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.