February 2025

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ABOUT THE COVER

Jr Gonzalez is our cover angler, with what he describes as, “the biggest flounder I’ve physically ever laid eyes on.” Hoping for a trophy trout, he said the thump was

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February Issue Highlights

TROPHY TROUT FISHING AIN’T FOR SISSIES!

Ask any dedicated Texas speckled trout angler their opinion of the best month to catch big trout. If February isn’t the first mentioned I would bet a large sum it would most assuredly be the second. There’s several very good reasons for this, not the least of which is that mature specks become more predictable in their staging and feeding habits during this storied month than perhaps any other on the calendar.

Of course, it has everything to do with February’s weather and tides. Weekly, if not more frequent frontal systems arrive to our coast, setting the stage for two strategically important scenarios. There’s the pre-front bite, as it’s famously known, when all of nature feeds hungrily, sensing the approaching weather. More opportunity occurs during the warming trend that follows, when these now ravenous animals emerge from being hunkered down until Old Man Winter relaxes his icy grip.

And then there’s the winter-fat phenomenon. As fish metabolism slows during the cooler months they become less active in general. The same as we humans, they tend to get noticeable larger around the middle.

During warmer months, anglers boast more of length than weight of their catches. Thirty-plus inches becomes a hallowed benchmark for judging trophies. But as a search of most record-keeping organizations will attest – weight is the ultimate factor – and February has certainly produced an outsized share of heavyweight specks.

Hardcore wintertime angling is not without its challenges, though. It calls for great determination and the best cold-weather gear money can buy. Standing an hours-long vigil in cold water under dull skies with air temps in the 40s and low-50s; waiting for one big bite, is no cakewalk. Remaining alert for that sometimes barely detectable tick on the line is next to impossible if you’re shivering. But that’s what it takes to get your hands on a ten-pounder on some of the best days.

So, what’s your plan for the coming weeks? Are you ready to brave February’s sometimes hostile elements to finally wrap your cold hands around that lifetime speckled trophy…or would you rather huddle under a blanket and watch Netflix?

Personally, having never landed a true 30-incher nor any approaching 10-pounds; Lord willing I plan to stuff my Simms waders with enough layers to make the Michelin Man appear anorexic. Maybe in Baffin or the Lower Laguna, hopefully not too muddy, I’ll be chunking a Paul Brown Fat Boy. That’d suit me just fine no matter how cold.

Come see us at the Houston Fishing Show – February 12-16, 2025 – at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. I can’t wait to hear about your latest fishing adventures.

Charles with one of several beautiful reds he caught that were mixed in with the trout.

STANDING THERE When It Happens

STORY BY STEVE HILLMAN

My hands used to get weathered and cracked from the cold, dry air. The open and bleeding cuts at the corners of my thumbnails would burn like hell every time saltwater got in them. My face would be windburned to the point where I’d get those raccoon tan lines around my eyes from my sunglasses; the same ones that some of the younger guys actually make an effort to get these days. Mine, however, were unwanted and unintentional as I’d apply 70 SPF sunscreen multiple times a day trying to prevent having the dermatologist cutting chunks off my face. Nowadays, my Fish Monkey gloves and sun masks are a lifesaver but cold is still cold and I’m certainly not getting any younger. Apparently it’s all worth the trouble as I continue to chase these damn trout that we all seem to give so much credit to.

Late winter fishing sometimes requires strong will and determination. There are times when I roll out of bed in the morning and look at the current weather conditions and then just want to roll back over and go to sleep. But there’s almost always somewhere you can go to catch ‘em in just about any conditions, especially during the winter months. It just depends on how bad you want it. It’s worth it to go most of the time this time of year because we have a shot at some above average trout. Besides, as my good friend James Plaag says, “there’s no such thing as bad weather…just bad gear.” Thank God I have excellent gear!

Years ago my long-time friend and tournament partner Jake White and I had a winter trout tournament fast approaching. A strong arctic front had pushed through just 24 hours earlier, dropping air and water temperatures substantially and lowering tide levels to the point that we barely had enough water to launch my boat. All the cards were stacked against us but we had signed up so we were forced to figure it out. This is one of the things I always loved about fishing tournaments. It forced us into not only finding fish in adverse conditions but also having to figure out how to make them eat. One thing I learned a very long time ago is that in order to figure out how to make them eat, it sure helps to know when they’re likely to eat.

Our typical approach to finding tournamentworthy trout was to focus on areas in between the well-known (and highly frequented) “big trout” spots. Oftentimes fishing pressure in those community spots would cause those older ageclass loner-type trout to seek refuge from the commotion in nearby areas with similar habitat. One such area was a deep gut (washout) that cut through a narrow stretch of live oyster reef surrounded by vast mud and shell flats. Prior to this arctic blast the surrounding flats were

holding decent numbers of quality trout. Spreading my clients who were armed with topwaters and soft plastics across this mud and shell flat had been money.

