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.

"SALTWATER TEXAS " ARTICLE

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

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

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.