December 2011

What’s up with Texas Flounder?

Our guides tell what’s going on in their areas

Improve your trout fishing skills Kevin Cochran shares five basics

Only $3.95 www.tsfmag.com December 2011

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DECEMBER 2011 VOL 21 NO 8

EDITOR AND PuBLISHER Everett Johnson

ABOUT THE COVER Ellen Ohmstede enjoyed a day of fi shing recently on Aransas Bay with husband Will and fi shing guide Jay Watkins. Part of their day was spent chasing fl ounder and as usual Jay got them on some good ones.

CONTENTS

FEATURES

Office: 361-785-3420 Cell: 361-550-9918 NATIONAL SALES REPRESENTATIVE Bart Manganiello Bartalm@optonline.net REGIONAL SALES REPRESENTATIVE Patti Elkins Patti@tsfmag.com Office: 361-785-3420 Cell: 361-649-2265

BuSINESS / ACCOuNTING MANAGER Shirley Elliott

21 Coastal Birding 40 Let’s Ask The Pro 42 Fly Fishing 46 TPWD Field Notes 48 Boat Maintenance Tips 50 Conservation 52 kayak Fishing 56 According to Scott 58 youth Fishing 60 Texas Nearshore and Off shore 64 Cade’s Coastal Chronicles 68 Fishy Facts

WHAT OUR GUIDES HAVE TO SAY

72 Dickie Colburn’s Sabine Scene 74 Mickey on Galveston 76 Capt. Bill’s Fish Talk 78 Mid-Coast Bays with the Grays 80 Hooked up with Rowsey 82 Capt. Tricia’s Port Mansfi eld Report 84 South Padre Fishing Scene

4 | December 2011

Pam Johnson Pam@tsfmag.com

Donna Boyd Donna@tsfmag.com

32 DEPARTMENTS

92

VICE PRESIDENT PRODuCTION & ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

PRODuCTION COORDINATOR

08 Plugging with Witticisms and Proverbs Mike McBride 12 A Pentad of Tenets kevin Cochran 18 Tough Times Billy Sandifer 22 This Old Fillet knife of Mine Martin Strarup 24 Well….What’s it gonna be?

Chuck uzzle 26 What’s up with Texas fl ounder?

Everett Johnson 32 Sheepshead Ruminations Joe Richard 36 A Double-Barreled Dose of Coastal Fun Everett Johnson

40

Everett@tsfmag.com

Dickie Colburn Mickey Eastman Bill Pustejovsky Gary Gray David Rowsey Capt. Tricia Ernest Cisneros

Billy Sandifer Jay Watkins Casey Smartt Jenny Detert Chris Mapp CCA Texas Scott Null Scott Sommerlatte Jake Haddock Mike Jennings Cade Simpson Stephanie Boyd

Shirley@tsfmag.com CIRCuLATION SuBSCRIPTION – PRODuCT SALES Linda Curry Cir@tsfmag.com ADDRESS CHANGED? Email Store@tsfmag.com DESIGN & LAyOuT Stephanie Boyd stephanie@tsfmag.com Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine is published monthly.

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Order on-line: WWW.TSFMAG.COM MAkE CHECkS PAyABLE TO: Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine Attn: Subscriptions P.O. Box 429, Seadrift, Texas 77983 * Subscribers are responsible for submitting all address changes and renewals by the 10th of the prior month’s issue. Email store@tsfmag.com for all address changes or please call 361-785-3420 from 8am - 4:30pm. The U.S. Postal Service does not guarantee magazines will be forwarded .

HOW TO CONTACT TSFMAG: PHONE: 361-785-3420 FAX: 361-785-2844 MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 429, Seadrift, Texas 77983 PHySICAL ADDRESS: 58 Fisherman’s Lane, Seadrift, TX 77983 WEB: www.TSFMAG.com PHOTO GALLERy: photos@tsfmag.com

64

REGULARS 06 Editorial 70 New Tackle & Gear 86 Fishing Reports and Forecasts 90 Catch of the Month 92 Gulf Coast kitchen

PRINTED IN THE USA. Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine (ISSN 1935-9586) is published monthly by Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine, Inc., 58 Fisherman’s Lane, Seadrift, Texas 77983 l P. O. Box 429, Seadrift, TX 77983 © Copyright 1990 All rights reserved.

Positively nothing in this publication may be reprinted or reproduced. *Views expressed by Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine contributors do not necessarily express the views of Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine.

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EDITORIAL IS THE FLOUNDER FISHERY OUR LATEST CONSERVATION SUCCESS STORY? In this issue we included a Q&A article where we sought feedback on a list of topics dealing with southern fl ounder. We asked our guidewriter staff for their take on their local fl ounder fi shery. I would also like to encourage readers to contribute their personal take the same as I did the writers. Email would be great or you can send it snail mail. Do not hesitate to pick up the telephone if you would prefer to communicate verbally. you might get lucky and catch me at the offi ce but don’t be surprised if I’m fi shing or hunting when you call. I will return the call – promise.

Sifting through the responses from the guides, it stood out that the further down the coast you travel, the greater the perception that a fl ounder recovery is underway. I could speculate that this is due to the fact that the upper coast has always held more fl ounder in general than the middle and lower coast and so the increase, if indeed any has been accomplished, is not yet very noticeable. I could also speculate that gig fi shing is more prevalent on the middle and lower coast, and since the new fl ounder regs enacted in September 2009 outlawed recreational and also commercial gigging during November (traditionally the month of greatest harvest) and limited rod and reel fi shermen to only two fi sh per day, a great number of fi sh have been reserved from harvest during these past two Novembers and they are currently showing in the year round rod and reel fi shery.

One thing is certain – if indeed we have been conserving our fl ounder resource to a greater degree than ever before – it is too early to see fl ounder spawned during the era of the new regs reaching legal size.

This will not happen until sometime next year according to TPWD’s age/ growth charts.

Some of our guides commented that they have witnessed an increase in the size of the fl ounder landed on their charters, and this helps me believe the single greatest infl uence currently impacting the fi shery is the fact that we have harvested fewer fi sh on average since September 2009 than we were taking prior. Simply put, a greater number of fi sh are evading harvest and they are growing larger.

So this leads me to speculate that we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. The Coastal Fisheries biologists told us it would take a complete life cycle (six years) to realize the full benefi t of the new regs, but that 80% of the benefi t would register in three. From what I’ve seen thus far, I’m betting 2012 will go down as a record year for fl at fi sh!

And naturally, all this fl ounder conservation stuff leads to me consider other species. I know lots of folks are satisfi ed with the status of the spotted seatrout fi shery. Still, it is fun to dream about catching a bunch of fi ve pounders and maybe a seven or eight every time we go fi shing. Never underestimate the power of conservation.

Merry Christmas!

6 | December 2011

PLUGGING WITH

Witticisms & Proverb2s STORy By MIkE MCBRIDE

veryone has their own vision of what fi shing is supposed to be about and the greatest beauty of the sport is that no matter your personal style there is something in it for everybody. So whether you happen to be a topwater purist, drift monkey, jetty jerker or bottom bumper, there is common ground for all when it comes to climbing the rickety ladder of learning. Admit it or not we all glean knowledge from others, and bits of inspiration can come from most anywhere. I’ve always been a sucker for wise sayings – short quips and one-liners – capable of inspiring creative thought.

8 | December 2011

“Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame said, “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than fi fty preaching it.”

Listed below are some that have entertained, amused or inspired me, and some hit all three marks.

Whether about fishing or just life in general, there is a great deal of truth in all of them.

“You cannot catch another man’s fish.” – From Rick kersey, longtime friend and tournament partner, lambasting a fellow sportsman (socalled) about a decade ago for shamelessly trying to profi t from the work of others. A more modern reminder came during a recent tournament when our every move was mimicked by another boat; to within casting distance at times. We won, both times, and the potlickers came in near last, both times. Which leads us to another ancient proverb, allegedly from Confucius, “He who fishes in another man’s well often catches crabs.”

“We just have to manage our expectations sometimes.” – Renowned Texas outdoor artist Sam Caldwell off ered this on an unexpectedly slow day – excellent philosophy no matter what we are doing. Too often we set ourselves up for disappointment, and usually by attempting to gauge success with a crooked yardstick. The unenlightened almost always assume the measure of fi shing fulfi llment is made only in pounds. Sure, we want to catch them, but nature might have other ideas, so we adjust. Zane Grey said it well, “If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing trips would have ended long ago.”

“You gotta know they’re there and you gotta know you can catch ‘em.” – From Rockport fi shing guide and fellow TSFMag scribe, Jay Watkins, who unblushingly admits to spouting so much of what he has worked so hard to learn during a day of guiding clients that he needs sunscreen on his tongue. As simple as this one might appear on the surface it was way big for me. There is a large diff erence between fi shing and fi shing well.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore.” – As it applies to fi shing, this one came from very close to home, Capt. Tricia actually, given to me when I fi rst relocated to the Laguna Madre.

I basically needed to shut up and learn instead of assuming what I thought I knew would work. Actually, this was my second notable go-round with this lesson, the fi rst came a long time ago during a snow ski lesson, believing that my surfi ng background placed me ahead of my classmates. Finally the instructor said, “You really need to shut up and listen…this ain’t about surfing.” yogi Berra hinted at something similar when he said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

Opportunity often lurks in troubled water.

TSFMAG.com | 9

Daniel Popovich knew they were there…and by studying the conditions and their behavior he knew exactly what to do to catch them.

Howard Marshall said, “An ancient proverb claimed “Fishing consists of a by many, “It is good fishing series of misadventures in troubled waters.” – The interspersed by occasional obvious is that the best days moments of glory.” – From for golf are often the worst my perspective, the honest days for fishing, so don’t be angler stays busy loving and afraid of a little weather and hating, kind of like repeatedly rough, dirty water.” falling hard while learning to skate. However, if we don’t occasionally make fools of ourselves we won’t learn as fast, so fish like nobody is looking. Wear your helmet just in case.

John Gierach in Fly Fishing the High Country said, “The best fishermen I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them.” – Personally, I always strive to make new and interesting mistakes, but the old ones still haunt me - like leaving the plugs out yet again, or forgetting my wading shoes and having to wear flip-flops with my waders. Nice camel toe!

Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame said, “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than fifty preaching it.” – Little to add here but it does seem odd how some can spout “Catch-PhotoRelease” with one hand while the other is busy running a fillet knife through every fish they can drag to the cleaning table or arrange on the front deck for another hero photo. The Doors had a song, “People are Strange.”

“Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip.” Another from John Gierach. – Need to check out that potential new hire, girlfriend or in-law? Take them fishing. Time on the water doesn’t always build character, but it will surely reveal it.

Norman Maclean gave us a great one; “Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.” – When a perfectionist gets something done it is usually well away from average, but the problem 10 | December 2011

There could actually be a time and place in fishing for helmets.

Fish like nobody’s looking, but be careful around the dock.

Sometimes during our exuberance “stuff” just kind of happens.

da Vinci, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Many of us get lost in complications because we consume more data than our judgment can sift. Think of an engineer tying on a different lure every five minutes. A good artist learns what to leave out, and a good fisherman learns to eliminate wasted motion in favor of a concise declaration. Over the years I have declared that I can always catch them on soft plastic, yet my checkbook declares I have wasted a lot of motion tinkering with expensive and glittery options.

Wise old Ben Franklin said, “Some are weather-wise, some are otherwise.” – Much wisdom here, and knowing which drain to work when the SSE wind hits 20mph right as the tide starts to drop and the moon starts to rise is one thing. The “otherwise” is catapulting your boat 40 feet up a dry Pepper Grove Point, then cowering from vampire-class mosquitoes all night because you didn’t understand dew points and their relationship with ridiculously thick fog. Trust me, I know “otherwise” and so should you if you have lived like we should.

An ancient proverb claimed by many, “It is good fishing in troubled waters.” – The obvious is that the best days for golf are often the worst days for fishing, so don’t be afraid of a little weather and rough, dirty water. Many personal-best days happen when the perfectionist stays home.

According to Miguel de Cervantes, “There’s no taking trout with dry breeches.” – My personal philosophy still stands that the best fish will come from getting in the water with them, but this can hit on everything from having strong work ethic to that classic miserable winter wade with classically leaking waders. Why does it seem that the more we suffer the better we catch?

A biggie from Tony Orman’s Trout on a Nymph, “A trout angler should always be asking questions, even in reading a book. The mistake of many is to blindly accept the opinions and writings of others. There is a tendency to become too stereo-typed in methods and approach. This tendency is encouraged by writers who lay down hard and fast rules.” – Although much of what we read was probably true at some place and time, there are absolutely no absolute fish rules. As far as reading stuff, sometimes even the beasts know when it is good and proper to throw up. Adhering to advice such as “When you think you are fishing slow, slow it down some more,” and another, “Throw topwaters early and late, spring and fall,” tends to create hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by real water. A related quote is, “Tradition is what you resort to when you don’t have the time or the money to do it right.”

I hope this question does not upset you terribly – but why do we hang onto believing that all we read and hear will automatically make us better fishermen? The only real way to do that is by getting those breeches wet.

is that very little actually gets done waiting on everything to become perfect. These people sometimes don’t catch a lot of fish; ask me why and I will perfectly well tell you.

An opposing thought to the one above comes from Leonardo

Contact

Mike McBride Mike McBride is a full time fishing guide based in Port Mansfield, TX, specializing in wadefishing with artificial lures.

Skinny Water Adventures Phone Email Web

956-746-6041 McTrout@Granderiver.net Skinnywateradventures.com/ Three_MudSkateers.wmv

TSFMAG.com | 11

apentad of tenets

apentad STORy By kEVIN COCHRAN

of tenets

Sunny, warm weather can be good for the catching in January. On the day this image was recorded, the author and four clients caught dozens of trout between 20 and 26 inches.

T

he fi ve important truths listed and discussed below are neither new nor revolutionary concepts. They do, however, establish a foundation for consistently successful inshore lure fi shing. I’ve mentioned and elaborated on each of these tenets many times, while on the water with friends and clients and more importantly in publications including this magazine and the books and DVDs I produce.

12 | December 2011

In fact, my recent production, a book/DVD set titled Inshore Angler’s strategies will work best at a given time. These variables can include Blueprint for Success, gives signifi cantly more detail related to all these the time of year, time of day, weather and water conditions, tidal principles. Here, I’ve made a fresh attempt to specify each truth patterns, and sometimes the seasonal spawning or migration habits of separately and to explain how all are connected to each other. the targeted fi sh and/or their prey.

I place tenet number one at the top because it’s most important.

People skilled with lures of various kinds, who clearly understand The ability to consistently locate fish is the most important skill when and how to best use each, will be able to elicit strikes more often shared by expert anglers. Actually, the ability to locate fi sh is not a than those who are too married to catching fi sh one way and/or on skill; it’s a complex skill set, at least most of the time. Finding fi sh can one type of plug. Regardless of whether an angler is adaptable and be simple some of the time, when the water is clear and suffi cient versatile or severely limited by tunnel-vision on a darling plug, the third sunlight penetrates the depths, so fi sh can be verifi ed by sight. tenet applies to any eff ort to make fi sh open their jaws and take a bite.

Seeing fi sh in the water eliminates all uncertainty and takes away The fishing rod is the most important tool affecting one’s ability the need for the other fi sh-fi nding skills which normally come into play. to catch fish. Three aspects of a fi shing rod have major infl uence on its If fi sh can not be seen directly, their presence may be indirectly verifi ed functionality: the feel and fl ex of the blank, the length of its handle and by sight and through the other senses. its overall weight.

Indirect sensory evidence of fi sh includes: 1.) Wakes or boils made In my forays as a wade-fi rst trophy trout angler, I require multiple by singles or schools. 2.) Birds hovering in place, diving and screeching. rods to adequately perform all the functions I need throughout the 3.) Nervous baitfi sh fl eeing from predators. 4.) Slicks and/or mud stirs. year. Basically, I believe the bass-fi shing pros have it right; every lure, 5.) Slurping sounds and other noises associated with feeding activity. presentation and strategy can be ideally matched with a specifi c rod, 6.) The scent of watermelon wafting over the waves. unlike direct reel and line combination. Certainly, some rods work better with large visual evidence, which reveals the presence of particular kinds of fi sh, plugs, while others work better with small ones. indirect evidence can be misleading as to what species are present.

At one end of the lure spectrum are tiny fl ies the size of baby glass When it’s dark, most or all visual evidence is lost. Even in daylight, minnows; at the other end are fl oating plugs weighing upwards of an sensory signs indicating the presence of fi sh can be incredibly subtle, ounce and closely resembling nearly-mature mullet. Generally, longer, even altogether absent. softer rods work best with light lures, while shorter, slightly stiff er sticks If (and when) fi sh can not be seen or found through the detection more eff ectively control bulky plugs. of signs, anglers rely on their knowledge of the bays and waterways, For most inshore saltwater applications, rods between about six and and of the fi sh they are attempting to fi nd. They’re then forced to pick seven feet in total length, with butt sections between seven and a half a spot to fi sh without knowing whether fi sh are in fact present or not. and eight inches work best. Rod builders normally describe these rods Then, anglers with the most thorough catalogue of spots and the best as having light, medium-light or medium action. Buyers should beware information related to when those spots tend to be most productive of these descriptions, though, as they don‘t have uniform meaning will have an advantage over others. throughout the industry.

Once a spot is selected and tried, the skills related to actually Essentially, fi shing rods are like cars and boats, they should be catching fi sh come into play. In the end, the ability to consistently “test-driven” before they are bought. The only way to know for certain locate fi sh comes full circle back around to the ability January is one of the best months to catch fi sh. Anglers who can make fi sh bite quickly to catch a trophy trout on a lure. at a spot will be ahead of those who struggle to elicit During dreary, cloudy weather, dark strikes. using bait makes this aspect of the search FatBoys like the strawberry/black simpler, since live or fresh dead bait often produces one barely visible here work well. strikes more consistently than artifi cial lures.

For lure chunkers, tenet number two becomes hugely important in the search for fi sh, if those fi sh can’t be seen or verifi ed indirectly through other signs. A more versatile angler is a better angler.

This truth indicts the reliance on one or a select few methods, strategies, spots or lures as causing a reduction in consistency.

All aspects of versatility are important. The most consistently productive anglers are profi cient with various strategies in many kinds of places. Once a spot has been selected to be tried, and signs aren’t strong to indicate the presence of fi sh, one’s ability to properly deploy a productive plug becomes the paramount step in the process of determining whether fi sh are in fact present in that place or not.

Top-notch producers are able to correctly add up the variables which aff ect the feeding mood of the fi sh and consequently dictate what lures, presentations and TSFMAG.com | 13

whether a rod is in fact well-suited to a style of fishing with a particular lure or set of lures is to take the tool out and fish with it.

Regardless of the rod used, the type of fish targeted or the lure and method deployed, the profound truth of the fourth tenet is a factor.

Braided line is better than monofilament for inshore coastal lure fishing.

At least three factors dictate the veracity of this statement. Braided lines have little or no stretch, so they allow for better detection of strikes, particularly light and subtle ones. Especially when used with sub-surface plugs or soft plastics, this superior sensitivity leads to more hook-ups and caught fish. In the most extreme situations, when fish-location signs are weak and the feeding mood of the fish is finicky, superior strike-detection sensitivity is vitally important.

The ability to control the movement patterns of the lures is important too. Braided lines enhance control, especially in windy conditions, when lures are cast crossways to the waves. Maintaining light tension on the line gives greater awareness of what a lure is doing and allows one to create more lifelike, enticing presentations, all of which is facilitated better by braided lines as compared to monofilament.

Modern braided lines are also more durable and easier to use than monofilament, so they should be deployed by all anglers who seriously want to maximize the efficiency and productivity of their efforts, regardless of their preferred methods and strategies.