Now, everything had changed overnight. In theory, and based upon past experiences, the fish that previously roamed those flats would likely drop down into nearby deep troughs because of the low tides, sudden decline in water temperature and sudden rise in barometric pressure. It seemed to be the perfect set-up for the wash-out.

We arrived in the dark on tournament morning. Jake fished the gut on one side of the reef throwing a full-sized solid black Super Spook. I worked the other side chunking a MirrOlure Paul Brown Original Corky (pearl with chartreuse back). It was almost dead calm. The tide was due to start coming in around sunrise which just happened to coincide with a major solunar feeding period. These two factors told us that our bite would most likely be early and also our best opportunity to catch our fish. We also knew from experience that as the sun got higher in the sky, not only would higher barometric pressure set in, but the larger-sized trout we needed for the tournament would become more difficult to trick in the gin-clear water. Also worth noting was

Charles Doize caught dozens of very solid trout wading and drifting this day!

Stu London in from Michigan every year to have a good time and he knocked it out of the park once again!

Roland Altinger got in on an open water winter school of reds after an awesome morning of trout fishing!

Nothing like fishing in the fog on a winter day between fronts. I didn’t like it, but the bite was good!

that the velocity of the incoming tide would become greater than indicated by the tide chart, given that it had fallen so low the day before and throughout the night that it would surely be flooding back into the bay. If we were fishing for rainbow trout this would be a good thing, but speckled trout feeding tends to shut down once the current picks up steam.

About 10 minutes into our wade, Jake’s Spook vanished from the surface. He said it was a good one and I could tell it was by the way it stayed low with that slow and heavy side-to-side headshake. As he brought it to hand I saw the head on this fish from 80 yards away and, sure enough, it was a solid fish. She weighed just over 6 ½ pounds on the Boga Grip. Not bad for the first fish of the morning!

It always takes the pressure off to pop a good one early, but we still had work to do as we were fishing against a field of top-notch anglers. He would hook one more on top before the topwater bite faded. Unfortunately, his second fish pulled loose.

In the meantime I had caught 2 or 3 smaller trout working my Corky along the edges of the opposite side of the washout. I did manage to trick a 4 ½ pounder before the sun was about 30 minutes above the horizon, after which our fish totally locked up as expected. We continued to grind our butts off for the rest of the tourney but only scraped up a few more trout. Once our trout went into a negative feed, like we expected they would, the only bites we good get were on slow-sinking twitchbaits – Corkys and Catch 2000s. We still managed a 3rd place finish and had a blast honing our skills in adverse conditions.

This time of year we will experience many scenarios similar to the one that Jake and I encountered during that tournament. Then, on the contrary, there will also be warming periods between cold fronts when fish spread out and don’t seem to have the urgency to feed.

Many of our larger trout will go on-strike during these warm stretches but they will still be catchable if we spread our efforts and cover more water. This is when I like to chunk topwaters at them. Warm water trout fishing during winter has never been my favorite.

To me, the best “big trout” water should be cold enough to sting your fingers a little when you touch it. During late January and early February we can sometimes see water temperatures in the mid-40s This is when twitchbaits like MirrOlure Paul Brown Corkys, Catch 2000s and MirrOdines can entice a strike when soft plastics will not. One exception would be rigging a soft plastic such as the Bass Assassin Artemus Shad on a 1/16 ounce Bass Assassin Pro Elite jighead. This set-up will closely emulate that of a slow-sinking Corky.

This is also a time when big trout will be found in those deeper guts, troughs, and washouts – or whatever else you might want to call them. When they congregate in such areas it obviously increases our odds of catching one, or maybe even several, of the special ones. We just need to figure out the best time to be standing there when they’re most likely to be fooled.

To be successful we have to pay close attention to tide changes and solunar feeding periods, along with changes in barometric pressure, water level, water temperature, current velocity, and wind, to be able to determine when we should be focusing our attention on certain areas. Sometimes our windows of opportunity are small, so we have to do our homework and make it count. We need to know when to be standing there and, if we are, it can be quite special.

STEVE HILLMAN

Steve Hillman is a full-time fishing guide on his home waters of Galveston Bay. Steve fishes the entire Galveston Bay Complex, wading and drifting for trout, redfish, and flounder using artificial lures.

Phone 4 09-256-7937

captsteve@hillmanguideservice.com

w ww.hillmanguideservice.com

Roland Altinger was able to trick this solid one while fishing a deep ledge after a front.

Todd Overmeyer had a great morning on trout then caught some very nice flat fish!

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Survival Mode

STORY BY KEVIN COCHRAN

Iarrived in Port Aransas in the middle of the morning on Wednesday, February 10, 2021. As expected, I encountered one of the local birders running the weekly walk at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, informing tourists about the feathered creatures who use the water treatment facility as a place to hunt, bathe and drink. The man recognized me and immediately began speaking with a purpose.

