MORE LARGE DRUM

BLACK DRUM DAY

7-30-2012--Today's group of four caught 2 mangrove snapper early in the morning.  We moved to a channel with moving water for black drum.  The black drum are good sized.  You can see them cruising by in groups of 5 to 50.  This makes for fun fishing. The secret is to throw dead shrimp in front of them and hope they get to it before the perch do.  The anglers caught 11 of the black drum before we headed to the dock at noon.

 

JACK CREVALLE

 2-24-2013--Had a group of three, including an eleven year old boy.  He caught his first redfish right off the bat.  Later, we spotted Jack Crevalle feeding on a pod of menhadden.  I told them to bait up and throw into the feeding frenzy while I maneuvered the boat.  The boy was first in the water and hooked up right away.  He did a good job of fighting the fish.  When the fish had taken almost all of the line I cranked up and followed the fish.  The boy tired and the other fishermen took turns at fighting the fish.  After about a 20 plus minute battle the fish tired and they were able to get it in the boat.  It measured 41 inches in length.

FISHING IS IMPROVING

7-20-2013--Fishing has been pleasant the last three days but the catching has been tough.  It got a better today so hopefully tomorrow will be the day.  The group today ended up with 14 nice trout. 

CAPTAIN RON

7-16-2013--I'm off recovering from minor eye surgery.   Will be back fishing Thursday so that will  be my next report.  Weather is cooler with rains in the area.  Hopefully we will get some rain.  It would be especially great if a lot of rain fell on the headwaters of the rivers that drain into our bays.

Several clients have mentioned seeing the movie with CAPT RON, so I couldn't resist sending this picture.  

RED AND BLACK DRUM

7-14-2013--Had a thirteen year old and his dad today.  Only had until 10 AM but they caught a pile of black drum most of which were undersized.  The boy did catch his first keeper redfish and first keeper black drum.  I'm told the larger black drum bit well starting about 10:30.  Early in the morning we were waved over by a man in a sail boat.  He was stuck on a bar but still near the channel.  He told us he had gotten stuck there afternoon before and had to spend the night.  I noticed he had at least two lady passengers.  They were taking the boat from Rockport to Port O'Connor for repair when he ran aground on the channel edge.  He jumped in the water and tried to extract his anchor but it wouldn't budge.  He had me pull the boat side ways by hooking a rope to the top of the mast.  When I started to pull he cranked up his motor and ran to the front of the

boat to pull the anchor in.  It got exciting for a moment when I gunned the engine to pull him free, the sail boat leaned to it's side and his motor took over.  My customer was barely able to get the rope loose from our cleat before his boat drug us away.  Anyway it all worked out well and the sail boat continued on it's way.  

SPANISH MACKEREL

7-13-2013--Tough fishing the last 2 days due to hot water, low winds and weak morning tides.  My 2 guest today caught 11 trout, 1 Spanish Mackerel, 1 whiting and loads of big skip jack, small shark and gaftop sail catfish.  At 11:00 am one of the fishermen overheated so we had to go in early.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS FISHING

7-10-2013--Just discovered I've been dating July entries as the 6th month.  I also dated several checks for bait with a 6 for the month when it should have been a 7.  I guess they got cashed anyway.

Had a group of family and friends numbering seven so we used two boats.  Our normal half day trip wasn't long enough for the clients but the full day trip was believed to be too long.  So we negotiated a 5 1/2 hour trip when the booking was made.   My boat had four young ladies while the other boat had a lady and two 10 year old boys.  Catching started slow with little wind and no tide movement.  The bite turned on when the tide started about 10:30 AM but right after that  the young ladies decided they would rather go for a boat ride than keep fishing so we did a boat ride.  I couldn't figure out why everywhere we went other boaters were so interested in my boat.

                                  

 

ANOTHER GOOD DAY

6-5-2013--Trout are still good on croaker.  My couple didn't quite limit this morning but did have a lot of missed chances.  It took awhile to get used to croaker fishing and by then the bite slowed.  The man hooked onto what I first thought was a huge red but later decided must have been a very large ray.  We cranked the drag down on 30# braid and he fought the creature for about 20+ minutes.  At that point it ran toward the shore and we decided it must be a ray so we cranked the drag tighter. At that point the rod which had been bent double all along broke in two.  He fought the creature on half a rod for a little bit and then the half rod broke followed by the line breaking because there was no rod to take the shock.

FOURTH OF JULY

    6-4-2013--Had two very nice couples today.  We started with a learning curve because they were more used to jerking when fish bite as in bass fishing.  That doesn't work when one uses live fin fish for bait.  We were using live croaker and the bite was finicky enough that you had to let the trout run quite a ways with the bait before setting the hook.  Once the fishers got the hang of it the catching was fast at least until the tide stopped moving.  They ended up with 28 trout, several sand trout and whiting plus two good sized Spanish mackerel.  They also released a very large ray and some sharks.

FISHING IS GREAT

 6-3-2013-- Had a pretty six year old with her dad today.  She reeled in a half dozen fish before dad got his mojo.  When he got started it was on.  Fish were good size trout.  They finished their limit of 20 fish about 9:30.  When,the dad talked about coming again; I had  to tell him the fishing is not necessarily this easy  every day.