I’ve always favored wading over fishing from the boat and relied on tenet number five. Wading is generally the most effective way to catch fish. Over the course of my fishing career, I’ve come to realize the truth behind this statement is strongest in relation to fishing for my favorite target species, the spotted seatrout, especially if trophy fish are sought.

Wading allows one to work through areas more slowly, with greater stealth, in a wider variety of conditions. Because one’s feet maintain constant contact with the bottom, wading facilitates better knowledge of the specific features of an area, enhancing one’s overall awareness of the bays and potentially helping one figure out the puzzle of how seasonal variations in conditions affect the preference fish show for The bite on topwaters is inconsistent in January, highly dependent on the weather.

During brief periods of productivity, floating plugs can be used to generate some memorable blow ups!

14 | December 2011

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Cold, drizzling rain accompanies some frontal passages.

This kind of weather sometimes produces a positive feeding mood in big trout.

Well-equipped, motivated anglers can make record catches in such conditions.

search relatively easy. Without such signs, anglers must rely on their knowledge of spots and their ability to execute effective strategies and presentations once they pick a spot.

The productivity of those efforts will be affected first and foremost by their choice of lure and presentation, and also by the rods and lines they use to make the presentation.

In the end, these five tenets are separate truths, but they all relate closely to one central concept. In some way, each has a clear and direct connection to the never-ending quest to keep the rod fully bent.

Kevin Cochran

Contact

certain types of areas.

Consistently catching trophy trout normally involves thorough coverage of particular kinds of areas in attempt to catch relatively small numbers of fish; this kind of fishing is usually best done while wading. Other kinds of coastal inshore fishing are not.

In fact, some situations cancel out the truth of tenet number five. If the targeted fish are in water too deep for wading, if the fish can be seen easier from the deck of the boat, or if mobility and quicker coverage of more area are necessary, fishing from the boat will be more productive than wading.

Certainly, the vast majority of coastal anglers in the Lone Star State can not actually see the fish they are targeting most of the time. In Upper Coast estuaries in particular, where the water is generally murkier than in the hyper saline lagoons down south, people rarely have the opportunity to sightcast at singles or schools.

When fish cannot be seen, they must be found through other means. Understanding how to “read” indirect signs can make the

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16 | December 2011

Kevin Cochran is a full-time fishing guide at Corpus Christi (Padre Island), TX. Kevin is a speckled trout fanatic and has authored two books on the subject.

Kevin’s home waters stretch from Corpus Christi Bay to the Land Cut.

Trout Tracker Guide Service Phone Email

361-688-3714 KCochran@stx.rr.com

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tough times STORy By BILLy SANDIFER

Â

I have not seen the PINS beach in twenty-seven days.

Today (October 25) is the twentieth straight day of red tide toxin present in the surf and the weather pattern shows no promise of relief in the near future. As of October 20 TPWD

has reported three million fi sh have been killed by the ongoing event. This is the most widespread outbreak of red tide I can ever remember with it being reported at various times from Bolivar to the Rio Grande, including several bay systems.

Ghost shrimp litter the beach of Padre Island National Seashore; fi rst time anybody can remember the red tide so devastating.

18 | December 2011

s

The Northern Laguna Madre remains clear of red tide although for a short period it reached as far south as the Pita Island fl ats and there are hopes that the hyper-salinity of the upper Laguna Madre may help spare it from this event. When people ask, I have always told them that what causes red tide is when the temperature stays too hot for too long. For many years it seems we had only small and scattered outbreaks of red tide but starting in the 1990s it seemed they became more frequent and now we have them more years than not. This coincides with the fact that we seem to have a very abbreviated fall season nowadays. Perception can be faulty sometimes but to me it seems that the seasonal change jumps from hot summer into winter in a very short time frame.

September is normally one of our wettest months but this year we received a scant 0.8 inches of rain around the end of the month and shortly thereafter the red tide began to bloom. We have always thought that freshwater runoff would help dissipate the red tide but scientists have now learned that sudden drops in salinity actually trigger the red tide to produce more toxins. This is linked with the organism’s physiological mechanism for dealing with the diff erences in osmotic pressure created by a sudden decrease in salinity. With this being the case and this also being the year Murphy’s Law has been running rampant, it rained 1.9 inches on October 13 and the scope of the red tide increased and new blooms were reported.

It requires only a few hundred cells per milliliter of the phytoplankton Karenia brevis to cause a fi sh kill. On October, National Park Service personnel reported their water samples revealed 3,700

cells per milliliter. WOW! Talk about a deadly mixture.

Residents on North Padre and here in Flour Bluff are experiencing respiratory problems from the aerosols associated with red tide and I’m sure other coastal communities up and down the coast are having the same problem. I have been living on Benadryl for the past two weeks here at my house in Flour Bluff . That’s to be expected as I have COPD. I can’t express the importance to beach-goers to insure none of your group has any respiratory problems prior to taking them to the beach or they could very well have serious reactions to it. We are lucky as there are numerous varieties of red tide and while the variety most common in the Gulf of Mexico can have unpleasant side eff ects there is one in the Pacifi c that produces an aerosol eff ect that can prove fatal to humans.

Coyote numbers on PINS are currently very low as a result of having consumed dead fi sh containing red tide toxin. As desperate for food and water as they are from the drought this should just about fi nish them and several other mammal species off . It’s a natural event but I can’t imagine any species that will miss it when it’s gone.

In late September TPWD wardens made the largest seizure of sharks ever confi scated. Three miles of fl oating gill net webbing was found just off shore of the South Padre Island beach north of the border. Somewhere in the range of 2,000 to 3,000 juvenile blacktipped, bonnet head and Atlantic sharp-nosed sharks were tangled in the webbing. The nets were set in u. S. waters by Mexican shark fi shermen operating out of Playa Bagdad. No arrests were made as it only takes minutes for the perpetrators to fl ee back across

“Residents on North Padre and here in Flour Bluff are experiencing respiratory problems from the aerosols associated with red tide and I’m sure other coastal communities up and down the coast are having the same problem.”

The fi sh kill on North Padre is not a localized thing; it stretches the length of the island in varying amounts. Even red snapper were documented by Park Service employees.

TSFMAG.com | 19

“Coyote numbers on PINS are currently very low as a result of having consumed dead fi sh containing red tide toxin. As desperate for food and water as they are from the drought this should just about fi nish them and several other mammal species off .”

Padre beach littered with victims of red tide, it’s even killing the coyotes and other mammals.

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the border. Mexican fi shermen questioned stated they had to fi sh illegally in u. S. waters as there were no sharks left in Mexico for them to catch. I tell you what. Something must be done about this before there are none left in Texas waters as well. This is a really big deal and it is not getting the attention it deserves. What I fi nd so sad is when researching this subject months ago I learned that those Mexican fi shermen make a maximum of $25 per day working at this dangerous, illegal and destructive profession while living on the beach in cardboard and tin shacks. It’s a very bad deal for all species involved and there has got to be some way to stop it. Wish I knew what the answer was. Maybe we can get the government to subsidize the Mexican shark fi shermen instead of off shore wind farms.

Following a recent Norther, Nick Meyer of Breakaway Tackle called me to report that he had found 40 dead birds freshly fl oated in on a one mile stretch of beach near Bob Hall Pier. Within itself this is not all that unusual as hummingbirds and many neo-tropical bird species migrate from Texas across the open Gulf of Mexico to yucatan twice a year and all too often they encounter hurricanes, storms and cold fronts and are knocked down and drowned by high velocity winds and sheets of rain.

The unusual aspect of this event is that the greater majority of these birds were meadowlarks and Pyrrhuloxia which aren’t commonly known to migrate across the Gulf. These type events are not fully understood but it’s as if they simply got caught up in the high velocity tail wind of the incoming cold front and overshot the land, ended up off shore and then couldn’t fi ght their way back. Interesting.

As the president of the 501C-3 not-for-profi t Friends of Padre it was my privilege and pleasure to recently be able to donate $10,000 to the Friends of the Ark. The Ark is the rehabilitation organization Tony Amos started some years ago in Port Aransas. Their purpose is to rescue injured, sick and abused wildlife that will be rehabilitated, maintained and released back into their natural wildlife habitat and to raise public awareness through educational outreach programs. Tony Amos is a genuine hero on this deal and personally gets no wages for his long, tedious hours of work and travel. Any creature found injured or stressed on Mustang and Padre Island are taken there as well as from the surrounding local area. Times are hard on all of us economically and donations to worthwhile non-profi t groups such as the Friends of the Ark and Friends of Padre are hard to come by. We all like to hear about good work being done but often overlook the fact that many of these groups depend upon donations. Both of these worthwhile groups have web sites and if you’ll just type in their names and hit search you can learn more about the work they do. Life is a hoot, even in the red tide, and it’s even better when you feel like you might be doing positive things even when everything around you seems negative.

Pyrrhuloxia Pyrrhuloxia-Cardinalis sinualus This cousin to the Northern Cardinal is often mistaken for a female northern cardinal. Pyrrhuloxia has a thick, strongly curved orange/yellow bill that helps distinguish it from the northern cardinal with its cone-shaped, reddish bill. Male is gray overall with red on face, crest, wings, tail and underparts. Female shows little or no red.

Common in thorny brush and ranch lands. During winter the population increases along the immediate coast.

If w don’t leave any there won’t be any. –Capt. Billy Sandifer

CONTACT

BILLy SANDIFER Billy Sandifer operates Padre Island Safaris off ering surf fi shing for sharks to specks and nature tours of the Padre Island National Seashore. Billy also off ers bay and near-shore fi shing adventures in his 25 foot Panga for many big game and gamefi sh species.

Phone 361-937-8446 Website www.billysandifer.com

Photo credit: Jimmy Jackson

TSFMAG.com | 21

This Old

FILLET KNIFE OF MINE STORy By MARTIN STRARuP

My electric fi llet knife died. I was fi lleting a nice trout when all of a sudden it slowed, coughed twice, belched smoke and that was all she wrote.

After a hard life of fi lleting redfi sh, trout, fl ounder for the past two years and slicing up a lot of venison back strap, it fi nally gave up the ghost. I think that I went through fi ve sets of blades for it although I can’t remember for certain; it might have been more but certainly no less than fi ve. Now all that I have left to remember it by is the neat little bloodstained and fi sh scale covered canvas bag that came with it when I bought it. (I added the blood and fi sh scales to the bag over time; they do not come with the knife so don’t complain to me if you get one and yours doesn’t have blood and scales on it.)

I had more fi sh to fi llet but thankfully I keep my old trusty Rapala with the nine inch blade in my fi shing bag. I hadn’t used the Rapala in quite some time having put it away in favor of the electric knife that I thought would be faster and less maintenance than a standard old fashioned fi llet knife. The electric knife might be faster for the fi rst couple of fi llets but once the serrations in the blades get gooked up with fi sh meat all bets are off . The fi xed blade Rapala is faster for me.

The Rapala had been honed carefully when it went into storage 22 | December 2011

so it made short work of the remaining trout and redfi sh that I had to fi llet. The razor sharp blade sliced through to the backbone and then slid towards the tail in just an instant with no real eff ort and, with a fl ip of the blade to turn the fi llet over and fl exing the blade, a skinless fi llet was ready to have the rib cage sliced away.

As I was rinsing the cleaning table my son remarked, “That old fi llet knife is as fast as your electric knife.” I think he’s right.

The Rapala in the pictures has a nine inch razor sharp blade that has been worn down from years of sharpening but that still does what it is supposed to do. The original handle made of wood was starting to deteriorate so I dipped it in a neat product called Rubberize-It! which in addition to preserving the original handle gave me a non-slip grip when using the knife. I picked up a can of Rubberize-It! at my local hardware store but if you can’t fi nd any just Google it and you will fi nd plenty of sources for this great product. It comes in a variety of colors and while I chose black to dip the handle of my knife in I think any color would work just fi ne.

I wish I could remember when I bought this particular fi llet knife.

I know that it is over twenty-fi ve years old and it could be as much as thirty-fi ve years old. That it is still around is a great testament to the

through the V of the sharpener. Spring tension keeps the sharpening rods on the blade and all it takes is a couple of passes through the V to restore the edge. You can take a look at the Warthog sharpeners at http://www.v-sharp.com They make a nice carrying case for it and we take ours with us on every fishing and hunting trip.

Last June down in Port Mansfield I was wielding that serrated Dexter Russell I mentioned earlier while slicing redfish on the halfshell when something distracted me for a moment or long enough for me to slice across the middle finger of my left hand. There is a certain feeling that you get not unlike someone jabbing you in the rear with a cattle prod when the serrated blades of a very sharp fillet knife slice through the top of your finger and down across the bone. Your friends suddenly make awful faces and move away from you when the blood sprays from your finger as you try to turn on the water to wash your hands so you can do something about the wound.

I put the knife down and walked to my truck to get a paper towel to wrap around the finger to staunch the flow of blood while my friends finished dealing with the fish. I knew the cut was deep and that I would need stitches to close the wound but I was in Port Mansfield and a trip to Harlingen wasn’t appealing to me at that moment.

About an hour later after cleaning and disinfecting the wound the cut stopped bleeding and while I held the wound together we applied New Skin liquid bandage and I kept holding the cut closed for about 10 minutes. We put more New Skin over the cut and after the second application dried I was good to go. If you don’t have some New Skin in your first aid kit I recommend that you get some. It will seal a cut and allow you to continue to fish without worrying about some nasty bacteria getting into your system while you’re fishing. It will peel off over time so continuous application on a deep wide cut is necessary. Oh and it is a lot less expensive than a trip to the ER and being sewed up. That evening one of my friends recommended that I buy one of those neat stainless steel thread fillet gloves. You can wear the glove on either hand and it will prevent you from slicing your fingers or hand when using the fillet knife. I haven’t gotten one yet but I’m sure thinking about it. You can find one here; http://www. fishingtackleunlimited.com/p/fishing/c-/RAP-BPFG-P.html *IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBT ABOUT THE CLEANLINESS OF THE WOUND OR IF YOU NOTICE ANY REDNESS AROUND THE WOUND HOURS AFTER BEING INJURED GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM* Be safe and uhm… stay sharp.

Be Safe.

Martin Strarup

Contact

quality of the blade itself.

Years ago electric outlets at public fillet tables didn’t exist so I never gave any thought to using an electric fillet knife. But as the electric knife became more popular people starting wiring plugs on their tables and we started seeing more and more people using them when cleaning fish. Of course I had to have one and I do believe that the first electric fillet knife that I owned was a Mr. Twister. I stripped the gears on that one while working on a redfish and bought another the same day. That one slipped out of my hand on its very first trip before I could plug it in and is in a watery grave down in Port O’Connor. On each occasion this old Rapala came to my rescue and finished the job of filleting the catch of the day. You would think I would have gotten a clue wouldn’t you? After all unless you have a generator with you, that electric fillet knife isn’t going to do you much good after a long walk-in wade when you get back to your truck. But give me a piece of an old driftwood plank and that old Rapala and I’ll turn the fish into fillets in just a few minutes.

I have other fixed blade fillet knives; a few other Rapala knives with different blade lengths that I keep in a drawer in my tackle room and a really sharp Dexter Russell with a serrated blade that I bought from FTU to use on redfish that also stays in my fishing bag. I won a really nice custom made fillet knife at a fishing tournament a number of years ago that was made by Bert Schoonover but that knife was requisitioned by my wife and it serves her faithfully in her kitchen. My friend Andy Seckinger made me a nice custom fillet knife that does a good job but I decided a while back to add it to my collection instead of using it; it’s just too pretty and I would really hate if something happened to it. I just really like using my old Rapala; it feels good in my hand, it does a great job and it brings back great memories each time I pick it up.

With electric fillet knives you have to buy blades to replace the dull ones unless you have figured out how to sharpen them in the field quickly and easily. I have sharpened the dull blades before with a round diamond sharpener but it just takes too long to justify. A set of blades for my last electric knife cost me around twelve bucks and I’d rather pay the money than do the job of sharpening them. By the way, a new Rapala fillet knife with the nine-inch blade costs around thirty bucks.

About all you have to do with a fixed blade fillet knife is clean it well after using it and keep it shaving sharp, which if the blade is any good at all is no chore to do. To keep my old Rapala sharp I use the Warthog V-Sharp Classic sharpener. This handy and simple to use knife sharpener takes the guess work out of putting an edge on a knife.

Once you have the sharpener adjusted you simply slide the blade

Martin Strarup is a lifelong saltwater enthusiast and outdoorsman.

Martin is also a collector and dealer of vintage fishing tackle and lures, especially those made in Texas.

Email

Trouthunter@swbell.net

TSFMAG.com | 23

Anglers keying in on deep breaks in the river and ICW will continue catching fi sh in the colder months.

well...

what’s it gonna be?

STORy By CHuCk uZZLE

Looking back through past notes it’s almost impossible to fi nd for many folks, they fi gured out the deep stuff can really produce if another year that resembles 2011; it’s been a wild ride to say the least. you understand how it works. I can’t tell you how many swimbaits I can’t remember ever starting and ending a year in such droughtand crankbaits we went through this year while probing the deeper like conditions. The lack of any discernable rainfall or runoff has breaks in the channels. The success rate skyrocketed as saltwater made Sabine Lake into a completely diff erent venue than years past. began working its way up the rivers early this year as lake levels Anyone who has spent a few years on this body of water can tell you on both Toledo Bend and Sam Rayburn dwindled before our eyes. that it’s really diffi cult to get two consecutive years that match, or The big push of saltwater ushered in all manner of diff erent types for that matter any two out of fi ve. The constant changes in weather of fi sh that normally call the Gulf of Mexico and Sabine Lake home. and freshwater runoff make putting a seasonal pattern together I knew we were in for an eye opening year when on a scout trip in somewhat of a challenge. Is it a wet winter? Is it a dry winter? Is it March there were cow nosed rays on the north end of Sabine Lake. cold? Is it mild? Is it wet and mild or dry and cold? Or is it any number Then it only got weirder as we started seeing dolphins in the Sabine of combinations that cause me to keep my hair cut short to prevent River during the early part of summer, yes I said dolphins. All of this pulling it out. The seasonal patterns here take time to repeat unlike craziness was as a result of no rain or runoff for a long time. I believe other places where it just goes like clockwork. This year has been one as of this column we are close to 40” below normal for the last 18-20 of those diff erent years but it sure has months, that’s bordering on never before Tobin Strickland of Troutsupport.com gathering been good. seen and it appears there is little on the footage for his upcoming redfi sh video.

Never before have we seen so much horizon to change it anytime soon. traffi c in the deeper water areas like the Now despite all of the horrible damage river channels and Intracoastal Canal. that has been done due to the drought Plenty of anglers have abandoned the the fi shermen have really benefi tted from open water for various reasons, the the conditions like nobody else. Like I biggest being the price of gas. During mentioned earlier the folks who learned this time a great discovery happened to fi sh the deep water must almost feel 24 | December 2011

Above: Big fl ounder will be putting smiles on anglers faces right through the winter months.

Left: The new Minn kota I-Pilot trolling motor helps solve deck clutter problems for fl y anglers.

Mike Sullivan of Granbury Texas with his fi rst-ever redfi sh on fl y.

Tobin’s redfi sh video is anything like his speckled trout stuff you can bet it’ll be a good one. The information he shares is top notch and presented in a really cool format. Look for that to show up next year.

While on the subject of future I got my fi rst taste of the new Minn kota i-Pilot trolling motor with the built in GPS. I must admit it took me a while to get comfortable with the remote control but I have since gotten pretty handy with it. This unit has some outstanding potential.

I found it to be a great help when guiding fl y fi shing clients from a bay boat since you could operate the trolling motor from the back of the boat and leave the fi shermen to an empty and uncluttered front deck which is a must when trying to keep up with fl y line.

The colder months ahead will provide some more excellent fi shing and less traffi c since hunting season will be in full swing as you read this article. The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving may get a little crowded as many folks are trying to get that last fi shing fi x in before it either gets too cold for them or they put the rod and reel down in favor of a gun or bow. If we don’t get a giant fl ood or have some crazy cold weather the fi shing may be just as good once hunting season is over in January; we will just have to wait and see. One can only hope this year fi nishes up as good as it started.

