Houston Chronicle

Lure of the catch brings mysteries
Unexplained aberrations spark interest of anglers
By SHANNON TOMPKINS
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
May 22, 2010, 8:39PM
[X]Mystery and surprise play big roles in fishing's attraction.

We never really know what's out there under the water — what's going to grab a bait or lure, or when.

We can have a good idea.

But sometimes the fish on the other end of the line turns out to be anything but expected. They can be enigmas.

One of those mysteries manifested itself recently along the middle coast.

My friend Will Leschper and a couple of his friends were wade-fishing around Traylor Island, which sits on the boundary between Aransas and Redfish bays near Rockport. They were throwing lures and pecking away at speckled trout when one of the anglers, Ron Coulston, stuck a fish that wasn't a trout.

The fish was a brute, peeling line from Coulston's reel like a bull redfish or maybe a shark.

It proved to be none of those; it was something totally unexpected and out of place in a Texas bay.

It was a ling. A 42-inch ling.

Ling — cobia or lemonfish — are a pelagic species, a fish of the open Gulf of Mexico. Occasionally, anglers fishing beach-front piers or jetties will catch a stray ling. But ling are rare in Texas bays.

What was a ling doing in Aransas Bay?