Heroes

Dean Schwarz, 12, caught this 10-pound bass with a Texas-rigged purple worm on a private lake in Frio County.

Meredith Sims, 17, caught this 32-inch redfish while fishing with her family in the Laguna Madre, guided by Capt. Alan White out of Corpus Christi.

Tanner Pittman, 12, caught this kingfish offshore aboard the All Hook’D Up.

Chris Call, of McKinney, landed this 28.25-inch redfish while wade-fishing in Port Mansfield.

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Cooper Kiffe, 6, of Rio Hondo, caught this mangrove snapper in Port Isabel with his dad, Ron.

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Continued from page 8

show the customer whatever he or she wants to learn,” Beabout said.

The navigation trips take place in the customer’s boat.

“I basically make them drive, while I point and give directions,” Beabout said. “This hands-on method really helps them learn a lot of things about navigating an area and safely handling a boat.”

The teaching begins as soon as the boat is launched at the boat ramp. Beabout gives the boat operator pointers on how to become more efficient when launching their boat. This includes boat ramp etiquette, and the same goes for loading the boat and pulling it out of the water.

“Once we are out on the water, we head to whatever area the customer wants to gain more knowledge about,” explained Beabout. Kings, ling and more are mackerel stripes, green back, white belly with silver scale.”

The groups are catching good numbers of ling on small live baits around the shrimp boats and rigs. A lot of them are in the 40-pound-plus class.

“The thing about ling is that you never know where they are going to show up,” Kinney said. “We’ll chum them up close to the boat then drop a bait in that’s about the same size as the chum. You don’t want to use too much chum — just enough to keep them feeding near the boat. We’ll use live spot croaker and fresh menhaden to get a hookup. Some of the ling can be surprisingly difficult to fool.”

Mangrove snapper have been plentiful around the rigs and wrecks. But they can be leadershy.

“We’re using fluorocarbon leaders and 10/0 circle hooks that are baited with spot croaker, squid or menhaden,” Kinney said. “Mangrove snapper are one of the smartest fish out there. They can become leader-shy really fast. The trick is to hide the hook in the bait. We’re finding most of the mangrove snapper suspended over structure. A lot of them are in the 6- to 10-pound class.”

While chumming is a very good way to get fish like ling and mangrove snapper to take a baited hook, the key is to use fresh chum.

They are also catching gag, scamp, Warsaw and yellow edge grouper in 200 to 400 feet of water, anywhere from 20 to 50 miles out. The best baits are live blue runners or croaker.

And the red snapper fishing in state waters has been very good.

“The water clarity is good,” Kinney said. “That makes catching red snapper easy.”

Shrimp boats are everywhere, and they are holding a lot of fish. Those boats are in 90 to 280 feet of water. The boats in the shallower water are holding ling, kings, bonito and jacks. The deep-water shrimpers are holding decent numbers of blackfin tuna. Kinney said they are trolling the MirrOlure 25-foot divers to catch the deep-water fish. “If safely getting to the specific location can be tricky, I’ll point out all the dos and don’ts along the way. When we arrive to the spot, we typically shut the engine down and start talking fishing.”

Beabout asks the customer what he or she thinks about the conditions presented before them in the area they wanted to learn about.

“I’ll ask them if they would start fishing in that exact spot, given the current conditions,” he said. “After they tell me what they think, I’ll give them my insight. What typically follows next, is a no-holds-barred discussion about anything and everything fishing. I’ll start to break down the importance of timing, and fishing around major and minor feed times. I’ll also explain the lay of the land and how I would approach the area under the current conditions.”

Challenging the customer to ask the question, “Why?” is also something that Beabout emphasizes during a navigation trip.

“If you’re catching fish in the area, then why are they there?” he said. “Surely they are there for a reason, and if you can figure that out, you’ll be able to figure out how to reproduce success in that same area again.”

Helping a customer understand their boat’s limitations is another part of the trips.

“It’s incredible to see the light bulb go off when a customer realizes that their boat is capable of doing things they didn’t think it could do, like run shallow,” Beabout said. “It’s almost like they get really excited to own the boat and go fishing.”

Boat operators learn the limitations and capabilities of their boat while on a navigation trip. Photo from Nathan Beabout.

Most of the time, average weekend anglers tend to revisit spots that they know have produced fish in the past. Beabout said this can be a waste of time if the conditions aren’t similar.

“That’s why I encourage my navigation trip customers to keep a log book,” Beabout said. “It will give them an opportunity to become more efficient in their time spent on the water. I always try to teach customers on these trips how to make a game plan, and explain to them the importance of knowing what their plan is before they ever get to the boat launch

Continued from page 8

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