CHuCk uZZLE

CONTACT

like they are cheating since the bite has been so consistent. Having an area to fi sh no matter how bad the wind blows on the lake is like having a guaranteed ace in the hole; it just builds your confi dence to such a new level.

Due to the extraordinary conditions that we may continue to see for a while, it seems almost like overstating the obvious when I say there are plenty of patterns to fi sh. Classic options like chasing schooling fi sh under the birds is probably on top of most everyone’s list for obvious reasons. The thrill of easing up to a fl ock of screeching, diving birds and watching shrimp scatter as trout and redfi sh close in on an easy meal is hard to beat. Few other places along the coast catch the quality of fi sh under the birds as anglers do on Sabine. This pattern is wide open to a variety of baits and techniques which makes it a favorite. Everything from plastics under a cork to fl y tackle will catch fi sh under the birds and that’s a real bonus.

Other folks will opt for hustling fl ounder as they exit the marshes and make their big spawning migration. This year we have had some outstanding trips where the average sized fl ounder have been top notch for sure. There have been some really good fi sh over fi ve pounds taken consistently for the past few weeks in the Sabine River on all sorts of baits from live to artifi cial. The Gulp shrimp has been a big hit this year on a lot of those larger fi sh.

For most anglers this time of the year means chasing trophy trout and you can be sure there will be some great fi sh caught. The high salinity we have will help keep trout in more predictable places until the water temperatures really drop. Look for some healthy fi sh and impressive stringers to be caught not only by waders but by folks probing the deeper water as well. It stands to reason the success that has been had so far this year will continue until something drastic changes so it’s not hard to imagine that this pattern could hold out until after the fi rst of the year and beyond.

Speaking of beyond and the future, I got a chance to spend some time in the boat with Tobin Strickland of TroutSupport.com while fi lming some redfi sh footage for his upcoming video. We spent a great day in the marsh hustling some redfi sh on topwater plugs. If

Chuck fi shes Sabine and Calcasieu Lakes from his home in Orange, TX. His specialties are light tackle and fl y fi shing for trout, reds, and fl ounder.

Phone 409-697-6111 Email cuzzle@gt.rr.com Website www.chucksguideservice.net

TSFMAG.com | 25

p U s ’ t with a h W TEXAS

FLOUNDER?

STORy By EVERETT J STORy By EVERETT JOHNSON & VERETT OHNSON & VERETT J TSFMAG GuIDE-WRITER TEAM

26 | December 2011

Reports from all along the Texas coast would seem to indicate that anglers are enjoying a better than average fl ounder year. Not surprisingly, speculation is running strong that the southern fl ounder in Texas waters are enjoying a strong rebound as the result of the very conservative regulations enacted by TPWD in September 2009. The biologists told us that reducing the harvest would provide a powerful boost to the spawning biomass and that even though the fl ounder life cycle was approximately six years (and that it would take that long to see the full benefi t of the new regulations), as much as 80% of the benefi t would appear by year three. So – we now have two years under our belt – how do you view the southern fl ounder fi shery of today versus what we saw a few years ago?

This is the main question I posed to our staff of guides that write the bulk of the monthly fi shing reports and forecasts published here each month. I also asked them to share a few tips and ideas and other fl ounder facts as they see them. I prepared a questionnaire seeking brief yet hopefully informative answers that would enable our readers to become better informed and enjoy greater fl ounder fi shing success.

Listed below are the questions and the answers they provided.

I hope you fi nd this presentation enlightening, I know that I did. A couple of things became highly noticeable to me while compiling the responses – middle and lower coast guides are reporting a signifi cant increase in fl ounder numbers while upper coast guides are seeing stable numbers but not much growth. The other thing that really caught my attention was the general lack of desire or interest from charter fi shing clients to target fl ounder specifi cally during their guided fi shing trips. Jay Watkins’ report of the number of fl ounder his clients have been catching this fall season really got my attention and the weights he reported really blew me away. Do not hesitate to email or call with your own ideas, opinions, etc., of what’s up with Texas fl ounder. Reader feedback is very important to us. - EJ

› Main lake drains and points lined with roseau cane, the mouths of bayous, and bulkheads and rocks on the ICW. › I prefer artifi cials. Gulp 4” Mullet, 4” Assassin Sea Shad and TTF killer Flats Minnow. ICW fl ounder are best fi shed with fi nger mullet on a Carolina rig with a 3/0 kahle hook and a sinker heavy enough to compensate for the tide. › The numbers seem to be slightly better, but the average size has been much better this year. Continue 5 fi sh limit....lower minimum size to 13” to minimize retaining only females. › Rig your soft plastics on 1/4 heads and bump bottom, hopping it just enough to avoid hanging up. Braided line helps you feel the bite.

Mickey Eastman - Galveston Bays

› April, October, and November are probably best but we see a few all year round. › Very seldom, my clients are more interested in fi shing for trout and reds. › Bayou mouths and adjacent fl ats are natural hot spots; fl ounder also like to hang on spoil humps and along channel ledges. › My fi rst pick would be small paddletail swimbaits; red/white and black/chartreuse are good colors. On the natural bait side, the Carolina rig is very eff ective with fi nger mullet or mud minnows on small Aberdeen-style straight shank hooks. › I do not believe there has been much change in the local fi shery.

Based on the number I can recall from many years ago I would say we have fewer today than when I was a kid. › Wade fi sh near bayou mouths and adjacent fl ats with small swimbaits on outgoing tide.

During which seasons (or months) do you fi nd it practical to target fl ounder on your charters.?

How often do your clients indicate a desire to target fl ounder specifi cally and how often are you able to accommodate them?

Matthew Potts with two nice fl ounder.

What areas and structure types would you consider prime fl ounder habitat?

Do you prefer natural or artifi cial baits for fl ounder? Please include bait species if natural and lure names and sizes if artifi cial. A quick explanation of your rigging method would be nice here but just a few words – please.

From your own fi shing results, how would you rate fl ounder numbers today versus the recent past of say three to four years?

Ten words or less – give me your best fl ounder advice.

Dickie Colburn – Sabine Lake

› May and June are usually pretty good, September and October would be the best. › About 30 percent of the time. Easiest to accommodate during those four months, but bite is decent enough year round.

TSFMAG.com | 27

Bill Pustejovsky - Matagorda

› The best flounder months would be October-November and MarchApril when they are migrating. › I do not have a flounder clientele per se, although they are always happy to catch one. › Here in the Matagorda region we catch a few scattered here and there in the bays but if I was to target them specifically it would be in the Diversion Channel, around the ICW locks, and any drain that connects to the Diversion Channel. › My preferred lure would be the four-inch Bass Assassin paddletail soft plastic on a short shank 1/4 ounce jig fished near bottom or bumping bottom. Live finger mullet are also very effective. › I do not target flounder specifically so flounder catches on my charters are accidental. However, from the number of “accidents” we are having lately I’d say the fishery is much improved—the new flounder regulations really did work! › Fish drains, mouths of cuts leading to channels that flounder would follow as they travel offshore—Gulf Cut, Boggy Cut, and all drains in the Diversion Channel.

Gary Gray – POC/Seadrift

› I would say flounder fishing is best between September and December. › I really never have anyone that wants to specifically target flounder. › The structure seems to change by the season for me. Early in the fall I catch more on the sandy shorelines with grass patches (Dewberry shoreline is good). In the late fall and winter I would target them in sloughs that lead into back lakes.

28 | December 2011

› I prefer the Assassin 4-inch Sea Shad, electric blue, on 1/16 oz.

Assassin jighead (JA 05001), 20# leader 6-8 inches long using the smallest SPRO swivel I can find. › I would rate the flounder fishery as the best I have seen since I started guiding. All during 2011 we have been catching flounder just about everywhere we fished. › Flounder will sometimes grab your bait and just hold it a few seconds in their jaws, not taking it into their mouths. Give them a few seconds before setting the hook.

Jay Watkins - Rockport

› February through March and then again in the fall beginning with the full moon of September and continuing through November. › Almost never until this year – but to be honest I never really pushed it. I cannot recall ever having enough flounder to make it feasible in the past. My charters landed 227 flounder so far this fall season and we’ve kept only a handful; we had two days with over thirty flounder, and I’m talking three, four and five pounders. You can bet we’re targeting them now! › We can catch them in the sloughs and marsh drains often but the best is probably the areas of shell, mud and a little grass along drops and ledges that run parallel to the shorelines between three and five feet deep. › like the five-inch Bass Assassin in red shad, 1/8 ounce jig worked at a slow twitch in the lower foot or so of the water column, not exactly dragging the bottom but a slow hop. › Over the years we have always caught a few flounder while fishing for other species. The change in this fishery since the new regulations

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David Rowsey – Upper Laguna Madre/Baffin Bay

› May through October. › Trips are never set up for it, but there is great deal of excitement after we catch a few, and then about 50% will ask if we can catch more. When we try for them, specifically, we usually catch them. This year was one of the best I have ever had. › Areas that have a tacky to soft bottom, pot holes, a quick edge drop, or any drainage between sand bars, etc. › I prefer a small shank jighead (Bass Assassin Pro Elite), and a curly tail grub 3-4”. MirrOlure “Lil John” is also a great choice. › Two words – WAY BETTER! › Fish for trout with a five-inch Bass Assassin and you might get lucky and catch a flounder.

Captain Tricia – Port Mansfield

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up one or two if somebody wants one for dinner or we need one for a tournament stringer. › During fall months they tend to be more gut and channel oriented.

In other months I find them around the sloughs and sometimes around potholes and scattered clumps of seagrass. › Artificial – paddletails – TTF Flats Minnow, Gambler Flapin’ Shad, Kelley Wigglers. I like the natural colors and I rig on 1/8 or 1/4 ounce 3/0 jigheads depending on the depth. › Definitely better, the average size of the flounder we have been catching over the past year or so is much better than a few years ago. › When you’re seeing small mud puffs, (flounder scooting ahead), or maybe you’re getting some “pecky” bites but not hooking up – slow it down and cast repeatedly to the same spot. Flounder can be stubborn and a little tricky to hook but worth the extra effort.

Ernest Cisneros – Lower Laguna Madre/Port Isabel

› Some of our best flounder catches have come in late spring and right on into the middle of summer. October and November are known to be the prime months. › The only time I specifically target flounder is when clients have hired my services for a local tournament and part of the weigh-in stringer includes flounder. Targeting them has been relatively easy this year. › There are certain spots along the ICW that tend to be flounder magnets. Basically, any channel that intersects the ICW is a potential hotspot. Flounder will usually lay along the edges and dropoffs facing the current. › I prefer to use small artificial baits with lots of tail action. The junior-sized Texas Trout Killer-II (white body with chartreuse tail) is my favorite. I prefer a 1/8 oz jig head, extremely sharp for better hookup ratios. › In years past we used to have trouble finding a flounder when we needed one. Evidently the population has increased this year because we are catching quite a few without even trying. I would say this is the best I have seen since the mid 90s. › Work your presentation slower than normal, close to the bottom, and have a net handy.

TSFMAG.com | 31

SHEEPSHEAD R U M I N A T I O N S STORy By JOE RICHARD

Life is full of odd surprises and my fi rst sheepshead, as a lad of 15 years, was no exception. Caught on a chilly December morning in Port Arthur’s Pleasure Island Marina, both angler and fi sh were equally startled.

32 | December 2011

Happy angler on the Port Aransas jetty during winter.

“Winters can be bleak for anglers on the Texas/Louisiana border but one can often count on catching a box of sheepshead when cabin fever strikes.”

I’d set out several hand-lines made with 100-yard spools of 12-pound Shakespeare line. (My Zebco 404 outfi t was lost the month before, snatched off the seawall, and a replacement was slow to arrive—maybe by Christmas. My primitive handline rigs, used around the world even today, had landed a dozen redfi sh in the previous month.

Anyway, I set the hook into something ponderous that sprinted for the pilings and docked sailboats across the canal, trying to cut me off . I barely stopped it without breaking line. It was give and take, stronger than any redfi sh so far, but I managed to coax it back with cold hands. My “redfi sh” soon materialized into a boxy fi sh with faint stripes and odd teeth—another WTF moment in life.

Old man Smiley, the Marina Master, came running out with a crab net and we somehow dipped out my fi rst sheepshead, weighing six pounds, four ounces. For me it was a non-redfi sh but a new species to add to my list. For the old Cajun and his wife, it was a culinary prize since they ate all sorts of marsh critters, assorted seafood, even scrap ducks that dove along the outer seawall (sprinkled with a load of 8-shot). That big fi sh would make a fi ne dinner; sheepshead aren’t called “barnacle snappers” for nothing, feeding exclusively on shellfi sh.

Since that day, my respect for the toothy sheepshead remains.

Winters can be bleak for anglers on the Texas/Louisiana border but one can often count on catching a box of sheepshead when cabin fever strikes.

The best weather is warm and foggy, with a green incoming tide— which suits most coastal gamefi sh. If a norther is blowing on a Saturday (imagine that), even with a cheerful blue sky, the water is often low and muddy; best stay home. During better weather keep in mind that frozen shrimp works fi ne, if live shrimp are hard to fi nd. We weren’t into digging in the marsh for fi ddler crabs still hibernating, but if a small local shrimpboat was working nearby in the Gulf, we hustled out there in the jonboat and asked for a couple of pounds of shrimp. Sometimes they only had tougher rock shrimp, but sheepshead are crazy for that.

My favorite technique, developed during jetty days, involves “fl ipping” out a home-made, 3/8 ounce bucktail jig (or a bare jighead) tipped with half a shrimp, a dozen feet from the rocks, letting it hit a rock down below. We use baitcasting reels with tough, 20-pound

Above Left: Sheepshead caught by a winter Texan on the Port Aransas jetty. Above Center: Gulf platforms just off shore often swarm with sheepshead, who are dependably found where barnacles grow. Above Right: Sheepshead caught from a Gulf platform off shore.

Sheepshead caught in 20 feet of water with a bare, halfounce jighead that was tipped with fresh shrimp.

mono line such as Ande, a hard line that won’t cut easily---so no leader is necessary. Dropping straight down 20 feet under the boat also worked, if the current was light. Catching them on lighter spin tackle is more fun, but bumping a rock means a broken line.

Sheepshead can smell and grab jigs quickly. Each time a fi ghting fi sh loses its shrimp, another fi sh grabs it. This means sheepshead are easy to chum: A weighted mesh bag full of fresh shrimpheads, mashed under a boot heel, weighted on the bottom, is a loud dinnerbell for these fi sh.

Our best chumming feats were at the platforms just off shore, where pilings are covered with big barnacles. A handy baseball bat, paddle, gaff , hammer, anything that will knock those barnacles loose, often results in a small swarm of sheepshead in the “chum” within minutes. These “bay snapper” dearly love fresh barnacle meat, which is said to taste like oyster. Drop a jig into the chum area, stop at about 15 feet, and wait for a tap-tap. It doesn’t take long.

The Sabine jetties on the Louisiana border are isolated, quite long, with no chance of foot traffi c, so the sheepshead population is certainly healthy there. The opposite would be Port Aransas, which has a short set of jetties easily covered by daily foot traffi c. And a population of winter Texans from places like Iowa, who have become quite skilled during the past 20 years, at snatching sheepshead for their next meal…They clamber around those big granite rocks, up to 90 years old, serious as a heart attack, with collapsible canepoles and small containers of live fi ddler crabs.

No sheepshead is safe there.

For boaters along the central Texas coast, Port O’Connor off ers a tall, walkable set of jetties, though almost everyone anchors and lowers baits. As a fi shing guide, I took many inexperienced anglers out there, TSFMAG.com | 33

SHEEPSHEAD TOURNAMENT FINALLY ARRIVES IN TEXAS Sheepshead don’t get a lot of respect in Texas but that may be changing soon. The fi rst serious winter sheepshead tournament for the public has been scheduled for February 25, 2012, out of Port O’Connor, called the Barnacle Bandit Blowout. Several guides are helping out, but Capt. Curtiss Cash is the tournament director and can be contacted at 361-564-7032. He’s been rounding up prizes and local marina and motel support, who should be eager to assist during the year’s slowest month on the coast. In February the summer crowds are but a dream; the only thing going on that month is the CCA crabtrap cleanup, or serious waders stalking trophy trout.

A sheepshead tournament is perhaps more family-oriented.

If a tournament in the dead of winter raises eyebrows, consider that sheepshead are at their hungriest in Feb./March during their spawning rituals. The same holds true all along the IH-10 corridor all the way to Jacksonville, Florida, where this February they’re holding their 12th Annual sheepshead tourney called the El Cheapo.

Last winter they had 366 boat entries for that one-day event, with around 1,000 anglers signing up from far and near. First place prize was a $13k Carolina Skiff , and a smaller boat for second place.

There is, of course, a fi sh fry for the crowd, and I’ve seen video of the poor volunteers fi lleting these fi sh at a fast pace. With that many boats, it takes a nine or 10-pounder to win, and their tournament record is 12.9 pounds. Contestants have to be prepared for fog, cold, wind or rain. Or even a sunny day. Texans, on the other hand, should be prepared for anything, because the weather can drop 40 degrees in one hour.

The nice thing about the Jax tournament is even jonboats fi sh it; in windy weather they stick to sheltered boat canals, bridges and deeper harbors. Most contestants anchor at the fairly short Mayport jetties. Their early entry fee is only $60 bucks and for that and a couple gallons of fuel, a lot of people take a shot at winning a new boat.

Port O’Connor is more exposed to winter weather, but their jetties usually off er protected water somewhere, after boaters safely cross Matagorda Bay, and the rocks are home to a host of sheepshead. If you decide to turn out, wear a big jacket, knit cap and remember the rule of the three-legged mule…

34 | December 2011

There are two species of sheepshead. The Atlantic fi sh, with seven stripes and beady eyes, mixes along Florida’s Gulf Coast with the sixstriper common caught in Texas.

who were not great casters. But if didn’t matter; we dropped straight down for sheepshead and had our way with them. We used 2-ounce drop weights, shaped like the common snapper weights off shore. Forty-pound mono leader worked best with a small number 1 or 2 J-hook. The lead weight more often than not could be unsnagged from rocks below, as compared to our dismal record with egg weights. using this technique, we caught many hundreds of sheepshead.

Everybody saw action, wives and kids included, using 20-pound tackle. Live shrimp did the trick as bait. I encouraged everyone to release sheepshead of less than four pounds and often by day’s end, we still had a dozen “fatties” to fi llet on the table, from four to six pounds. I used to tell my crew if they couldn’t catch their limit of fi ve legal sheepshead at POC’s jetties, they should be beaten like a three-legged mule on the road to Perdition. So maybe they fi shed harder than most.

It should be noted that sheepshead, like tripletail, have little meat compared to their body mass, making a 2-pounder hardly worth keeping. Although I have seen them that size, baked whole in a Chinese restaurant in Houston, coated with pink, sweet-and-sour sauce. On every table during a private banquet.

Our biggest sheepshead ever was caught lurking at the POC jetty, but on the bay side, in fl at water protected from off shore winds. We were fi shing chunks of blue crab in early March for black drum. Terry Webb of Austin found a whole, live softshell blue crab in our bucket, a rare treat. Instead of pinning it to a huge circle hook on a big drum rod, for some reason it was attached to a small j-hook and dropped down 20 feet. It was pure luck using the right hook: Something taptapped and moved off , and we got ready for an epic battle with a 30-pound drum on lighter tackle. Terry screamed and set the hook, but a sheepshead soon came up, weighing 10 pounds, 10 ounces. He never would have caught that fi sh with a 16/0 circle hook meant for drum. It must have gone crazy on the softshell crab, even swallowing the hook.

