RON'S ROCKPORT FISHING REPORTS

WADING SHELL REEFS

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:25:00 +0000

1-21-2012--Picture shows my guest for today with a limit of nice trout and 2 flounder. The fish were caught on bass assassins in plum/chartreuse and bone diamond on the edge of oyster reefs.

DRIFTING FOR TROUT

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:46:00 +0000

1-17-2012--Another beautiful winter day with warm temperatures, rising tides,low winds and great fishing to boot. Fished a short half day of about 3 hours with two guests. The trout were very aggressive. If you missed one and dropped the lure back the fish would strike again. We used gulp jerk shad, bass assassins and Norton sand eels. They all worked and it seemed any color worked.

The fish were on top of reefs in one to two feet of water. We ended up with 17 trout up to 22 inches and 2 slot redfish. No doubt we could have limited if we didn't need to get back to the dock early.

With a strong North wind coming tonight, tomorrow will be entirely different. Forecast is for the Norther to blow though on Wednesday and result in another beautiful day for Thursday. I wish I had a customer for Thursday.

FISHING RODS

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:29:00 +0000

1-6-2011--Last summer I fielded several questions about rod choices. I decided to document my thoughts on the subject as soon as I had some some slack time.

My experience is that, when fishing from a bay boat, most people do better with a 6 1/2 or 7 foot rod. Over time my idea of the ideal length has decreased. Years ago I favored 8 foot rods with the idea I could cast farther. I now believe that accuracy is more important and one can generally just move a little closer if need be. At this time I actually prefer a 6 foot 9 inch rod but they are hard to come by unless you have them custom made.

A medium action rod seems about right for working both live and artificial baits for speckled trout. I prefer a medium heavy rod for redfish and black drum.

Over the years I've used just about every brand of fishing rod, be it fly, spinning or casting, in pursuit of both fresh and saltwater fish. A few years ago while fly fishing in the Taupo area of New Zealand, I was introduced to Temple Fork Outfitter fly rods. The Kiwis said TFO were the best rods they had found for their use. I was impressed because they used the very best of equipment, i. e. Simms boots, waders and jackets along with high quality reels. After using the outfitters TFO rods (mine were stolen on the way there,but that's another story) for several days I couldn't wait to get home and check out availability.

It turned out that TFO has a complete line of fly rods for all situations. Not only that but they also have first class spinning and bait casting rods. The legendary rod builder Gary Loomis is now providing design and engineering expertise for TFO rods. I still have some other brands, but all new rods I'm purchasing are TFO except for an ocasional custom made rod from Todd's Rods in San Antonio, Texas. Todd Bessette uses the very best components including titanium guides for the rods he builds. He can be contacted at 210-490-5874 or tbessette@satx.rr.com.

Now a few words about using fishing rods. The rod handle is designed to hold in your hands but the middle of the rod is not. It seems I tell someone this almost every trip. Rods seldom break no matter how big the fish unless a hand gets placed above the handle. If a rod does break while being held by the handle it will generally be the result of previous damage such as being stepped on, banged with a weight etc. The rod can be damaged and still look OK until that big fish is hooked and the rod is stressed. BOTTOM LINE - buy a quality rod, take care not to damage it and hold it by the handle and it will likely outlast the fisherman.

TFO spinning and bait casting rods cost just under $100 and are available in most tackle stores. The TFO web site is www.tforods.com

REDFISH DAY

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:58:00 +0000

1-4-2012--No customer today but I finished the "honey do's" early so I went fishing alone at 10 AM. Water was still cold but warming and the tide was rising. First stop I found reds trying to get back on the flats from the deeper water. Stood in ankle deep water and threw gulp jerk shad into a little gut and caught a red almost every cast. Caught and released 4 keepers in addition to the three I kept for grilling. After an hour I decided to look for trout in some deep guts across the bay. Right away the redfish started to bite but they were all small. Also, caught several small trout before giving up about 12:30 PM.

IT JUST GETS BETTER EACH DAY

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:35:00 +0000

12-30-2011--What a great day to be on the water--beautiful weather, light wind and fish biting. We started the day with very dense fog and it came and went more than once during the day. The increased cloud cover probably helped our bite in the clear water.

We spent most of the morning moving from place to place before finding fish. They were in deep guts. We stood on ridges and threw Gulp - both jerk shad and 3" shrimp, into the deeper guts. This was the first time I, or my guest for that matter, had experienced fishing in a school of drum for trout. There were at least 2 schools of about 100 each black drum that stayed in the same little area and just circled around for hours. They really did not want to feed, but the good news was the active trout that were with them. I believe the trout were feeding on what the drum stirred up. Anyway we pulled trout after trout out of the drum pod. My guest ended the day with his limit of 10 nice trout, 4 black drum and 3 flounder.

I know this post is late but I had trouble getting the picture to go with it.

TROUT IN MUD

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:57:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:06:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 04:39:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 02:10:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 01:51:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:33:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:02:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:25:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:24:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:52:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:46:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:22:00 +0000

CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER TIMES ARTICLE

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:58:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 20:45:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:44:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:13:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:35:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:57:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Captain Ron Coulston) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:57:00 +0000

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.