They caught small trout, hardheads, gaftop and oyster shells but no keeper fish. We started on the same reef where there were lots of fish last weekend but found none. We moved many times from San Antonio bay to Mesquite, Carlos, Dunham and Aransas bays but could not find keeper fish.

FLOUNDER AND TROUT

7-6-2011--Only had one fisherman today, the male half of the catch and release duo from yesterday. He wanted to target redfish today. While we were cleaning fish yesterday we were told about redfish rodeos that had been going on in Big Bayou startling early in the morning. I told my customer that often when I chase such stories it turns out to be a wild goose chase. Anyway, we went there this morning for redfish. We were the first boat in position but were soon joined by 7 others, three of which we could have thrown a bait into. It was obvious it was right place for the rodeo but someone forgot to tell the redfish. So we had a rodeo with no bulls. My fisherman caught one keeper flounder and that was the only fish we saw caught. We gave up about 8:20 and went elsewhere. I'm sure the reds started feeding sometime but we only had a four hour charter and couldn't afford to stay longer. We did get into more flounder and good size trout. Picture is of the fish kept for dinner.

TOURNAMENT PRIZE

Just got an email from my customer of June 24th. They were fishing a tournament that day and the 25 3/4 inch trout won the prize for largest trout. I was not able to stay for weigh-in so this was a nice surprise.

SURF FISHING

7-5-2011--Yesterday I had a father and two sons for half a day. The sons had not fished before so we had some learning to do and some missed opportunities in the process. The bite was not nearly as good as the day before but we managed 13 nice trout in our four hours of fishing.

Today the surf was down due to the lighter winds so we went through the jetties and turned north. The couple I had only wanted to keep enough fish for a meal or two. We kept five fish that were hooked deeply and released the rest. The Husband caught a huge stingray which we cut loose after taking pictures.

SAINT CHARLES BAY

7-3-2011 - Launched at St. Charles boat ramp today. My three fishermen caught 30 trout rather easily over shell. We then went for redfish and caught three. The single redfish pictured is from yesterday. It would have made any redfish tournament entrant happy since it weighed 8 pounds and was only 27 3/4 inches long.

TROUT EVERYWHERE

6-25-2011--Fished with the same group the last three days. Each morning if we would have kept all the legal fish we would have had limits by about 8:30. The group only kept enough fish for a couple of meals each day and released the rest. Each day we went looking for redfish after catching a lot of trout but we only caught more trout. For the tournament today they needed trout and redfish. We went looking for reds after the trout again this morning and were rewarded with larger trout, 2 of which were 25 and 1/2 inches. One of the fishermen did catch an upper slot red but they needed either 2 or 3 of them. I don't know yet whether their trout were big enough to win anything or not. We fished with piggy perch in Corpus Christi bay the first day. The second and third days we used croaker and fished in the Upper Laguna Madre. We saw reds each day including a couple of large schools but we couldn't seem to catch them.

WADING FOR TROUT

TROUT, REDFISH AND FLOUNDER

6-21-2011--Fishing was much better today. The last few days with the full moon phase and the high winds fishing had been spotty. Today I took another guide in order to find fish for the rest of the week. I have the same group of waders for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They are in a tournament on Saturday. Today we fished between Shamrock Island and Deadman's hole on the East side of Corpus Christi bay. My fishing partner released an oversized red and had two of them pull off. We also caught flounder, trout up to 25 1/2 inches and redfish. I'm not sure yet where I'll take my fishermen on Thursday but it's good to know that I have at least one good area.

SOUTH TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOME (STCH)

6-14-2011--Yesterday. members of the Coastal Bend Guides' Association took children from STCH fishing. My two boys caught 8 keeper trout, several small trout, gaftop and hardheads and missed over 30 trout bites.

It took most of the morning for me to figure out a way for them to hook fish. We started out holding the rod high and trying to follow the fish down in order to have time for the bait to be totally swallowed before the hookset. But that didn't work because the boys couldn't resist jerking the minute the bite started. Next I had them hold their finger on the line with the bail open but they just couldn't make themselves turn the finger loose quickly when the bite came. The final solution was to put the rods in the rod holders with the bail open and then I would tell them when to pick up the rod and close the bail. That worked but it still got complicated when they both got bites at once.

The boys seemed to have a great time and expressed great appreciation for the opportunity to go fishing. The total catch of trout from all boats was much better this year that in other recent years. In fact there were not enough nails on the picture taking rack to hang all the fish. A couple of boats caught redfish and one caught 2 sharks, a large black drum and a jack.

MANCATION

6-13-2011--We just finished the fourth annual "mancation". The group of twelve comes from Houston each year for three half days of fishing. They rent a large old historic house and just get away from it all i.e. work and families, for three days. We use three boats, two with waders and one with boat fishermen.

We had the best catching this year compared with previous years. The group caught flounder, redfish and lots of trout. Two of them caught their first redfish and one is having a replica made of his red. The newest member of the group with really no experience paid very close attention to details and caught loads of trout plus prize winning fish. The group has a $100 prize each day for biggest trout, biggest flounder and biggest red.

I think they all had a great time on Mancation number four.

LIFE IS GREAT

6-7-2011--Trout fishing is so good it's a great time to be a guide. Today, I had a delightful couple who really enjoy fishing. We went out through the Port Aransas jetties and fished north up the shoreline. The trout were all nice fish, very heavy and in excellent shape. The bite began a little slow and got better as we moved down the shoreline. Their limits of trout came rather easily. In addition they caught small shark and we cut off one very large sting ray at the boat.

Yesterday, I did volunteer work by taking Chemo kids from Driscoll Children's Hospital fishing as part of the annual Coastal Bend Guides Association (CBGA). The CBGA fielded about 15 boats to take the youngsters fishing. Everyone seemed to have a great time. The group caught more trout than in the previous 2 years which goes along with us having more keeper trout in the bays this year. The two boys on my boat really got a kick out of catching skip jack.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE WEATHER

6-3-2011--The Chamber of Commerce could not have ordered any better weather than we've had the past couple of days. Low winds and partly overcast. We've even had a little North wind the past two mornings to help keep things cooled off. We fished Corpus Christi bay today with croaker. Started the day at a well but the catfish got the first 2 baits so we moved to the Boat Hole and caught 20 trout fairly quickly while missing more than twice that many. When the bite slowed we moved back to a well on the way to the dock and got 3 more trout for a total of 23 plus an oversized redfish before calling it a day.

TROUT AT THE WELLS

6-2-2011--Fished with croaker at the Aransas Bay wells today. The bite was excellent until about 7:30 when it slowed. A boat came in to the same well we were on to fish. I always just go to another well if someone is already fishing the well I intend to fish but I guess everyone doesn't look at it that way. We let him have our well and moved to another but the bite came to a halt about 8:30. Anyway we kept 28 trout which made a good box of fish for my group.

TROUT DAY

5-31-2011--The wind was considerably less today. It was still a little rough for the outside windward beaches but we could fish most of the bay. We started with an excellent trout bite, getting 16 nice fish on the first anchor before 7:30 AM. It took us until 10:00 to get the 14 more for a total of 30 for three fishermen. We then fished for reds but they were all 19 and a half inches long. One of our fishermen did catch a 26 1/2 inch trout on cut perch while we were fishing for reds. I had him return it to the water since we already had 30 trout. I really don't like to keep large trout, anyway, unless they are to be mounted. The redfish pictures with this report are from recent redfish trips while it was too windy to fish most trout waters. The wind is predicted to be down for the next several days. That will be a very welcome scenario.