Oversized bait for a trophy sheepshead: Anyone targeting the winner in a sheepshead tournament, whether the STAR or a winter tournament, should consider using bigger baits.

A pair of fatties in 90 feet of water off Port O’Connor. They’re nibbling on marine growth that coats underwater structure at off shore platforms.

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TSFMAG.com | 35

a double-barreled dose of

STORy By EVERETT JOHNSON TV’s best-ever pitchman, the late Billy Mays, was somehow a simultaneous and curious blend of abrasive and lovable. Almost like oil and water, Billy possessed qualities that normally do not fi t well together. More likely pairings are stars and stripes, thunder and lightning, or Forrest Gump’s famed peas and carrots. It must be some little known tenet of an unwritten physical law the way some things fi t, and the marriage of wingshooting and coastal fi shing are a superb example. I’ve had a lot of fun in my lifetime, and if keeping your clothes on would be a prerequisite, I have yet to fi nd many things that can beat a good old-fashioned cast and blast adventure at the Texas coast. Mixing hunting and fi shing along a coastline fi lled with fi sh, doves, ducks and geese just seems very natural to me.

Being a lifelong waterfowl nut, during the fi rst fi ve years of my guiding career I worked the waterfowl thing as hard as I did the fi shing. Many a day, blessed with the right set of conditions, we spent the morning in camo huddled in marsh grass and the afternoons wading San Antonio Bay reefs for specks or plying the back lakes for feisty reds. I must say I never embarked on such a combo adventure I did not personally enjoy or that I did not also enjoy presenting.

Struggling to come up for air as I juggled a thriving waterfowl and fi shing guide business alongside a publishing enterprise that was forever busting at the seams, I reluctantly let go of the waterfowl thing in 2005. And then, fi nally admitting I could not continue to work as a fi shing guide AND run a magazine, I took down my guide shingle for good at the end of 2009. Trouble was, though, I grew lazy. Without a dawn appointment at the dock it’s easy to hit the snooze button and play ‘possum. But being lazy comes at a price. you miss some of the fi ner things in life, like the

36 | December 2011

aroma of gunpowder mingled with marsh mud and the sweetness of a trout slick as you pick up the decoys. I needed an incentive to get back into the swing of things.

In my January 2011 editorial I made some promises to fi sh and hunt like a man possessed in the New year and I am pleased to report that I have been holding up my end of the bargain quite well thus far. I have already fi shed recreationally more days this year than the previous two combined and I hunted teal six days in this year’s early season. I lost track of my dove excursions after the second week and my new 28 gauge and .410 shotguns never cooled off till the season closed last weekend. I had more fun in the blinds and fi elds than I’ve had in a long time – thanks in part to a very likeable young chap by name of Will Granberry.

I fi rst met Will as a fi shing client in about 2004. Will presented the impossible challenge of wade fi shing with lures – with his wife and fi rst-time wade fi shing mother-in-law no less – the day after an August full moon. Talk about heaping on the pressure! Well, as it

TSFMAG.com | 37

turned out, everybody caught fish and a friendship was born. Will and I chatted often and I was pleased to see him become a waterfowl guide working for a lodge near El Campo in addition to his regular occupation as an X-Ray tech. This past spring he mustered the courage to launch his own guiding enterprise – Avian Skies. Will plans to keep his day job as he builds the guiding business, a wise choice, spoken by a gray beard who has been a few places and seen a few things. Will’s mission is to provide exceptional wingshooting opportunities for a select clientele and so far I believe he is off to a great start.

Based at Edna, TX, Will has arranged access to some very productive rice and row crop grain fields for dove, teal, big duck, and goose hunting only 40 minutes from the coast. He also has hunts available in southern Calhoun County, mere minutes from Seadrift and Port O’Connor - which makes the logistics of the castn-blast thing even easier to coordinate. All of his fields are hunted sparingly to assure the birds will be using them the day his hunters arrive.

Walking on land and in the water at the same time is nearly impossible for one guy to pull off with style. So for the fishing side of your cast-n-blast adventure, unless you own a boat and are familiar with fishing the Port O’Connor and Seadrift region, Will recommends the services of Capt. Gary and Capt. Shellie Gray of Bay Rat Guide Service. Either way you stack ‘em, fishing in the morning and shooting in the afternoon or vice-versa, booking with Avian Skies is a great start on a full day of coastal fun.

One of the best aspects of a cast-n-blast adventure is the allure it holds for youngsters. By all means get your kids and your whole family involved in these wonderful outdoor pastimes. You will be glad you did!

38 | December 2011

TSFMAG.com | 39

Nice cold water trout under small area of active baitfish.

J A Y W A T K I N S

ASK THE PRO

My hat is off to our feature writers for the past two issues in our magazine. Good reading and always very informative on all levels concerning fishing along the Texas Coast. I learn with every article so thanks for all your continued efforts to make Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine the best saltwater publication on the entire Gulf Coast.

Since our last issue the fishing in my area has picked up. The increase in activity certainly has everything to do with some much needed rain and cooler temperatures. The red tide event impacted menhaden, mullet, hardheads and some rays but gamefish suffered almost no impact at all according to my local Parks and Wildlife contacts. I did get a good many e-mails and calls concerning this occurrence due to some somewhat dramatic press coverage.

December is the kick-off month here in Rockport for our larger trout. We should start finding better than average sized fish in and around scattered shell and slightly softer bottom. If the past four to five years have taught me anything at all its that trout do not necessarily move to mud bottom when water temperatures drop into the mid to upper 50s. Wherever we find bait we’ll 40 | December 2011

find some trout. Very seldom are the baitfish on just sand, typically there is some type of bottom structure present.

On areas with mostly flat sandy bottom you must locate and key in on the structure. In Rockport I love to fish water that is knee to thigh deep with a softer bottom and a mix of scattered shell with grass attached to the small clumps of shell. This is my primary big fish choice if I find bait over this type of bottom. Flats adjacent to larger reef systems are great areas to find such bottom structure. I prefer minimal tidal movement IF water temperatures are below the 56 degree mark. My secondary choice in bottom structure is submerged grass in the same water depths. This type of structure is primarily located along shoreline drop-offs as well as out in front of the sloughs that feed the backwater marsh. In the mouths of the sloughs water movement is a good thing so I plan my arrival to such locations according to daily tidal flows.

From one frontal system to the next bait location can change so we have to be willing to hunt for bait as well as signs of the bait’s presence. Not always will the bait show itself in obvious ways such as jumping, flipping or simply pushing. Ospreys are my favorite mullet locaters.

Show me an area where ospreys are and you can bet

they have a food source located. This food source is usually mullet and where there are mullet there will be trout. It is known by most that any signs of mullet in an area warrant a wade or drift. Knowing or at lest believing is only a small portion of what is needed to actually work the area and pull from it the rewards that often await. I use to believe that patience was the main ingredient for success when chasing trophy sized trout. Over the years I have come to believe that it may be that mental picture I have so often seen in my minds eye that tells me to stay when production would suggest that I move on. There is certainly no replacement for time spent on the water; experience is earned not only by long days but also by being totally in touch with everything around you as the day progresses. We see small areas of baitfish concentrations become active for short windows and then suddenly, as if someone turned a Glenn Hornsby with a solid light switch off, they go seemingly Baffin Bay trout last December. dead. It is in these windows that our opportunities are present. It is important to know that when the switch is flipped the fish do not leave, so if we stay there will still be a chance to take a big fish.

We all have our favorite trophy trout lures. I have over the years gained confidence in my abilities with the Corky and a Top Dog (when conditions warrant) but without a doubt I prefer day in day out a 5” Bass Assassin rigged with a 1/16 or 1/8 ounce jig head. Back in 2010 Bass Assassin introduced the 5” Die Dapper swimbait series. This bait proved to be very effective on our bigger trout from Rockport all the way south to Port Mansfield when I fished these areas. The swimbait works best I think when mullet numbers are limited. The bait simply represents a bigger target thus attracting larger fish needing a larger food source. In 2011 Bass Assassin introduced the 5” Vapor Shad. I can’t wait to float this bait across the scattered grass beds and potholes in the Lower Laguna. No matter what your favorite lure might be I would advise one to go to a soft plastic of some kind during periods when your fishing action seems to have hit a lull. Many times larger trout will readily eat a worm-like bait when the two come in contact with one another. The worm obviously looks to be something that they don’t mind eating even after a huge meal. My experiences have proven that after a major topwater or Corky bite, large trout that have definitely already fed can still be coaxed into eating the worm. With this said there is only one thing left for us to do, get out there and start putting in some time on the water, taking in everything around us and enjoying the great fishing the Middle to Lower Texas Coast has to offer this time of year.

C ontact

May your fishing always be catching. -Guide Jay Watkins Jay Watkins has been a full-time fishing guide at Rockport, TX, for more than 20 years. Jay specializes in wading year-round for trout and redfish with artificial lures. Jay covers the Texas coast from San Antonio Bay to Corpus Christi Bay. Telephone Email

Website

361-729-9596 Jay@jaywatkins.com www.jaywatkins.com TSFMAG.com | 41

Loop knots provide a swivelling connection that will enhance a fl y’s action.

CASEy SMARTT

F LY F I S H I N G

PRESENTATION So often it seems there is more to catching fi sh than simply dropping great looking lures in front of them. Consider this common scenario- Two guys with equal angling skills are fi shing side by side. They are using identical tackle and casting the same fl ies into a fi sh-fi lled channel.

For one guy the bite is on. He’s catching fi sh on every other cast and happily giving his buddy a play-by-play of each fi sh he lands. The other guy, sadly, hasn’t caught a fi sh all morning. The harder he tries the more hopeless it seems, and he’s beginning to get a little tired of the whole situation. If it were not for his partner’s obvious Flies representing shrimp, sand worms, glass minnows, small and large baitfi sh. success, he probably would have moved spots an instinct that compels a fi sh to bite. Good presentations a long time ago. Strangely enough, this sort of are sometimes made by accident, but anglers who thing happens frequently. But why? unless the lucky consistently make eff ective presentations across a wide fi sherman is spiking his fl y with shrimp juice, the answer is array of conditions put a lot of practice and thought into probably presentation. what they do. This month we’ll take a look at a few ways “Presentation” is the way an angler delivers a lure or you can improve your presentation skills. bait to a fi sh. A fl y’s location, direction, speed, and action Visualize all combine to create presentation. A good presentation Location (where you place the fl y) is the fi rst and most can either make a fl y look like natural prey, or it can trigger

video

Check out Casey’s Fly Fishing Video Library at www.caseysmartt.com

42 | December 2011

Benthic patterns, like this Smartt’s Shrimp are designed to fool wary fish.

Large slow sinking flies like this Meaty Minnow perform well in cold weather with slow twitchy retrieves.

obvious component of presentation. Each time you make a cast, you are targeting a strike zone. If you can see the fish, you have should have a clear vision of the strike zone and where the fly needs to land. It’s a 2 dimensional game. If you make a good clean cast and don’t spook the fish, you have a good chance of catching him.

But when you are fishing in deep or murky waters you cannot see the fish and must rely on your instincts and experience to visualize strike zones. Now your presentation becomes a 3-dimensional puzzle encompassing distance and depth. Are the fish you are targeting likely to be suspended? Are they hugging the edge of a channel or a deep bar waiting for food to wash by? Are they lurking at or near the bottom? These are questions you should ask yourself when you are staring across a new piece of water, planning your approach and envisioning strike zones.

Predators are seldom evenly and arbitrarily scattered across a broad swath of water. Rather, they position themselves in specific areas to conserve energy, to avoid being seen, and to ambush prey.

Envision the contours of the bottom and the areas where channels and currents intersect. Are there oysters, submerged structures, or hidden edges? Visualize where you think the fish are located along these features and try to reach them with your fly.

Let the Fly Do Its Work From the loudest popper to the softest Seaducer, each fly is designed to do a specific thing. Know what that thing is and let the fly work for you. For example, consider the spoonfly. The spoonfly is perhaps one of the hardest working flies around. It wobbles, it flashes, it darts and dips. It also catches a lot of fish. But a spoonfly does some of its best work when the retrieve stops and the fly stalls and flutters to the bottom, without input from the angler. In essence, the same is true of a Clouser Deep Minnow- many of the strikes come on the fall. But this won’t happen unless the angler significantly pauses the retrieve and lets the fly fall.

Benthic patterns like crabs, worms, and some shrimp flies have a challenging job. They are TSFMAG.com | 43

44 | December 2011

them they would strike.

On the other hand, there are times when a painfully slow suspended presentation is highly eff ective. Think “Corky” here. Big trout… cold water. But whether you are fi shing for bonito or black drum, remember- the primary goal of the retrieve is not to bring the fl y back to you so you can cast it again… it is to make the fl y look alive so you can catch a fi sh.

Perhaps one of the most overlooked ways to impart good action into fl ies is to tie them on with a loop knot. It amazes me how much of a diff erence this makes in the movement of fl ies, especially when using heavy leaders or tippets, or very small fl ies. A loop knot forms a smooth swivel point between the hook eye and the leader. This allows the fl y to wobble, dip, and dart without spinning. If you need proof, simply tie your favorite fl y on with a loop knot, make a retrieve, and then tie it the same fl y on with a conventional knot and make a retrieve. I’ll guarantee you’ll see the diff erence. The loop knot is a terrifi c asset, and I honestly can’t think of any fl ies that do not benefi t from it. until next month, keep working on your presentation. Visualize the fi sh, get your fl y in the strike zone, and make a lifelike retrieve.

These are techniques that will benefi t you whenever and wherever you choose to fi sh.

C O N TA C T

designed to nestle into or skip over the bottom and trick what can sometimes be very wary fi sh. Benthic patterns must be weedless and are dressed to be seen but not “too seen.” They usually have features like feelers, small spots of color, or rubber legs that grab the attention of passers-by without completely blowing their cover. Of all fl ies, benthic patterns will undergo the most scrutiny before they are eaten.

Let their natural actions work for you. When allowed to sit on the bottom, these patterns can be very eff ective, especially on frustrating species like black drum and sheephead. The naturally fl uid fi bers of most benthic patterns will wave and pulse seductively. Remember, these fl ies are designed for the sand and mud. Put them there and let them work their magic.

Alter Your Retrieve Fleeing baitfi sh and shrimp do not swim in a constant steady motion.

Neither should your fl y. Watch what your retrieving hand is doing. Are you making a steady strip… pause…. strip… pause…? Change it up.

Erratic retrieves are almost always more natural looking than steady ones, simply because nature does not go in a straight line. Try making more short twitches and staccato style strips with uneven pauses in between. you will be surprised how well fi sh will respond to these.

Likewise, altering the speed of your retrieve can often garner great results. Some fi sh (especially fast swimming pelagics) almost always prefer a fast retrieve- as fast as you can make it. They won’t touch a slow moving fl y but will nab one that’s zipping through the water column. I recall fi shing for stripers over open water once when the only way we could get a strike was to use a blazing fast hand-over-hand retrieve. The stripers wanted the presentation fast and if you gave it to

Casey Smartt has been fl y fi shing and tying fl ies for 30 years. When he cannot make it to the coast he is happy chasing fi sh on Texas inland lakes and rivers.

Telephone Email

Website

830-237-6886 caseysmartt@att.net www.caseysmartt.com

Why go fishing when you can go catching instead?

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it’s catching!

By Jenny Detert TPWD Coastal Fisheries Division Summer Intern | Palacios, T X

FIELD NOTES

GILL NET WRANGLER First day of my internship, up at the crack of dawn, I am awed by the sun’s rays rising from Matagorda Bay’s calm waters!

As we pull up to the first net of the day I can see something caught at the end of the net that is causing a great deal of commotion. Could it be a shark, a 25-pound red drum, or maybe a sting ray? In due time I knew I would get the opportunity to wrangle a large creature from the net.

This excitement reminds me of my first day of school. But this is different. I can’t wait to get dirty. I get to wrangle in a fish-loaded gill net during which I have a high chance of getting poked, stabbed, and downright grungy. My first three weeks of my internship includes the last 3 weeks of the 10 week spring gill net sampling conducted by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) Coastal Fisheries Division staff in all eight coastal bay systems.

46 | December 2011

Every bay team builds (and repairs) its own nets to exactly 600 feet in length. Four 150-foot panels, each of a different mesh size, are used in order capture different sizes as well as different species of fishes. The meshes range from 1.5-inch square holes to 3-inch square holes.

The standardization in nets allows for comparison of data among bays. The average catch rates, in number of fish per hour, can also be developed to look at coastwide trends. The fall net season is identical to the spring season: 3 to 5 nets are set each week perpendicular to shore within the hour before sunset and picked up within three hours after sunrise the next morning. All organisms are identified, counted and measured. Forty five sets are made in each bay system each season. The over 30 years that the biologists have been collecting these data in this way give them a proxy view of the seasonal trends in relative abundance of fishes in the bays.

Fins_Dec11_thirdpg:Layout 1

As we approach the net, the technicians from the Palacios Field Station begin their routine activities associated with each gill net pickup. Data sheets were readied. Pickup time was recorded.

Water depth was measured. Because of my college classes and my field experience, I used the electronic probe instrument that measures water temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen. Of course, water quality and habitat are extremely important factors in fish abundance.

During retrieval of the first net I got to handle red drum, black drum, sheepshead, hardhead catfish, gafftopsail catfish, alligator gar, southern stingray, cownose ray and two different shark species. Not bad for a rookie intern net wrangler on her first day of internship! The day ended at the office processing samples, cleaning gear, and preparing for the nest day’s sampling. After the fourteen hour day, my eyes closed before my head hit the pillow.

During my second week of gill nets, one of my greatest moments in life was being able to hold a 4.5-foot bull shark. It makes me want to become a shark researcher. Also, I was able to handle Florida pompano, file fish, and tripletail; all three species I had never heard of prior to my internship. The remainder of my internship I was also able to do regular weekly samples with trawls, bag seines, and oyster dredges. These gears are used because of their specific designs and species they capture. As with the gill nets, long running trend data can be prepared for each species collected by each gear type.

Without the great course work that I have received at Texas A&M University at Galveston, the support of the Coastal Conservation Association, the cooperation of TPWD, I would not have had the opportunity to experience things I would never have gotten to do on my own. I have gained a great deal of appreciation and understanding how the marine fish population data are obtained and the importance of monitoring, understanding, and managing the marine resources.

My summer could not have been better, spending time on a boat with a great fisheries team, monitoring the living marine resources and occasionally watching a pod of mother bottled nose dolphins and their calves gracefully swim by.

Check the TPWD Outdoor Annual, your local TPWD Law Enforcement office, or www. tpwd.state.tx.us for more information.

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TSFMAG.com | 47

Science and the Sea

Boat Chris Mapp’s Tips Maintenance TM

Tiny Bubbles You might imagine marine snails crawling around on the sea floor. But thanks to a unique adaptation, one family of snails lives life at the top of the ocean.

Violet snails cannot swim but they can construct “rafts” from clusters of air bubbles, and these rafts allow the snails to float at the water’s surface. They float throughout tropical and subtropical oceans, preying on an abundant food source − jellyfish.

To construct a raft, the snail sticks part of its muscular foot just above the water and cups the foot to enclose a pocket of air. Glands on the foot secrete a tacky mucus that quickly seals the air in a bubble. To make its float larger, the snail presses the newly created air bubble onto the existing cluster of bubbles, and as the mucus hardens, the bubble adheres to the rest of the “raft.” Part of the snail’s foot grasps onto the raft at all times, and the snail floats upside-down in the ocean.

Curiously, violet snails are closely related to − and thought to have evolved from − a family of snails that dwell on the ocean floor. How did they go from a bottom-dwelling lifestyle to one that relies on access to air?

It is possible that egg capsules produced by bottom-dwelling snails occasionally trapped air which lifted the egg capsules and the female that produced them to the surface. Over time, these bubble masses could have evolved to function as rafts instead of egg-carriers − allowing violet snails to rise to the top.

