BLACK DRUM AND REDFLISH

8-31-2012--Above picture is of today's group.  Picture on right is of Brody and his Grandmother from their recent trip.  Fishing has been fun but catching slow lately.  The high tides that we had for about a week caused the redfish and black drum to retreat to back lakes where we couldn't access them. There are some trout in the area but they seem to have been very shallow early in the mornings due to the shallow water being cooler.  You can catch them wading but it's difficult to catch them from the boat.  The one time I got to wade we caught trout and black drum on jigs with gulp shrimp.  The only recent day the wind was down enough to go to the surf I didn't have a customer.  My friends that fished the surf that day did great and limited early.  

HALF DAY FISHING

8-23-2012--Had a father and son for a half day trip.  They wanted to catch some redfish so we went back to the same place where we found large  redfish last week.  Today trout were there but no redfish.  We ended the 4 hour trip with 9 trout.

WOUNDED WARRIOR FISHING

8-21-2012--My group today consisted of a father and two sons.  Several months ago I donated a full day trip to a charity auction for Wounded Warriors.  Today's trio represented the successful bidders.  They had no experience with coastal fishing so it was a day of learning.  Many fish were missed during the early two hour feeding period.  By the time they got trained up the bite had slowed.  They did manage to box 24 very nice trout before the day was over.  The only good bite other than early morning occurred about noon for less than an hour during which time they boxed eight more trout.

REDFISH MIGRATION

8-19-2012--It's the time of year again when redfish start gathering up for their move to the Gulf.  With trout scarce, I've been lucky to have been on a school of 26 to 32 inch redfish for the last few days.

Friday and Saturday we had the Copano Energy sponsored Cystic Fibrosis catch and release tournament.  This year there were 79 guided boats with two contestants each competing for best stringers of 2 trout and two reds each.  In this contest large redfish can really make a difference.  Most of the redfish my team weighed in were oversized, putting their score high in the rankings even though one of the anglers only caught one of the three trout he needed.  This is always a fun tournament with everyone dedicated to helping the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Picture is of today's crew with the kind of redfish we've been catching.  All of these reds bit live piggy perch or croaker.  Shrimp would get you small reds and sheepshead but not the big reds.  These fish were all caught wading in thigh deep to waist deep water.  Bite was never fast but when you had a bite it was a good fish.

THIRTY BLACK DRUM

8-3-2012 - Had a family of 6 fishing out of 2 boats today.  Both boats limited for a total of 30 black drum, one founder and one trout.  Caught 3 fish early and then had a lull until mid-morning.  After an hour the bite slowed again but picked up about 11 o/clock.  We limited during the noon hour and left with a good bite going on.  Picture shows the group of 3 that fished on my boat.

DRUM A DRUMMING

8-2-2012 - Had 9 year old Dean for a half day with his grandfather he calls "coach."  Reds have been spotty and the wind was up too much for the trout we've been finding so we opted for black drum knowing Dean would get enough bites to stay interested.  Early he caught small trout, small redfish, skipjack and a keeper flounder.  Then about 8:45 the drum came in big schools you could sight cast to.  Of course Dean caught the 2 biggest fish, the largest being 11 pounds and 28:.  We had to help hold his rod for the bigger fish.