The University of Texas

Marine Science Institute www.ScienceAndTheSea.org © The University of Texas Marine Science Institute

48 | December 2011

The second most common telephone call that I receive from boaters having diffi culty on the water arises from engine overheating. There can be numerous reasons why outboards overheat, the most common being a worn water pump impeller, but it’s not the only reason.

Servicing the water pump once a year or every 100 hours of operation is important because you’re doing much more than an impeller job.

The water pump impeller material is very tough and fl exible when new but as time and heat take their toll the rubber becomes brittle, maybe even cracking, eventually unable to produce enough volume to counteract the heat of combustion inside the engine block. Basically, the more work the engine performs the more cooling water it requires.

When we do a water pump job, we begin by removing the propeller and lower drive unit. The fl uid is drained and vacuum and pressure tests are performed to determine the integrity of the gearcase seals. These tests can detect a weak or leaking seal, preventing possible future damage, downtime and expense. The gearcase lube is examined for abnormal color and odor – signs of water contamination and/or overheating.

We also inspect the shift rod assembly for salt and mineral deposits that can place it in a bind and become hard to move or rotate, or in extreme cases cause it to become bent due to mineral getting up behind the motor mounts (common on Evinrude) and forcing them to change position by pushing mounts out and fl exing the shift rod against the inside of the steering pivot tube.

Thermostats and bypass valves are inspected and the most important part of the operation is applying proper lubricants to the retaining ring, drive shaft, prop shaft, shifter rod and all water pump and gear case mounting bolts.

A tip for yamaha owners: Receiving an engine over-temp alarm at idle or during a prolonged period of idling can be an early signal of a water pump problem. Ignoring it can lead to complete failure a long way from the dock. This can be found on even new or recently serviced engines. Quite often it is necessary to shave the water pump housing and liner just slightly to straighten and better match the sealing surfaces to increase the pump’s effi ciency. A quick way to cool an engine that has overheated at idle is to shift the engine into neutral and set the throttle to about 1500 RPM for a few minutes. This will temporarily increase the stream of cooling water but will not fi x the problem. Do not ignore the symptom!

Here’s wishing you a great Christmas and prosperous New year.

Coastal Bend Marine Port O’Connor Texas 361 983 4841 www.coastalbendmarine.com

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C O N S E R V AT I O N

A SUCCESSFUL YEAR FOR

MARINE CONSERVATION IN TEXAS CCA Texas enjoyed another very successful year in 2011.

The continued efforts of local chapter volunteers and the many grassroots supporters and sponsors across the state continue to be the driving force behind the most successful marine conservation organization of its kind. 2011 provided several success stories for the organization in terms of net fundraising, membership increases, habitat restoration and creation, research, education and chapter development across the state.

CCA Texas’s habitat program, Habitat Today for Fish Tomorrow (HTFT), continued to play a major role in the restoration and creation of habitat that will benefit Texas’s coastal resources and recreational anglers across the state. Once again, these efforts are a direct result of local chapter efforts and a growing campaign to create partnerships with local communities, industry, academia, like organizations, governmental agencies and foundations with the same vision to restore and create critical habitat along the entire Texas coast. A summary of completed and ongoing habitat restoration projects that HTFT has participated in or contributed to during 2011 include: Matagorda Nearshore Reefing Project – This will be the third nearshore reefing project that HTFT has participated in with TPWD. As of May 2011 all permits and sub surface leases are in hand and a late spring 2012 deployment is currently being planned for the first set of reefing materials to this site. CCA Texas currently has $115,000 committed to this project and is actively seeking more funds for the project to assist Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s (TPWD) Artificial Reefing Program.

Port Mansfield Nearshore Reefing Project – CCA Texas partnered with TPWD and Alamo Concrete products to deploy in excess of 4,000 concrete culverts to the Port Mansfield nearshore reefing site. CCA Texas contributed $50,000 to the project. This project was completed at the end of August by the contractor, Cajun Maritime, and according to local CCA members and board members it is already yielding nice catches of snapper.

50 | December 2011

JD Murphree WMA Shoreline Stabilization Project – CCA Texas partnered with Texas Ducks Unlimited by contributing $50,000 for matching funds. These funds in turn yielded in excess of $400,000 in matching funds that will be used with Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP) dollars, bringing the total to approximately $1,000,000. These fund will be used to restore and protect over 3,000 acres of fresh and saltwater wetlands

along ICW within the JD Murphree Wildlife Management area. Work should begin in the first quarter of 2012.

Bird Island Cove Marsh Restoration – This project will restore 52 acres of marsh in West Galveston Bay. CCA Texas has committed $50,000 to this project to be used as matching funds for a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Coastal Wetland Grants Program. Work is expected to begin in 2012 for this restoration effort.

Goose Island Marsh Restoration Phase III – This is the final stage of an ongoing marsh restoration project that once completed will have restored 24 acres of lost marsh. The project continues to move forward, and HTFT has committed $25,000 to the project. The continued drought has currently placed the project on hold until sufficient rain and freshwater return for successful marsh grass plantings.

Dickinson Bayou Marsh Restoration – This project will restore 10 acres of marsh and the subsequent protection of over 40 acres of wetlands in the lower end of Dickinson Bayou. CCA Texas has committed $25,000 to this project to be used as matching funds for a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Coastal Wetland Grants Program. Work is expected to begin in 2012 for this restoration effort.

Sabine Lake Deep Reef Expansion and Research – HTFT contributed $15,000 to a 10 acre reef expansion to the Sabine Lake Deep Reef that will also include research and monitoring component for creating baseline data to this unique reef system.

Aransas Pass Marine Debris Cleanup – HTFT partnered with Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program (CBBEP) and Texas General Land Office (TX GLO) to facilitate a marine debris cleanup in and along Airport Park in Aransas Pass. This project cleaned up residual debris from a larger cleanup project and involved the handpicking a materials from the area. CCA Texas contributed $5,600 to the $11,200 project.

CCA Texas’s looks forward to another successful year in 2012 and will continue its work to ensure the health and abundance of Texas coastal resources. On behalf of the staff and leadership at CCA Texas we would like to thank all of our volunteers, members, supporters and sponsors for another year of success and many tight lines in 2012. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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A kayak cart can help get you to the water without scraping up the bottom of your yak.

C A P T. S COT T N U L L

K AYA K F I S H I N G

HAVE YOU MADE

A WISH LIST? Well it’s time to close out yet another year. As 2010 came to a close I wrote about what a tough year it had been for the coastal fishing industry.

Between a winter that seemed to linger far too long and an oil spill that had everyone on edge, it left me longing for something better in 2011. Looking back on the months of 2011 it’s tough to call. I can definitely say 2011 was different.

Late winter brought some anxious times as the temperatures dipped awfully low for an extended period leaving everyone wondering if we were in for a repeat of the killer freezes of the 80s. Luckily, the majority 52 | December 2011

A carry-all unit such as this is a huge upgrade over the old milk crate.

of the coast escaped any major fish kills. Then came the winds of spring that never seemed to leave. Most years you can count on things settling down by Memorial Day. Mother Nature had other plans and she certainly disrupted many of mine. I always love paddling out into the Gulf to chase kings and other pelagic species. To do this I like to have a window of calm for several days to let the waters settle out.

There weren’t too many of those calm periods this year and none that coincided with a gap in my schedule. Maybe next year.

The freezes, high winds and red tide outbreaks were big news, but the headliner would

A well stocked accessory wall at your local paddling shop can give you plenty of gift ideas.

have to be the record heat and drought that gripped the entire state.

The eff ects on our coastal fi sheries were interesting to observe. With no freshwater infl ow the salinities crept much higher than normal.

As a result, I was seeing dolphin and some rather large sharks deep into the marsh where I’ve never seen them before. By late summer I was frequenting rivers and bayous miles upstream from where you would normally fi nd salty water and catching plenty of trout, reds and fl ounder. My wish for 2012 is a mild winter, a spring with adequate rains, fl at seas through the summer and fi nish it up with a fall that lingers into December.

As you receive this fi nal issue of 2011 we’ll be sliding headlong into the Holiday Season. If you are like me it seems that every year I

have a hard time coming up with gift ideas for those special people on my list. I know of their hobbies and the things they enjoy doing, but I don’t always know of the accessories they are missing. I like to nail the perfect gift with an upgrade over their current equipment or perhaps fi ll a gap in the line-up. I know I’m always thrilled to unwrap a gift that adds to the enjoyment of my time spent on the water or in the woods.

Now imagine the angst presented to the gift buyers targeting something meaningful or useful for you. As outdoorsmen we tend to be gear junkies, it’s only natural. I’ve got a garage full of gear and still can’t walk through a sporting goods store without fi nding something I really need. Okay maybe I don’t necessarily NEED it, but I want it.

A PFD with a cut-away rear panel is much more comfortable against the backrest of your kayak seat.

TSFMAG.com | 53

Your gift buyer looks at that assortment of collected gear and figures there couldn’t possibly be anything left that you don’t already have. The result is yet another tie or bottle of cologne, both of which are totally useless out on the salty flats.

My family members gave up trying to figure it out years ago and now simply ask for a wish list. Given that I’m pretty hard on my equipment and it sees many days afield throughout the year, my list often involves replacing or upgrading things I already have. Years ago it was sometimes difficult to communicate the exact model or piece of equipment I longed for. With the ever-expanding world of the internet, it is now easy to spend a couple hours hunting through the various websites and then saving links to those items you can’t live without. I’m certainly not a computer guy, but even I have figured out how to copy and paste those links into an e-mail.

Kayak fishing certainly lends itself to a collection of gear and gadgets. Ideas should be fairly easy to come by, but I’ll poke at your brain with a few things to get you thinking. Let’s start with some possible upgrades. If you are like me,

54 | December 2011

Yak Attack Visipole and optional flag. A good idea for added visibility as well as staying legal when paddling before daylight.

when you first arrived into this sport you spent a chunk of change on your kayak and then skimped a little on the paddle, PFD and a few other necessities.

Perhaps it is time you look at getting a nicer paddle. It is, after all, your motor. And we could all use a little extra horsepower.

My first paddle was a starter job that I thought was perfectly fine. It had an aluminum shaft and plastic blades. I was perfectly happy with it...until I borrowed a super-light carbon fiber model. It was light as a feather and the added stiffness really made a difference in my paddling efficiency. An all-carbon fiber paddle will run upwards of $300, but is worth every penny if you spend a good deal of time on the water. Another slightly less expensive option is a model with a carbon fiber shaft and fiberglass composite blades. They might weigh-in a couple ounces heavier, but are still a far better option that the starter paddles.

For the Hobie pedal-pushers out there, you can get a good deal more efficiency by replacing your fins. Hobie sells a Turbo Fin Kit that will get you to your fishing location ahead of your buddies. The kit is fairly

FTU has a good selection of paddles.

C ontact

simple to install or you can have a paddle shop handle it for you.

Another area the paddling industry has made great strides is in PFD design. When I started off I just grabbed an old PFD out of the boat and went with it. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it made me legal. I have since discovered vests designed specifically for the paddling angler. Several companies such as Stohlquist and MTI now have PFDs with cut-away rear panels that make sitting in your kayak much more comfortable. A paddling vest will also have larger arm openings to keep from rubbing your armpits raw as you paddle. All of this combined will greatly increase the likelihood you’ll keep that PFD on throughout the day making you much safer on the water.

Kayak fishing is a wet sport. Whether it is incidental splashing and dripping or an all-out dunking, your gear is susceptible to getting a salt bath. There are plenty of great options out there to help keep your valuable gear safe and dry. I have a variety of soft bags and hard cases that allow me to stow just about anything. Cell phones, wallet and car keys go into a small dry box. My big camera rides in a large Pelican box when I need to get out on the water for some serious photography.

A spare set of clothing, first aid supplies and a few other emergency supplies are tucked away in a dry bag that easily stuffs inside the front hatch. You can never have enough options for keeping things dry. Be specific when putting them on your wish list as most paddle shops will have a dizzying array of choices.

Speaking of paddle shops, if you or your gift buyer aren’t into the online thing you can always visit your local paddle retailer. As you stand before the wall of accessories with pen and paper you will certainly find something there that will make your days on the water easier or more pleasurable. A kayak cart for rolling your yak to the water, a tackle storage system to replace that old milk crate, a set of pontoons for added stability while standing up sightcasting or maybe a new seat to keep you out on the water longer; it’s all right there. And perhaps if you’ve been really good this year you can push the envelope and request one of those brand spankin’ new pieces of floating plastic that we all covet.

Be safe out there and have a great Holiday Season!

Capt. Scott Null is a devout shallow water fisherman offering guided adventues via kayak, poled skiff, and wading.

Telephone Email

Website

281-450-2206 scott@tsfmag.com www.captainscottnull.com TSFMAG.com | 55

S C O T T S O M M E R L AT T E

ACCORDING TO SCOT T

TECHNOLOGY We should have never let it into the woods or onto the water! What? Technology- that is what.

But wait, didn’t my customers and I just escape a violent thunderstorm a couple of weeks ago because I had satellite weather on my phone? I am so confused.

Anyway, good or bad, technology is here to stay. The trick is to avoid relying on it in ways where a backfire can ruin your day.

A couple of weeks back I am sitting in a tripod that I have standing up inside the branches of a fallen oak tree overlooking a heavily used game trail. Over the last couple of years I have seen numerous deer using this trail and with the wind blowing the direction that it was that day, it 56 | December 2011

was the perfect spot to ambush an unsuspecting buck.

Now, to put things in perspective, because I think that we should try to minimize our technological edge over the wild things of the world, I choose to hunt with a long bow or recurve rather than a compound bow. Having taken game in the past with a compound, I found it too easy to generate the thrill I’m seeking. So I made the switch and, in turn, have become a better hunter. Where I could previously take shots effectively out to 30-40 yards, I am now limited to about 15 yards, preferably 5-10 yards. The difference is this- a compound shoots with greater velocity and be fitted with sights where traditional gear has neither.

So, I am sitting in a tree with my long bow and

Merry Christmas and stuff like that!

C ontact

wooden arrows overlooking a highly-suspect game trail (notice there is no feeder mentioned here) and everything is perfect in my “technologically free” outdoor experience. And, then I hear some twigs cracking. Sure enough, here came six does walking the trail toward me from the woods. Not interested in the does I kept a vigil eye out for what I hoped would be a buck following and sure enough here came a nice eight point. The moment of truth was upon me- all of these deer were going to walk, single-file, within a few yards of my stand on the trail beneath me. All I had to do is maintain my cool long enough to allow the does to pass without them detecting me and then the buck, which was preoccupied by the girlies ahead, would walk right into the little opening that I had trimmed into the trees.

One doe, two doe, etc. passed until the last one was underneath and I started to draw tension on the string and point the arrow in the direction of the opening. The moment of truth was upon me and the head that was supporting that nice rack passed into the opening. At this point I am aiming and starting to draw… come on, just two more steps and then… the sound of Van Halen’s Panama rings out through the woods drowning out the sound of my pounding heart. I had forgotten to turn off my damn phone!

I was instantly in tears from laughing so hard. Apparently white-tailed deer do not have the same appreciation for the musical genius of Edward Van Halen. Now to add insult to my bruised pride, the call I received at 7:30 that morning was from none other than our illustrious editor- E.J. Once I gained my composure, I called him back and we got a good laugh out of it.

Anyway, that is my most recent horror story of how technology invaded and ruined a great outdoor experience for me but I can assure you there are people who experienced much worse. Case in point would be the guy that waved me down early one morning. When I saw him, I had to do a double-take because to the best of my memory there were some large pilings in the vicinity that showed only on low tide. It turns out that he found them the hard way. “I was following my GPS and it showed nothing but open water here,” he told me as I idled alongside.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since just before dark yesterday evening,” he responded while he and the others in the boat scratched at mosquito bites too numerous to imagine. “We tried calling for help but my cell does not work very well down here. Do you have a phone I could borrow?”

Let me tell you folks, it could have been so much worse for these people if the tide had been a bit lower and those posts had been sticking up just a few more inches. Which brings me to the point- do not rely on GPS, Google Maps or even a NOAA or USGS chart for navigational purposes. Use them as aids and references only. I routinely see people flying across the bay doing 50 mph staring at their GPS screen and paying no attention whatsoever to what is, or might be in front of them. Remember, you are on the water and things float in the water and are constantly being moved around by tide and wind. This doesn’t even take into account that you could run into another boat. What was not there yesterday might be there today.

I personally do not approve of GPS, Google Earth, or any other such device or program being used for navigation.

I think everyone should learn it the way I did- spending time on the bays to learn your way around, slowing down during times of limited visibility, and always using a powerful handheld spotlight when running in the dark. But, unfortunately that is not the way of the world and, I would be a liar to not admit to you that sitting on my desk in front of me is a GPS and several aerial photos that I have taken from an airplane while exploring places that I have not yet fished. The difference is I do not rely on them to get me to and from the fishing grounds and, when I reach the shallows I stop and begin poling with my good old-fashion, technologically superior, graphite composite Stiffy push pole. What a hypocrite, huh?

Certainly I would never encourage anyone to give up their graphite rods, reels with umpteen ballbearings or Gore-Tex rainwear- I certainly will not be giving up mine. However, I will tell you that you that relying on technology dumbs down the senses and promotes a complacency that takes away from the wonderful experience that is the Texas Outdoors.

Scott Sommerlatte is a full time fly fishing and light tackle guide, freelance writer and photographer.

Telephone Email Website

979-415-4379 vssommerlatte@hotmail.com www.scottsommerlatte.com TSFMAG.com | 57

It’s great to have the Flats Cat back on the water at POC.

JAKE HADDOCK

YO U T H F I S H I N G

'TIS THE SEASON Wow, what a busy fall season this has been! You could literally count the time I’ve spent on the water in the month of October in hours instead of days. That’s alright I suppose, because the holidays are right around the corner. They cannot get here soon enough though. I don’t know if this “red tide” is going to get any worse, but I do know that the few hours I did spend on the water all seemed to be well. I did, however, notice a few mullet, hardheads, and croaker that washed up at the boat ramp near Port O’Connor. As for all the other fish, they seemed to be thriving, especially the big group of reds and trout feasting on hoards of mullet.

Unfortunately, my brother and I had to let them be because we were running late to head back to the concrete jungle. However, I think when I do get to slow down and fish a while, the catching will be phenomenal.

I have already noticed big trout on their wintering grounds. So, ‘tis the season to sharpen the hooks on your Corkys and go to work. I use work loosely, even though long grinding wades can sometime seem like work, but the reward can be better than a paycheck.

58 | December 2011

It’s about my time to catch a big sow trout again. It’s been too long since the last time I fought with a big yellow mouth. This could be the season you break your personal record. You can’t do it sitting next to the warm fire though. You have to get out in the elements and not be a quitter.

Proper clothing can help with this such as; fleece liners for your waders, a jacket, and thin fingerless gloves depending on how cold it is. It can get chilly out there while chasing a big yellow mouth. I specifically remember Christmas break of my sophomore year looking at the thermometer in the truck after catching the biggest trout of my life and it read forty- seven degrees. That’s down right chilly when you are waist deep in saltwater. Don’t be intimidated by the temperatures though. We have the technology these days to make high tech clothing to stay warm in these elements. It might be a little on the pricy side, but the investment is well worth it.

Since this is the December issue, I’m sure a lot of Christmas shopping will be going on about the time

Scouting for ducks in the jet drive.

this article sits in your hands. I have been asked numerous times from people that have avid fisherman on their list; what they should get them for Christmas? I could sit there and have a two hour conversation about what kind of fishing they like, to see what they might need specifically, but there is one foolproof gift for the angler. It’s a gift card to the largest tackle store anywhere around called Fishing Tackle Unlimited. Trust me, anyone that likes to fish will go into that store and find something they can’t live without. Even if you don’t live near Houston they now have online shopping. So there you go, there is your one foolproof gift for a fisherman.

Also, ‘tis the season for me and my fellow duck hunters to be out and about. This can sometimes put grudges between fisherman and duck hunters. Loud airboats running by wade fisherman, or a fisherman drifting into the flyway of hunter’s potential decoying birds are things I’ve seen that build anger on the water. Let’s be courteous to each other out there guys. We need to give each other some space. After all, ‘tis the season to be jolly. Stay safe, stay warm and have a fun holiday season!

Merry Fishmas!

TSFMAG.com | 59

MIKE JENNINGS

TEXAS NEARSHORE & OFFSHORE

BULLS HELP US BEAT THE

WINTER DOLDRUMS For the last six weeks or so I have found myself breaking the jetty wearing warmer clothes and often times dealing with a northeast wind that seems to blow right down the beachfront building some of the most confused seas (I call them snotty) that never seem to want to lay into a decent swell. The typical winter day finds me yearning for not only the warmer summer weather but the summer fishing patterns as well.

The days of short king mackerel and red snapper trips seem so far away, like a distant memory. The rigs and live bottom within easy reach seem to be devoid of life as the water temperature drops and we settle in for yet another winter. While the fishing is still good for other species, they require a long run that may not always be possible with the fickle winter weather.

For many, winter brings thoughts of amberjack

This is what a large concentration of baitfish looks like on your bottom machine. Finding bait is almost always the key to finding the bulls.

60 | December 2011

and grouper. The cold calm days following a strong front make me think of yellowfin tuna around the spar rigs and deep dropping for tilefish. All of these excursions require just the right weather window that is usually short-lived and often times requiring perfect timing to beat the return of the north wind and rough conditions to make it back to port. Not to mention that for me they usually seem to fall when I have other obligations leaving me to just mumble to myself that old lament, “Maybe next time.�

During these off-season lulls our minds seem to wander from fishing. Many fight the boredom by

spending the time working on their boats, cleaning and repairing equipment, or just other pursuits all together. The marinas are empty and the boat ramps see little use except from the occasional diehard that just refuses to be put off by a little cold weather.

I even find my phone calls begin to slow and at times dwindle to a halt around the first week of November. Those that do call are confused as to what they may be able to catch while down to the coast for a holiday visit. With the first question being, “Can we catch anything this time of year?” The answer to that question is always yes.

And for those that are looking to take advantage of a short break in the weather you can do it quite easily, all within sight of the beach.

Obviously, you’re not going to fill the box with hundreds of pounds of the more glamorous reef fish, but getting a line stretched and spending a cool winter day in the sun catching fish is not all that difficult to find.

Since the recovery of the red drum in the Gulf of Mexico, The larger specimens, or the “bulls” as we call them, have become one of the most sought after nearshore species after the summer fishing season winds down. In the last several years I have witnessed massive schools of bull redfish feeding at the surface, offering sightcasting opportunities that would raise the heart rate of even the most seasoned veteran.

These fish have definitely recovered with a vengeance and their numbers show absolutely no sign of slowing down in the near future.

They even seem to be hearty enough to withstand our recent red tide problems that touched almost the entire Texas coastline. I have seen no mature reds dead or dying here in my home water. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, very few redfish have been included in the mortality surveys they have been conducting ever since this red tide event first showed up about a month ago.

Most people are aware of the annual run of bull redfish along our beachfront and jetties during the fall and make plans every year to take advantage of this incredible fishery. These fish move into the shallow waters of the Texas coast to spawn and it makes for some fast and furious action. The run usually starts in early to mid September and will last well into November at times. The one thing that most don’t seem to know is these fish don’t just disappear when the spawning has ended. These larger breeding aged fish will linger within TSFMAG.com | 61

Captain Mike Jennings is a professional charter captain with more than 25 years offshore experience. Mike is the owner/operator of Cowboy Charters in Freeport TX and is known locally for running further and fishing harder for his clients.

C O N TA C T

a mile or two of the beach through the winter, and in some years I have caught them with some consistency well into April.

I spend many winter days targeting these fish with customers young and old who just want to catch a big fish and spend a day on the water. The tactics for targeting them are not that dissimilar to those you may use during the run. On most occasions it’s just the location that changes.

I begin my day just off the beachfront, in about 25 feet of water, slowly motoring my way out to about 40 feet and back again, paying attention to where I am marking bait on my bottom machine. When I find the consistent depth where the bait is present I will drop anchor.

I’m not concerned with water depth, temperature or clarity as much

as I am with being where the bait is.

Once the boat settles in place it’s a fairly simple approach using any oily bait such as sardines, mullet or threadfin shad - Carolina rigged on a large circle hook. I stress the circle hook to prevent hooking these fish in the throat. These are brood stock we are fishing for and the circle hook is a definite aid to insuring a healthy release.

The other key is the use of chum. I chum lightly – just enough to keep a visible slick trailing behind the boat. Although this is not a usual tactic for redfish it can make or break your success once these fish begin to scatter along the beachfront after the spawn.

Chasing bull redfish along the beach my not be as glamorous as a day of chasing wahoo or pulling a big amberjack out of some distant oil rig, but it sure beats sitting at home and falling victim to the winter doldrums. And – It beats working on a boat no matter what time of the year!

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TSFMAG.com | 63

C A D E ’ S C O A S TA L C H R O N I C L E S

CADE SIMPSON

Hi, I’m Cade. I’m just your everyday do it yourself kind of guy with a great passion for the outdoors. Like many of you, I have often found myself a little lost when planning a fishing trip to a new area. Well, break out your Hook-N-Line Fishing map and follow me each month as I travel along the Texas coast, learning the ins and outs of fishing the saltwater along the way.

Where In this month’s edition, I found myself in Port O’Connor, TX. Located at the southwest corner of Matagorda Bay, Port O’Connor is a small fishing community that packs a big punch when it comes to fishing opportunity. The goal for this adventure was to be a mixture of deep blue offshore fishing as well as some inshore action.

When and Weather Fall season fishing! The weather was ideal during my trip. Day time highs reached around 90°F while dipping to about 70°F overnight. Skies were clear and winds were minimal.

64 | December 2011

Tackle and Gear Not personally owning deepwater gear, we were fortunate to have Roland who was rigged perfectly for whatever we might get into. Roland is the gentleman that my buddy and I teamed up to fish with for the weekend. Our primary setups day one were offshore trolling rods and reels as well as deep sea spinning setups. Day two our sights were set on inshore fishing for sharks and tarpon. This brought out the lighter casting gear.

Clark’s complex features El Mexicano Grill a few steps from the Inn.

The Inn at Clarks is a great place to stay; rooms come with wet slips!

Bait is not hard to come by in Port O’Connor. However, for us it seemed a toss up as to who had the particular bait we wanted at the moment. One bait store would have one thing but be out of another, the trend continued at each bait shop. There are three primary bait shops on the ICW channel, one being part of the Clark’s complex. Frozen mullet, ribbon fish, cigar minnows, and live shrimp completed our bait menu.

Hitting the water We launched at Froggie’s Bait Dock, excellent boat ramp and dock, good facilities all the way around.

Froggie’s is also one of the bait shops we visited. On to fishing, we couldn’t have asked for better weather. The seas were calm and the boat cruised across the water with ease. Our direction was south-southeast after pulling through the jetties. A quick 40 mile leg and we pulled up to the first oil rig. Using bottom jigs it was no time at all before we had a fish on. Unfortunately, this time of year the snapper are not in season in the international waters; this is something you should be very aware of if snapper are your target or if you just happen to hang into one. With snapper not being our target, we reeled up and changed tactics. We tied on a couple of large trolling lures and let cruise control take over. This didn’t yield any success other than helping us locate a piece of floating timber.

Another quick re-tie and we tossed cut bait around the log. A school of Mahi Mahi was using the log as cover and it was hardly a blink of the eye before we had the cooler loaded with the feisty fighters.

Later we found ourselves rig hopping again. At one particular location, free-lining with ribbon fish produced our limits of king mackerel.

Day two was a short one since we had to check out of the motel around lunch time. We drifted the boat in and around the jetties and fished cut mullet on the bottom. A couple of catfish, a few sharks, and seemingly as soon as we started it was time to go in.

Where to eat and where to sleep We chose the Inn at Clark’s and enjoyed the convenience of having a boat slip right below our motel room. Another great choice would be St. Christopher’s Suites which also offers wet slips. If you are

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Public lighted fishing pier at the east end of town.

TSFMAG.com | 65

planning to pull your own boat to POC, the convenience of a wet slip is simply hard to beat. For folks looking to rent a house for a few days, POC Rentals and Tigrett Realty both manage area offerings. In addition, there are several RV parks in town. The Dolphin RV Park allows tent camping for you more primitive adventurers and Beacon 44 has amenities that include laundry facility, pool and stocked fishing pond, full RV hookups, Wi-Fi, etc. Beacon 44 also has a seafood market stocked year round with local delicacies from the bay and Gulf.

Port O’Connor is not even a big small town so I was surprised to

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Park Amenities

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Our crew with some of the catch of the day.

see a good handful of restaurants. For the convenience factor we ate at El Mexicano Grill there in the Clark’s complex. Literally walking across the parking lot separating the ‘Inn’ and the restaurant puts you in front of a hot meal. Even though we didn’t have time to try Josie’s Mexican Food I have been told they do a great job on the fresh fillets fishermen bring them and their breakfast tacos are legendary. I already have this on my list for next trip.

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method. At the far east end of town is a public beach. I noted several people fishing from the shore as well as from the lighted pier. There are plenty of shallow flats for you walk-in wade fishermen at Boggy Bayou and also the Little Jetty area. Of course you can launch your boat or kayak and get to just about any type of water structure you might like fishing.

Wrap up This was my first trip to Port O’Connor. Fishing offshore is not a regular occurrence for me so it was fun to change things up a bit and to see the ocean in that perspective. Doing it on a budget made it that much sweeter.

I already want to go back. After watching several boats pull up to the cleaning station(at Clark’s) with their limits of big reds, I am anxious to try my luck at them.

Take a gander at 2coolfishing.com; it’s an awesome site for the

Clark’s offerings include a public fish cleaning station.

DIY fisherman. Quite often there are posts by people looking for crew members to fill spots on their boats. I do not mean guides, just regular Joes wanting someone to help split gas and bait. This is how I wound up in Port O’Connor to begin with.

C O N TA C T

The Contacts: If you would like more information on Port O’Connor, visit www. portoconnor.com.

Special thanks to Hook-N-Line Fishing Maps - www.hooknline.com Telephone Email

936-776-7028 Cademan11@sbcglobal.net

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TSFMAG.com | 67

Striped Mullet credit: Keoki Stender www.marinelifephotography.com

STEPHANIE BOYD

F I S H Y FA C T S

MULLET The topic of the month is mullet. No, not that crazy hairdo you had in the seventies. The fish, of course. And the two most common mullet in Texas bays are the striped mullet, Mugil cephalus, and the white mullet, Mugil curema. Striped are by far the most common, so we’ll stick with them. The two species really aren’t that different anyway.

An adult striped mullet is cylindrical and torpedoshaped with a blunt nose, several rows of inconspicuous teeth, thin lips, short pectoral fins, and two dorsal fins.

Coloration consists of silver sides and belly with the back ranging from slivery-green to grayish-olive to dark bluish-green. Each pectoral fin has a dark spot at the base. If the mullet is six inches or longer, it will also sport prominent black stripes on the upper half of the body, running the length of the body, formed by dark spots at the center of each scale.1 This mullet, particularly when young, is often mistaken for the white mullet. However, white mullet have scales extending onto their soft dorsal and anal fins (striped do not), and they also have nine soft rays in the anal fin while striped have only eight.2 But the easiest way to distinguish between the species is eye color: white mullet have yellow or golden eye pigmentation while striped mullets’ eyes are mostly brown.

Striped mullet can be found worldwide in warm/ temperate coastal waters. They can tolerate very salty to completely fresh water and are found at all levels in the water column, though they spend most of their time around stream and river mouths, in brackish bays, 68 | December 2011

inlets, and lagoons with sandy or muddy bottoms and dense vegetation.3 Spawning for Texas species lasts from late October to January, with a peak in November and December. Mature adults leave the bays, collect in large schools (supposedly for carpooling purposes), and migrate 40-50 miles offshore to spawn in 400-600 feet of water, typically.

Throughout the season, females scatter up to seven million spherical eggs in the water column. The eggs are transparent to pale yellow, and each contains an oil globule, making it rather buoyant. Parents do not guard the eggs, and most are eaten by predators (that goes for parents and eggs). The eggs that remain hatch within 36-50 hours, releasing mouthless and finless larvae (this is rectified in about five days, when jaws and paired fins develop). At 15-32 mm long, the larvae migrate to inshore waters. They spend the remainder of their first year in coastal waters, salt marshes, estuaries, fresh water creeks, etc. In autumn, when the young mullet are approximately two inches, they move into deeper waters while mature adults are off to spawn again.1 Sexual maturity is attained at about three years of age, or eight to twelve inches, with females maturing at a larger size than males. Their lifespan is typically seven or eight years (females living longer than males, on average), but there is a striped mullet on record that lived thirteen years. They can reach about twenty inches in length and typically weigh three pounds or less, though the largest on record was fourteen pounds. Striped mullet of all sizes are often prone to leaping clear of the

water. Biologists don’t all agree on the reasons for this behavior, but it could be to avoid predators or to clear their gills and be exposed to higher levels of oxygen (since they commonly spend time in lowoxygen areas).3 Like other fish, mullet serve an important role in the ecosystem, though actually, their role is reminiscent of the white shrimp’s: food source and cleaning service.

Mullet are prey to countless creatures including larger fish, sea turtles, water snakes, wading birds, pelicans, and dolphins.3 For their own meals, mullet cruise along the seabed and suck up zooplanktons, bottom-dwelling organisms, and detritus (dead plants and animals), or they skim scum containing microalgae from the water’s surface. Incidentally, they also pick up sediments in their consumption, which helps to digest the detritus in their thick-walled, gizzard-like stomach segments.1 So that’s their environmental niche, but they have an equally important economic role. Mullet is regarded as an excellent table dish… in Florida. Off the western Gulf coast, they tend to take on an oily taste, and aren’t a great candidate for some preparation styles (or for delicate palettes). However, as this doesn’t seem to affect their appeal to game fish, mullet can make excellent bait. Spotted seatrout, red drum, southern flounder, and billfish are just a few of the contenders for mullet flesh. Several Gulf states harvest many

tons of mullet for commercial credit: Keoki Stender use, and they aren’t alone. Mullet www.marinelifephotography.com are a very important commercial species around the world. Besides being a tasty main course in some places, and a useful bait in others, this fish is also prized for its roe (eggs).2 Caviar anyone? (Okay, that’s technically salmon, but you get the idea.)

So although mullet are sometimes described by anglers as the rats of the sea, they’re pretty good neighbors to have, keeping other creatures well fed and cleaning up after everyone’s messes. In Texas waters, it is illegal to keep mullet over twelve inches from October through January. This regulation arose after mullet populations along the eastern Gulf coast were put in jeopardy due to overfishing. Currently, their populations in Texas bays are doing just fine, and I, for one, hope they stay that way.

Striped Mullet

Footnotes

1

Cathleen Bester, “Ichthyology Education: Striped Mullet,” Florida Museum of Natural History, 17 October 2011 <http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/ stripedmullet/stripedmullet.html>.

2

“Biological Info: Striped Mullet,” Louisiana Fisheries, 17 October 2011 <http:// www.lsu.edu/seagrantfish/biological/misc/stripedmullet.htm>.

3

“Striped Mullet (Mugil cephalus),” Texas Parks & Wildlife, 17 October 2011, <http:// www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/mullet/>.

TSFMAG.com | 69

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TSFMAG.com | 71

DICKIE ColBuRn

DICKIE ColBuRn’s Sabine Scene

Sabine

Dickie Colburn is a full time guide out of Orange, Texas. Dickie has 37 years experience guiding on Sabine and Calcasieu Lakes.

Telephone 409-883-0723 Website www.sabineconnection.com

I cannot remember the bite on Sabine Lake being any more diverse or as consistently good as it is right now. This is no doubt due to the elevated salinity levels. Spanish mackerel and blue fish are being caught in the river and even a few tripletail have shown up as far north as Coffee Ground Cove! The trout bite has literally exploded with limits of two to five pound fish expected rather than hoped for most days.

Slot reds are schooling in the open lake and flounder are easily averaging three pounds with five-pounders not uncommon. Add Spanish mackerel to the mix and as Capt. Chuck says, “It’s just stupid good every day!”

Not all of Stripers should be the big showing in the river soon. flounder have abandoned We didn’t do that well last the bayous! year on the ghosts of the

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river but a few have already been caught already and the water temperature has yet to cool to the level they seem to prefer.

The bite under the gulls is still too strong for most folks to even consider mining the shallows for bragging size trout with a Corky or topwater right now. They know the big trout are due any day but the allure of a faster bite on quality fish under the gulls is difficult to ignore. The best of both worlds is to drift fish early and wade the flats in the afternoon hours.

I don’t have to check my logs to tell you that at least ninety percent of the trout over seven pounds that we have caught over the years on Sabine in December and January were taken during the last two hours of daylight.

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Corky, Catch V, Catch 2000 and MirrOdine XL as well as topwaters that include She Dogs, Skitter Walks, and Spooks have accounted for most of those fish.

An incoming tide is to kill for at the end of the day and the presence of mullet on the surface is the primary reason for slipping over the side of the boat. Earlier in the afternoon, whether drifting or wading the flats, we usually do much better swimming 5-inch tails on a 1/8 ounce head. We generally fish a lot of straight tail plastics like the Assassin Shads, TTF’s Trout Killers and Tidal Surge’s split tail mullet, but as the surface temperature drops we do much better swimming longer paddle tail plastics like the Die Dapper or Flats Minnow XL. The Die Dapper is a Slot reds are schooling all over productive alternative for folks that hate Sabine Lake. fishing suspending baits as they have a big silhouette, sink slowly and put off a lot of vibration on the retrieve.

While it is generally a much slower bite, an increasing number of anglers last year discovered the potential of the deep water bite in the ICW and both rivers. It is not for everyone, especially folks that don’t have a lot of time to scout around, but it is a viable Plan B that can attain Plan A status very quickly. This approach is not a numbers game, but my largest trout each year for the last three

years has been a product of vertical jigging on the river.

I usually start as shallow as 12 to 15 feet with a tail or Hoginar, but more often than not find the better concentrations of big trout and reds as deep as 25 feet. I prefer to vertically jig these fish, but there were several trout in the nine-pound class taken last year by anglers Carolina rigging baits like the Corky Devil or Maniac Mullet. I change the hooks on just about everything I fish anyway, but I can promise you that your hook up ratio with the Maniac Mullet will be much better if you’ll go with a larger hook!

While it would be icing on the cake to find another Laguna Wader II rod or a Frogg Togg Toad Skinz rain suit under my Christmas tree, good health and the opportunity to fish with old and new clients on a daily basis is already like Christmas year round for me. If you are still at a loss as to what to give a friend or relative, don’t overlook the fact that a written invitation to go fishing tucked inside a Christmas card is a very special gift.

God bless you and your family and I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

TSFMAG.com | 73

mICKEY Eastman

mICKEY On Galveston

Galveston

Mickey Eastman is a full-time fishing guide out of Baytown, TX. Mickey has 26 years guiding experience on the Galveston area bays and is the founder of Gulf Coast Troutmasters, the largest speckled trout tournament series of all time

Telephone 281-383-2032

74 | December 2011

Howdy Anglers, Capt. Mickey here with another look at the fishing around the Galveston Bay Complex.

Things have really picked up after these last two cold fronts and it is really hard to believe that it could get any better. The potlickers are doing really well now and everybody is catching fish and that is the name of the game. That is what sells products and I guess magazines too (ha-ha). But no, it is real good.

What happened up here on Trinity Bay is our water level has dropped quite a bit on these last two fronts and that has made a really big difference. With the elevated salinity we have right now the shrimp are just coming out in little spurts and that is kind of holding the fish in the upper reaches of the bay systems around here. Last week I ran twenty miles up the San Jacinto River to Oxbow Lake and caught trout, redfish and flounder and watching cars go down Hwy 90. I mean it’s just crazy how many fish are so far upstream. Same thing with the Trinity River delta, we have birds working in Lost Lake and Old River. You can pretty much draw a line from Point Barrow to Double Bayou, anywhere north of that line you can find birds working and slicks. The better trout by far are being caught by waders but that open water bite is hard for some folks to pass

right now.

East Bay is pretty much the same thing. The north end of East Bay has been holding some really nice fish. James Plagg has been doing pretty good over there; I went over there one day and we caught some really solid fish. The day I was there we had trouble finding keepers – most were running right at that 25-inch line and a tad over. No monsters, but a great bunch of solid five and a half to six pounders.

I know that the croaker guys really worked this area over during the summer but this is good evidence that they never got all the good ones.

This “north end” pattern as I call it seems to be prevailing in all our bays right now and I really believe it has to do with the way the shrimp crop and shrimp migration has happened this year. We still have deepwater pattern fish for the boaters that like to work birds and most of those fish are running from about 14” to 18” with the majority in the 15-16” class, just multitudes of them. The bird chasers wait all year for this stuff and I’m glad to see them getting their chance. But the guys that want to catch better quality fish and aren’t afraid to get out and work for them; all you have to do is slide off that bird action and find you a slick or two. You know they are not

popping a lot of slicks like they do in the summer time, slicking action is rather sporadic this time of year. But if you get out away from the birds and the schoolie fish and all the boats zigzagging and chopping them up, there are a bunch of better fish to be had.

The way I do it is to look at various pieces of known structure, you know – reefs, ledges, dropoffs, stuff like that, and when I see a slick or two popping I just put my trolling motor down and stay with those fish. A traditional bait for this type of fishing has always been the MirrOlure but I want to tell you about another bait I’m doing well with – Tidal Surge’s Maniac Mullet. Dana Bailey gave me some and I have been trying them out. They have been working really good for me. It sinks a little faster than the Corky, it does pretty much the same job as the Corky but it is a more feasible bait to throw out of the boat. You don’t have to have as much finesse if you know what I mean. You jiggle it a lot, let it fall; kind of work it like a tail, slow it down more than that and it is working real well.

Getting lots of strikes on them. You could no doubt use the Maniac Mullet wade fishing but I think it will end up making a better boat bait. I have no trouble with my Corkys when I’m wade fishing as I’m going forward very slowly so I don’t need that extra sink rate. The original Corky and the Fat Boy are probably the best big trout lures ever invented.

I am also still doing real good on that Lil John from MirrOlure.

The scent they add to the Lil John probably has a lot to do with the way the thing draws strikes. Lately we are dipping the tails in chartreuse and getting that kind of shrimptail look going on. I believe dipping has made a good bait even better.

Can’t say enough about the flounder, last week I had eight

flounder that ran twenty-two to twenty-four inches. On another trip we had nine and we are not even fishing for them, we are just trout fishing. The flounder are just now starting to fall out of the backcountry and I am catching most of them in bayou mouths and ledges along channels. Falling tide is usually the best and most of the flounder we are cleaning are full of shrimp. So that tells you the flounder have not switched over to mud minnows or finger mullet yet but they will.

They are still nuking bull reds in the surf from Sabine Pass all the way down to who knows where. There are some slots in there too.

Some guys are wading for trout and getting lucky and catching some slot reds down around San Luis Pass.

It is late fall and this is the season we live for. It just doesn’t get any better anywhere in the world than it is in Texas right now.

We have world-class fishing going on all up and down the Texas coast and excellent hunting all across the state. (I might be a tad prejudiced about some of this but that’s what being a Texan is all about you know.) My neck is swelled up quite a bit with deer season and waterfowl season open and the fishing just going through the roof. It’s just good to be an outdoorsman right now.

Red tide update: They have closed oyster season on the whole Texas Coast due to the red tide making oysters unsafe for human consumption. This has not been as much of a problem here on the upper coast as it has further south but all bays are closed just the same. Hopefully we’ll get enough of a weather change and the water will cool down enough to knock this stuff out.

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TSFMAG.com | 75

BIll PustEJoVsKY

CaPt. BIll’s Fish Talk

Matagorda

Bill Pustejovsky is a full-time guide at Matagorda, TX. Bill fishes year-round for trout and redfish in all the Matagorda Bays.

Wading and drifting for trophy trout and reds are his specialty.

Telephone 979-863-7353 Email CaptBill@GoldTipGuideService.com Website www.goldtipguideservice.com

76 | December 2011

Wow – can you believe December has crept up on us already? It seems like this year just flew by. I guess I was so busy watering everything in my yard all year to keep it alive that I just lost track of time. The new year will be here before you know it and we’ll see what’s in store for our bays and fishery.

Last December saw fishermen with daily full limits of trout and reds up to around the 18th of the month. But - last year was fairly normal compared to this year. Looking back through 2011 to the February freeze followed by continuous drought, you could say I need my head examined for even attempting to predict what might be in store for coastal fishermen. So – it’s probably best that we take it one day at a time and make the best of what comes our way.

With that said, I’m planning to stick to my typical routines from previous years which includes fishing shell and mud over in East Matagorda Bay for the most part during the coming colder months.

By this time, our water temperatures generally will have dropped, pushing our fish into their winter pattern. What this means is that they will become sluggish to bite on colder days and then feeding like tigers when it warms nicely between fronts. Crazy as it has been I doubt anybody could guess it right so I’m just going to run with what has worked for me in the past and hope for the best. I have been

Dale Mohn – great back lake redfish – Bass Assassin lure.

known to pick fresh, ripe tomatoes out of the garden in the middle of December and it may happen again this year.

Needless to say, I will adjust my fishing strategies based on weather and water conditions as they develop. If we have a cold December, typically your bait presentation should be slowed down making adjustment for colder water temperatures and the coldblooded nature of the fish.

MirrOlure Corkys, Saltwater Assassins, and the Eddie Douglas Broken Back Special are my usual wintertime favorite lures. As I’ve

Bobby Tackaberry – another great red from the back lakes – Bass Assassin lure.

said above, fish a bit slower and try to remember exactly what you were doing to get that first bite of the day so that you can repeat it.

Some years we have plenty of shrimp in the bays and it is not until the middle of December when our trout begin to feed primarily on finfish. Due to the currently poor shrimp crop I’m betting it will happen a lot earlier this year. Last year, I saw catches of trout and reds on Corkys in October so I’m confident this bait will be working very well by the time December rolls around.

December is also a great month to fish the Colorado River and Diversion Channel, especially if a front blows in. West Matagorda anglers should find an abundant redfish population on the south shoreline in between guts and sandbars on low tides after cold fronts. Sometimes, you can even sightcast to them, depending on water clarity of course.

Just a tidbit for all you fishermen/hunter types that are putting your boats in storage until spring; do not forget to have your outboard winterized properly! I know I’m like the Energizer Bunny and keep repeating this year after year but it’s a lesson I’ve personally learned the hard way. Best practice is to take your boat and outboard to your dealership and let them do all the work so that when spring rolls around and you decide to go fishing your engine will crank like a charm and purr like a kitten. If this advice doesn’t suit you, at least put fuel stabilizer in your gas tank and make sure it is full when it goes into storage. A little preventive maintenance goes a long way.

Have a safe and blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Until next time…God Bless. -Capt. Bill

TSFMAG.com | 77

CaPt. GaRY GRaY

mID-Coast BaYs With the Grays

Port O'Connor Seadrift

Captain Gary and Captain Shellie Gray fish year-round for trout and redfish in the Port Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connor/ Seadrift area. Gary started his Bay Rat Guide Service 20 years ago.

The Grays specialize in wade and drift fishing with artificial lures.

Gary and Shellie also team up to fish many tournaments.

Telephone 361-785-6708 Email Gary@BayRat.com Website www.bayratguideservice.com

78 | December 2011

Is it just me or did this year fly by quicker than normal? Looking back, 2011 has been a pretty wild ride for our local fisheries. First we had the freezes this past winter along with a nasty lingering drought situation that may be with us a while longer if the weather guys can be believed. As if that wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enough we were hit by the red tide algae bloom in early October. It really is amazing that after all its been through our fishery is still strong and producing here in the middle coast.

During November I spent the majority of my time either wading or drifting the mid bay reefs in San Antonio Bay. We would have to vacate the open bay waters when a cold front came through but within a day or two the water was cleared up and the bite from the many hungry speckled trout was back in full swing.

If we were in the redfish mood all we would have to do is hit a shoreline along Matagorda Island and fish one of the many drains that were holding mullet or any other kind of bait. During November the red tide caused a lot of our quarry to leave the Lagoon and Shoalwater Bay area and we saw disappointing numbers of dead flounder and

redfish along with countless baitfish. Hopefully this algal bloom will end soon.

My game plan will change somewhat in December, still in San Antonio Bay, but shifting destinations from the mid bay reefs to the south shoreline. My plan will be to focus on the many sloughs along the south shoreline that connect the bait rich backwaters inside Matagorda Island with the main body of the bay. I like to start my wades several hundred yards upwind of a chosen slough and fish

Bob Samson with a large San Antonio Bay red.

Leslie Gossett with her first ever redfish caught in San Antonio Bay.

slowly and carefully toward it. The bottom along this shoreline has a series of guts and bars that run parallel to the shoreline. These guts get progressively deeper moving offshore and quite often there will be one of two of them holding most of the bait in the area.

Naturally, the gamefish will be there too. Once I reach the slough itself, depending the bottom conditions, I sometimes wade up them or along them. When the current and water conditions are favorable these sloughs can be full of feeding fish.

My lure choice usually varies as the day progresses. Early morning, especially if it was very cold during the night and the baitfish are mostly subsurface and moving pretty slow, I will start out using my new favorite lure, the Bass Assassin Die Dapper. You can rig this lure weedless or with a light jighead. I have been running it both ways

and catching lots of fish. If the area I’m fishing is not too grassy I will rig the Die Dapper on a 1/16 ounce Assassin jighead #05001. My color choices for the Die Dapper are Sand Trout and Chartreuse Dog. These lures are injected with the BANG fish attractant and the scent seems to make leery fish go ahead and bite.

If the night time temperatures were on the mild side and the baitfish are on the surface jumping and splashing, I will have no problem tying on a MirrOlure She Dog in the CHPR (chartreuse back & belly, orange throat and pearl sides) or the GCRCH (chartreuse back, gold chrome belly, orange throat). I will let the fish dictate how fast or how many pauses will be needed.

I would like to use a few lines here to remind everyone to practice good boating etiquette. Shellie and I have had a couple incidents with airboaters hugging shorelines and not swinging wide enough as they go around our groups of wade fishermen. I began running air boats in 1981 and if I drove my airboat all these years as close to people wade and drift fishing as some of these guys have been doing lately I probably wouldn’t be here now. It seems all the rules of boating etiquette are being forgotten. I am just wondering what some of these people are really thinking. I always tell people to be on the watch for decoy spreads and give the hunters a wide berth, just like you would want them to do when you are fishing. If you want to fish the area they are hunting, just be patient. They will probably leave around mid-morning and you can go back and have it all to yourself.

Fish hard, fish smart!

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TSFMAG.com | 79

DaVID RoWsEY

hooKED uP WIth Rowsey

By now we have all felt the need to pull out the jacket to take the edge off of the morning chill. After a long Upper and hot summer the passing fronts have put me in Laguna/ a much better place. I know I speak for many of us when I say I much prefer winter over any other time of Baffin year. It just feels good to be outside again, especially on a boat and on my way to find what Santa has left me in a pothole.

I am so often asked, “David, if you could only David Rowsey has 20 years pick one month to fish?” In my view, that is a loaded experience in the Laguna/Baffin question, and there is just no correct way to answer it. region; trophy trout with artificial lures is his specialty. David has a If I have learned anything about being on the water great passion for conservation over the years, it is to expect the unexpected. The and encourages catch and question to the answer though would have to be, release of trophy fish.

“December through May for giant trout.” The first “big time” day I ever had on a topwater occurred in Telephone December, and the best two consecutive days I ever 361-960-0340 Website put together were also in the Christmas month, with www.DavidRowsey.com stringers that would have went eighty pounds for the Email best ten trout (all released). While many are wrapping david.rowsey@yahoo.com up the rut of deer season in South Texas, some of us saltier types have already begun to catch good

numbers of our own version of Boone & Crockett… big trout.

As we get into the colder months, the first thing we have to realize is that winter fishing down here is much different than warm weather fishing. The largest part of the food supply, primarily mullet, have vacated the bay. The sight of any flipping bait will now mean a whole lot more than it did in the warmer months. A little bit goes a long way here. Do you hate and cuss catching dink trout? You shouldn’t have that problem now! Many times those small, pesky little male trout are what the trout of your dreams has been eating.

Yes, trout are very opportunistic and not the least bit bashful to engage in cannibalism this time of year.

They are not going to pass up any easy meals.

Most of you that read these articles are savvy enough to know that we professionals are leaning more towards the mud versus the hard-packed and comfortable wading areas as the water temperature drops. Just in case you have been living under a rock like the guy on the insurance commercial, the wading mud in the winter time has been beaten to death,

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80 | December 2011

BOATS MOTORS TRAILERS SALES SERVICE PARTS & ACCESSORIES

again and again. Without elaborating too much, the softer bay bottom retains more heat, and makes it much more comfortable for baitfish, and trout to survive. If you want to up your chances for that lifetime hookup, that muddy, sinking feeling needs to be part of the recipe. Hard sand and shallow flats will still come into play throughout the winter and spring; however, these areas are usually on the warming trends following the fronts. Bottom line is that you need to consider the conditions, when the fronts have arrived, when the next one is expected, and use your eyes to identify a food supply before you ever get your Simms wet.

Areas that always make the top of the list for consideration during these cool months are the King Ranch shoreline, the muddy flats between Penascal Point and White Bluff, Rocky Slough, the Badlands, the ICW side of the spoil islands in the Upper Laguna, behind the Tide Gauge Bar, and certain areas in Yarbrough. Any one of these areas,

and countless others, have the potential to get hot, and stay hot, but there is no silver bullet. I will be all over the place this month trying to figure the pattern as the trout go from transitioning mode to full-on winter mode. No two years are ever alike down here, so I expect this one to take some good old-fashioned work like the rest. I just hope you are with me when it happens.

The first cast of the morning for me from my Waterloo and Daiwa will have a dark-colored 5â&#x20AC;? Bass Assassin or Vapor Shad at the end of the line. I use these lures to sweep through areas quickly and establish whether any big girls are ready to play. Once we locate the trout, a combination of Bass Assassins, MirrOlure She Dogs, and Paul Brown Originals (Corky) will be utilized to entice the biggest fish from the crowd.

Set â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;em loose. -Capt. David Rowsey

TSFMAG.com | 81

tRICIa’s Mansfield Report CaPt. tRICIa

Despite record-setting summer heat, ongoing drought, into advantages continues to be mysteriously a flood of anglers, and a dose of red tide, the Lower enjoyable.

Laguna Madre is still being all she can be. Fishing Two days after our first significant norther, clear remains great, but fishermen need to understand that skies with crisp air and calm winds seemed ideal. After a slow day can appear out of nowhere, even during drawing blanks in a high percentage area, we cruised a string of epic ones. Count each day on the water a onto a shallow flat to find a mirror surface textured blessing and remember a tough day here and there with wakes of fleeing fish as far as you could see. Big Port only serves to make the good ones that much better. predators, plus various other creatures such as mullet, Mansfield To recap a bit; the fall season has been good to sheepshead and drum, had invaded the extreme us so far, but not all days have been gimmes. Some shallows in unimaginable numbers. However, despite years it comes perfectly scripted with herds of redfish trying every proven approach I knew, there was no tailing across the flats and trout hammering Capt. Tricia’s Skinny Water topwaters everywhere you care to go. Other Adventures operates out of years, like this one, you just have to wonder what Port Mansfield, specializing in month it really is. Redfish finally appeared in the wadefishing with artificial lures. shallows in good numbers, but while thick for Our Mother Lagoon just several days they simply vanished for several more. keeps on giving.

Telephone Trout were gorged with mullet this day, stuffed 956-642-7298 with tiny shrimp the next, then totally empty for Email days at a time. Flounder were amazing and then shell@granderiver.net you’d swear they’d gone extinct. Who knows why Website www.SkinnyWaterAdventures.com nature is such a fickle lady, but that’s probably why we keep going back to her. The day I am not challenged by anything new it will be time to move on, and I have to admit turning adversities

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82 | December 2011

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such thing as a single take much less a hookup. Frustrated with so many visible Large trout may be signals, we eventually chanced to walk the sirens of winter, but the reds can be out a bit deeper. Thankfully, a little Skitter awesome too.

Walk Jr. twitched just enough to make an attractive disturbance was soon met with eight pounds of redfish violence. On a pattern at last, and although we didn’t exactly fill the boat, we managed three trout over six pounds with the largest at seven and a half, plus six upper-slot reds.

To me, catching a few quality fish in surrealistic conditions will always trump a boatload of barely legal keepers, just so we can thump our chest and say, “Hey, look at me, I got a limit!” Well, at least we would sure hope so, but back to the challenges of fishing, if we only practice what we already know, all we will ever get is what we’ve already had. Don’t ever be afraid to think and experiment when the bite is not obvious.

Looking ahead to December; it’s going to be all about the timing of the northers. Patterns should be fairly standard, with fish pulling up shallow both before and after blows and shrinking back deeper during the worst of them. Recovery periods are often quick, and especially as soon as the sun comes back out, fish should be basking in shallow potholes. I like to think of them as mini hot tubs, and

while the most productive usually rim deeper drops, longer periods between fronts can encourage movement farther into the shallows or back lakes. Winter fish become acclimated to temperature swings, so the difference between “shallow” and “deep” becomes less as the season develops. As always, watching bait and birds will get us in the zone, except perhaps during the bitterest of mornings when signs above the surface become nearly non-existent. The same lures that worked during November will remain good ones for December with perhaps more Corky than topwater time being the only real change.

Although large trout are truly the sirens of winter, some of the best redfishing will also be available and, make no mistake, an afternoon of wrangling these brutes can be epic in its own way. Remember what I said earlier, December will be all about the northers, and fishing as the front approaches can be awesome but it is not a time to take chances. Know when to head for the safety of the harbor. Always remember that much of our prime winter fishing grounds lie outside of cell phone range and the chance to be rescued by a passing boat can be nearly non-existent. Have an adventure, and remember the kill is really not the thrill.

TSFMAG.com | 83

CaPt. ERnEst CIsnERos

south PaDRE Fishing Scene

A rr oyo C olorado t o Port I sabel

A Brownsville-area native, Capt. Ernest Cisneros fishes the Lower Laguna Madre from Port Mansfield to Port Isabel.

Ernest specializes in wading and poled skiff adventures for snook, trout, and redfish.

Cell 956-266-6454 Website www.tightlinescharters.com

84 | December 2011

The title of one of my favorite western movies, The the 2010 floods can still be seen. Our seagrass took a Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, is the perfect lead into real beating in the aftermath of the floods when the what is currently happening in the lower part of the Laguna Madre stayed fresh for months. The grass is Laguna Madre. Luckily, there is a lot more good than recovering slowly but in the meantime our normal bad or ugly. crystal clear water clarity is found only on very calm Start with the bad - you are probably aware days. Any amount of wind will cause it become that quite a few areas along the Texas coast have murky in only a few hours. When the south wind gets experienced an outbreak of red tide. Our Gulf beach to cranking the bay will be very muddy from Three has been littered with dead fish since sometime Islands all the way up to the Saucer. Another ugly is in September and San Martin Lake, an area that the recently high number of stingrays. These paintraditionally holds lots of trout, redfish, flounder and snook has also been hit pretty Patience and hard. The good news is that I have not determination paid off observed any dead snook in the Brownsville for James Sanchez Ship Channel nor in South Bay, but there has been a moderate snook kill on the local beaches from Boca Chica Beach up towards the Mansfield East Cut. Despite patches of red tide lingering about five miles north of the Queen Isabella Causeway, I have not seen any significant kills lately, only scattered mullet. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hope the coming cold weather or perhaps a good amount of rain can make this nuisance go away for good.

On to the ugly - the long term effect of

inflicting sea devils are everywhere right now, most I’ve ever seen. Makes you frightened to get in the water without your ForEverlast shields or Ray-Guard boots.

Now for the good news – trout fishing continues to be very good, not only for numbers of fish but also for quality. On a recent trip with James Sanchez, I told him the spot we were fishing produced a 28-½ inch trout a few days before. That’s all he needed to hear. His patience and determination were rewarded with a beautiful 30-½ incher that ate a topwater. Catches like this are becoming increasingly common which tells me our trout fishery is thriving. I expect to see more fish of this class on my charters during December and continuing through the rest of winter.

In the month of December during alternating periods of cold snaps and warming trends, look for trout to migrate into muddy bottoms and expect sluggish feeding behavior on the really cold days. If you’re like me, many times you will have to remind yourself to slow down your presentation in order to get a strike. This time of the year I like to fish the guts in between spoil banks on a moving tide. This type of area has traditionally produced excellent quality as well as quantity for my clients. Keep in mind, the direction of the tide will determine where these fish will be stationed and of course the presence of bait in the

area is also a excellent indicator when you are looking for a starting point.

Also, in December we will begin to see our tides drop dramatically, which is similar to what occurs in July. I prefer the water to fall out during this time period because it becomes easy to predict where the fish will stage. North winds will certainly aid the cause by pushing lots of water off the flats which causes the fish to stage in nearby holes and guts. Redfish too can very often be found in these deeper areas especially when the bottom is semimuddy with mixed shell. For some reason, I have always found the redfish to be suckers for purple lures in the wintertime. Bouncing December is sure to a Kelley Wiggler grape/cool tip paddle tail on bring some hot redfish bottom or swimming a purple Corky Devil low action as angler Homer in the water column will definitely catch the Garza displays. attention of bruiser redfish and big old winterfat yellow-mouthed sows.

In closing, December will bring some of the best fishing and favorable weather we can have year round. These two reasons are why December is ultimately my favorite month to be out on the water. Plus, the finding is easy and the catching is endless fun, but remember to fish slow, dress warm and think big. May your Christmas holiday season be filled with lots of family time and plenty of tight lines.

TSFMAG.com | 85

FISHING REPORTS

ORECASTS F from Big Lake to Boca Chica

AND

Lake Calcasieu Louisiana Jeff and Mary Poe - Big Lake Guide Service - 337.598.3268 Most of us point our bows north this time of year in pursuit of trout. They will be on reefs and sand flats, looking to warm up and grab a bite to eat after the chilly night. Do not be afraid to fish shallow. Its tough to fish shallow out of the boat, so getting out and wading is probably the best bet. That does not mean catching fish out of the boat is impossible; fish a little deeper on the outside edges of the reef or flat and you should be able to catch them coming and going. We usually do not look for them to be any deeper than about five and a half feet. Redfish, on the other hand, will be our main attraction. They will be up and down the east bank, around every cove, pocket, and bayou. All it takes is fishing and lots of it.

Just drift about a cast and a half off the bank, casting toward and away from the bank. Making long, monotonous drifts usually pays off in the end. When you hit a fish, drop the anchor or Power Pole and hang on. The reds will bite anything you put in front of them, regardless of color. The key is locating them.

Trinity Bay - East Bay - Galveston Bay | James Plaag Silver King Adventures - silverkingadventures.com - 409.935.7242 James normal enthusiasm for the fishing could be heard in his voice when he gave this report. “We’re in a typical fall pattern right now, and it’s lock and load. The fish have finally moved shallower, and we’re catching them both wading and out of the boat. Best lures lately have been the limetreuse Bass Assassins rigged on H&H Flutter Jigheads, pink/ silver TopDogs and chartreuse/gold Catch 5s. I think the fish are staged

right now where they will be right on into December, especially if it stays dry. East and Trinity Bays are both on fire, and they should continue to produce plenty of quality trout. We had full limits today, keeping 30 trout, releasing quite a few of the bigger ones, the 23 to 25 inchers. Also caught quite a few flounder around 20 inches. We’re keying on shad and mullet; finding the schools of those bait fish is leading us to the schools of trout. West Bay might pick up after a couple more fronts too. This kind of fishing should last until Christmas. We’ll lose a few days to the weather, but it’s set up real good.”

Jimmy West - Bolivar Guide Service - 409.996.3054 Jim will be splitting his time between the fields, the marshes and the bay shorelines in December. “I’ll be hunting on the weekends, fishing more during the week. If the weather’s not good, I’ll be in a blind, hunting either ducks or deer. When the weather’s right for the fishing, we’ll be whacking some big trout I’m sure. The better trout have already shown up in good numbers on the shorelines, and wading should be great up through at least the first half of the month. If it gets too cold after that, the duck hunting will generally be a better option, except on the nicest days. Right now, you can catch the fish pretty much however you want; the topwater bite has been hot. As we get into December, topwaters will only work on the best days; slow sinking twitch baits and soft plastics will catch more.

The key, as always, will be to locate the fish. I’ll be fishing shallow mostly, inside the marsh some, around drains into the marsh at other times, playing the tides. We’re finding good numbers of reds in the marshes now, with a few trout mixed in.”

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Matagorda | Tommy Countz Bay Guide Service -979.863.7553 cell 281.450.4037 Tommy mentions a plethora of options in Matagorda, as fall turns into winter. “We like to drift a lot in East Bay. We should still have birds working the first half of December, and fishing over scattered shell and around deep reefs is good. We use heavier jigheads when working this drill, to keep the lures close to the bottom. When wading East Bay, we focus on drains coming off the island and some of the big flats in the east end, throwing Paul Brown Lures mostly, topwaters if it’s warmer, and soft plastics on light jigheads. I wade shorelines in West Bay pretty much the same way, if I’m targeting trout. If the tide drops way out, we go after the redfish more; they usually pile up in great numbers in the deep parts of the coves. The Colorado River is great too; after all the dry weather, it’s pretty and green. We throw soft plastics on heavy jigheads along the

drop offs if the weather isn’t too cold, but if it gets really chilly, we’ll drag the lures behind the boat, targeting the deepest holes. Setting up lights and fishing at night in the river is productive too.”

Palacios | Capt. Aaron Wollam www.palaciosguideservice.com - 979.240.8204 Fishing remains awesome in the Palacios area. Loads of redfish have dominated our fall fishing so far, as these bruisers are podding up and chasing shrimp down shorelines. Small white topwaters along with small paddletail lures have worked fantastic for catching these schooling fish. Anytime you see gulls or white egrets working shorelines, slow down and check them out, because they are probably picking up scraps chased to the surface or onto the shorelines by the herding redfish.

Trout fishing has finally picked back up after a slow month. Solid catches have been coming from water three to five feet deep over bottoms composed of a mix of shell and mud. Paul Brown Original Lures and Fat Boys in chartreuse/pearl and pumpkinseed/chartreuse have been the most consistent lures for catching the trout. As we get some cooler weather, we should see more flocks of gulls working over trout. Later, with even colder weather, the big key will become locating the bait. In cold weather, finding bait is critical to catching fish.

Port O’Connor | Lynn Smith - Back Bay Guide Service - 361.983.4434 For Lynn, the plans for December depend on how cold the weather gets. “If it’s not too cold, we’ll keep fishing much the same way we are now, leaving the dock early and focusing on sandy, grassy shorelines.

We’ll be throwing Paul Brown Lures and topwaters as much as possible, using soft plastics as necessary when the bite gets tougher. But if we get some colder weather, which we often do this month, I’ll change tactics significantly. First off, we’ll leave the dock later, usually about ten in the morning, to allow the flats to heat up, then fish the afternoon. We’ll also

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Pro Strategy Pro Fishing

West Galveston - Bastrop - Christmas - Chocolate Bays Randall Groves - Groves Guide Service - 979.849.7019 - 979.864.9323 Randall was just getting done cleaning fish when we talked. “The fishing has been outstanding lately, with limits of trout on many days, limits of reds on others. The tide level is critical in terms of what we’re mainly targeting. When the tide is higher, we are having great luck with the trout. They stack up on the reefs and you can see which ones are holding fish, because the mullet blanket the shallow part as they huddle up to try and stay away from the trout. When you find it like that, it’s easy to catch ‘em. We’ve been having the best luck throwing a woody (white with red head) Skitterwalk and also on red magic Sand Eels, working either of those fast, to trigger reaction strikes. If the tide is low, we go after the reds. The trout tend to pull away from the reefs and become less active, so they’re harder to catch, but the reds will be shallow, with their backs out of the water. These patterns should hold through December, when the tide and temperatures tend to swing up and down a lot. We’ll also work some deep mud and shell this month for trout.”

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change the patterns we fish, focusing more on shallow areas real close to deep water, and we’ll favor drains and other areas with a soft, muddy bottom. More often than not, we’ll be fishing with soft plastics rigged on light jigheads, dragging them slowly along the bottom, trying to make some puffs in the mud.

Locating decent amounts of bait fish will also become a prime priority if the weather turns chilly. Finding bait makes it much easier to be patient this time of year.”

Rockport | Blake Muirhead Gator Trout Guide Service - 361.790.5203 - 361.441.3894 Blake was smack dab in the middle of cast-n-blast season when he gave his report. “I’ll be continuing with the combination trips, shooting ducks in the early morning, then fishing the rest of the day. We’re using the air boat a lot, hunting and fishing in the back lakes. The redfish have been pretty easy lately, and we’re catching some nice trout too. The action

should stay steady in December. We’ll be targeting shorelines in Corpus Christi and Aransas Bays mostly, some in St. Charles too, focusing on grassy areas with a mix of softer sand and mud. I’ve been doing well with my old standby lures, namely the Norton Sand Eels in plum/chartreuse and also pretty well on pumpkinseed/chartreuse at times. When the topwater bite is on, we’re catching best on Super Spooks in black chrome and the clear one with the chartreuse back. I expect those to work well on the warmer days in December. We tend to catch some big trout on topwaters on warmer days this time of year. The duck hunting is steady; we’ve got plenty of birds already.”

Upper Laguna Madre - Baffin Bay - Land Cut Robert Zapata – rz1528@grandecom.net - 361.563.1160 It’s quiet out on the water during December because of the small number of boats. With the water temperature dropping, the trout will begin to slow down a bit, but not quite like they will in January and February. It will be best to go after trout by wading and using natural colored Bass Assassins like the five inch Die Dapper in salt and pepper, silver phantom/ chartreuse, pumpkinseed/chartreuse and for murky water, morning glory/ limetreuse. If I’m getting hits on the Die Dappers but no hookups, I will switch to the five inch Texas Assassins in the same colors as above plus bone diamond rigged on eighth ounce Screw Lock jigheads. I will be working water depths of three to four feet with a mixture of sand and gravel on the bottom. The key is to find the right water depths adjacent to shallow water and holding good concentrations of bait. For those who like sightcasting, there will still be plenty of reds, black drum and trout in some areas, holding in about a foot of water. To target those, use four inch Assassin Sea Shads and Gulp! Shrimp.

Corpus Christi | Joe Mendez – www.sightcast1.com - 361.937.5961 Like most others who fish regularly in the Corpus Christi area, Joe hopes the current water quality holds on through the coming months. “The water is clear and has been for a long time. For someone like me, who

88 | December 2011

likes to fish shallow and see what I’m throwing at, even sightcast the fish when possible, the clear water is a real blessing. It allows us greater opportunities, and makes it productive to use flies some of the time. The fishing has been good lately; we’re catching a lot of our fish on flats where we can clearly see the potholes and grass beds. Usually, in December, the pattern will change some, and we’ll start fishing deeper, working the edges of the ICW and channels which intersect it. I like to adjust my fishing by changing the size of the jigheads I’m throwing when working the ledges, using heavier ones when it’s windy or the current is strong.

Another thing to consider when working channel edges is the need to find something to indicate where fish will be. Birds working or standing on the edges can point out good stretches.”

Padre Island National Seashore Billy Sandifer - Padre Island Safaris - 361.937.8446 I want to make it perfectly clear right here in the beginning that everything I say in this report depends on the status of the red tide as we make our way into December. Simply put - if it persists we’ll be out of luck.

Having said that, December is the most productive month of the year for Florida pompano, a species that ranks very high on everybody’s favorite list. There are two prevailing methods for catching pompano. You can fish north of the Big Shell and wade the first gut and cast as far as you can or you can drive south of the Big Shell and find a place with no wade gut and a deep and wide first gut and cast with lighter-weight tackle from shore for them. Especially look for cuts/rips in the outside bar and fish this immediate area with fresh, peeled, dead shrimp and “Fishbites.” Green “Fishbites” work well but my favorite is pink, shrimp flavored. Black drum and keeper-sized whiting should be in good supply along with scattered slot and oversized reds. Good Fishing.

Port Mansfield | Terry Neal www.terrynealcharters.com – 956.944.2559 It’s called fishing, not catching. Each outing is a gift from God and is

meant to be enjoyed. Do not get upset if you happen to go on a slow day, it all has to do with nature. Stronger northers are a given for December along with some very good trout fishing with water temp in the mid 60s between the fronts. The day of the front and sometimes the day after can be slow though. Trout should start working the King Ranch shoreline. The secret is to locate a concentration of bait working in pockets of deeper water. The cooler the water the slower we want to work our baits. There were lots of good trout released throughout the summer and early fall so with all the bait we had the trout should be very healthy and hearty.

Trophy time! The arrival of strong northers can mean tough boating conditions. Gale force winds are nothing to mess with. Be smart and pick the right day. Keep what you will eat fresh, release the rest for future catches and give thanks.

Lower Laguna Madre - South Padre - Port Isabel Janie and Fred Petty – www.fishingwithpettys.com – 956.943.2747 Our fall trips are always good, but this season is turning into a banner year.

The sheer numbers of redfish make up for the overall lack of size. We’re bringing in some big ones, but the herds of oversized fish have moved from the shallows to the spawning grounds for their annual roundup.

Each norther triggers a feeding frenzy for a couple of days, then dies down, before the big trout swarm back into the cooler, skinny water, hungry and aggressive. We’re still throwing the same Cajun Thunder round corks with Berkley Gulp! three inch shrimp, alternating dark and light colors, depending on water clarity. Freddy says, “After the first big norther‘, the herds of reds will disappear from the shallow flats until after the first couple of months of the new year. You can find pods, but not the schools we see during the warmer months.” We’re looking forward to some great winter fishing, especially with the recently revived flounder population. Almost any channel with defined grass edges is holding flatties, most full of eggs, and eager to rise to the bait.

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Kenneth Hanselka & Matt McDonald Rockport - redfish Ramiro Alejos Humble Channel - 37” 65lb drum CPR

Kristin Schindler first keeper redfish!

Daniel Jr & Daniel Gonzales III Arroyo City - 26” flounder

Jennifer & Duane Port Aransas - first fish ever!

Tommy Hartung Baffin Bay - 30.5” 11.25lb gator trout

Frank Arroyos Port O’Connor - redfish

B. Rocha & Johnny Diaz Brownsville - 32” red & 20” black drum

Diane Lynn Ramirez P.I.N.S. - 27” first redfish!

Paul Snider Salt Lake - 25” red 90 | December 2011

Matthew Schindler first keeper redfish!

Chase Janecek E Galveston Bay - 28” 7lb troutbiggest to date!

Able Corrilla Port O’Connor - redfish

Art Martinez Brownsville Ship Channel 21” 8lb black margate

Sherlyn Carter Round Rock - 20” & 17” trout

April Flores Padre Island - 40” drum, first fish!

Eugene Uribe South Padre - 28.5” speckled trout

Mando Garcia Laguna Madre - 47” 32.4lb red drum

Ann Krueger Rockport - 24” redfish

Pat Stafford Baffin - 31” 9lb biggest trout to date!

Miguel Achoy Johnny Guzman Aransas Pass - first redfish!

Corpus Christi - Daddy with his two beauties

Brandon Milliff Matagorda - 41” first bull red! CPR

Victor Ramos SPI - 33” black drum

Douglas Wright Coole Arroyo City - 28.4” redfish

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Jo Snider Salt Lake - 25” red Grayson Mullen Galveston Bay - 24.5" first redfish!

Mail photos to: TSFMag P.O. Box 429, Seadrift, TX 77983 TSFMAG.com | 91

Pam Johnson

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Got ideas, hints or recipes you’d like to share?

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Orange Baked Fish 4 fresh fish filets (about two pounds) 2 Tbsp Adam’s Reserve House Rub (find at HEB) 2 Tbsp orange olive oil (at HEB) 4 Tbsp mayo Heat oven to 450 degrees.

In a small mixing bowl, mix orange oil with mayo.

Spread mixture over fish and season with Adam’s Reserve Spice Rub. Place in oven and bake until golden brown or about 15 minutes.

Orange Basil Fish 4 fresh fish filets (about two pounds) 1 Tbsp orange oil 2 Tbsp of Adam’s reserve Rub (find it at HEB) 2 Tbsp of olive oil Lemon Basil Sauce: 2 Tbsp of orange oil ¼ cup of basil, chopped ½ cup Greek Style Yogurt 92 | December 2011

Season fish and marinade in orange oil for 10 minutes.

Heat oil in pan on med-high, sauté fish 3 minutes per side.

Top with basil sauce.

You might also want to try HEB’s Lemon Olive Oil, its great with fish or shrimp.

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GALVESTON TIDES & SOLUNAR TABLE Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine DECEMBER 2011

The BEST Choice… Any Place, Anytime!

To find a location near you, please visit us at www.speedystop.com

TIDAL CORRECTIONS Location Calcasieu Pass, La. Sabine Bank Lighthouse Sabine Pass (jetty) Sabine Pass Mesquite Point Galveston Bay (S. jetty) Port Bolivar Texas City, Turning Basin Eagle Point Clear Lake Morgans Point Round Point, Trinity Bay Point Barrow, Trinity Bay Gilchrist, East Bay Jamaica Beach, Trinity Bay Christmas Point Galveston Pleasure Pier San Luis Pass Freeport Harbor

High -2:14 -1:46 -1:26 -1:00 -0:04 -0:39 +0:14 +0:33 +3:54 +6:05 +10:21 +10:39 +5:48 +3:16 +2:38 +2:39 +2:32 -0:09 -0:44

Low -1:24 -1:31 -1:31 -1:15 -0:25 -1:05 -0:06 +0:41 +4:15 +6:40 +5:19 +5:15 +4:43 +4:18 +3:31 +2:38 +2:33 +2:31 -0:09

For other locations, i.e. Port O’Connor, Port Aransas, Corpus Christi and Port Isabel please refer to the charts displayed below.

Please note that the tides listed in this table are for the Galveston Channel. The Tidal Corrections can be applied to the areas affected by the Galveston tide.

Minor Feeding Periods are in green, coinciding with the moon on the horizon, and the last from 1.0 to 1.5 hrs after the moon rise or before moon set.

Major Feeding Periods are in orange, about 1.0 to 1.5 hrs either side of the moon directly overhead or underfoot.

Many variables encourage active feeding current flow (whether wind or tidal driven), changes in water temp & weather, moon phases, etc. Combine as many as possible for a better chance at an exceptional day. Find concentrations of bait set up during a good time frame, and enjoy the results.

Te x a s S a l t w a t e r F i s h i n g M a g a z i n e l

w w w. t e x a s s a l t w a t e r f i s h i n g m a g a z i n e . c o m