“The Whooping Cranes were right behind our house when we left,” he said. “If you run over there, you might get a really close look at ‘em.” He told me exactly where he lived, and I wheeled around to take his advice. Within minutes, I had located the three birds in his neighborhood, which fronts a famous sanctuary known as Charlie’s Pasture.

Home to many wading birds, gulls, shorebirds and other creatures, the sanctuary contains several expansive, sandy tidal flats, a few mangrove tangles and lots of low brush and bushes. The site provides the right kind of habitat for Whooping Cranes, albeit a small number of them. The endangered cranes have recently begun expanding their range to places like Port Aransas when they come to Texas to ride out the winter.

The adult birds I saw that morning had shown up for the first time at Charlie’s Pasture in 2019. In the fall of 2020, they returned, bringing one of their offspring with them. Adult whoopers care for their colts for about a year, before pushing them off on their own. This behavior attests to the difficulties these kinds of creatures endure in their efforts to survive and thrive.

Numbers of Whooping Cranes dwindled down to just 21 birds in 1941; they faced almost certain extinction without some kind of effective human intervention. Now, they’ve rebounded significantly, and several hundred of them breed in the remote Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada during summer, then spend the cold season on the coastal prairies and marshes of the Lone Star State. For many nature lovers, Whooping Cranes serve as sentinels of hope and symbols of the potential power of conservation efforts.

I felt thrilled and privileged to photograph the three Port Aransas birds on that warm winter morning. While I watched, maybe forty yards away, they paraded around purposefully, leaning forward and plucking bean-sized red berries from leafy, green plants. Such a close encounter with the birds elevated my appreciation of their beauty, grace and strength. I drove away from them feeling good about the general state of things.

The next day, a bitter blast of arctic air sent temperatures across the state plummeting, initiating one of the most severe cold snaps recorded in Texas over the last half-century. The death toll ran high. Millions of fish, birds, crustaceans and other creatures froze to death during the week-long event. People perished too.

During the big chill, I felt hopeless. An ominous fear dominated my mindset, and I pitied myself as I watched water temperatures decline to a point low enough to cause significant loss of life in and around our coastal waters. Piles of dead fish don’t do fishing guides much good. At the lowest of my low points, I realized I needed to do something to push back against the heavy hand we’d been dealt.

Partly so I could look into the eyes of creatures who had it worse than I did, I convinced my friend Jason King to put his Shallow Sport

in the water, so we could rescue some of the many thousands of stranded, cold-stunned sea turtles. Over the next two days, in the midst of the horrible weather, we managed to bring a couple dozen of the reptiles to safe haven, turning them over to the folks who’d set up temporary housing for them at Padre Island National Seashore.

Helping the turtles helped me. Doing something to preserve life in such dire circumstances lifted my spirits somewhat, restored some semblance of hope to my sagging spirit. But I grew gravely concerned for the Port Aransas cranes. They survive mostly by catching and eating blue crabs, the vast majority of which had perished within three or four days of the start of the arctic blast. And after temperatures dipped below twenty degrees, even on the barrier islands, no fruit remained on the shrubs for the birds to eat.

These two adult Whooping Cranes and their colt survived the arctic blast of 2021.

The Captain caught this 10 pound trout on a day when the bites came relatively easily, at least for water with temperatures reading in the low-50s.

Captain Kev and his friend Jason King rescued these sea turtles during the freeze of February 2021.

Prior to the big chill of ‘21, the Captain observed the Port Aransas cranes eating berries.

I and many others began to wonder how the whoopers would survive, or even IF they could survive such a sudden, severe weather event. I went to Port Aransas twice, before the icy fingers of winter released their deadly grip, but I saw no cranes in Charlie’s Pasture. Other worried birders reported the same experience. But then, a single video swept all our fears away. One of the members of our community located the three birds and used his camera to document their behavior as the weather turned a corner and warmed just a bit. What he recorded still amazes me. His clips revealed the sturdy strength of these magnificent birds in a most inspiring way.

In it, we see one of the adult birds (I suspect the female, but there’s no way to say for sure) stalking around on a flooded sand flat, in water about two inches deep. The lanky creature moves with improbable and impressive agility and grace, obviously looking for a potential meal in the water. For several seconds, the bird’s gait begins to resemble that of a Reddish Egret; loping and prancing, wings held open, the hunter picks up speed before suddenly stopping and staring down to the side.

during the dead of winter.

Sometimes, catching fish in winter feels stupid easy. Fluctuating water temperatures cause fish to feed in rapidly changing cycles. Often, when they eat, they do so with ravenous appetites. But the opposite is also true. After they gorge, and when water temperatures decline rapidly, trout can become nearly impossible to catch.

Some people have no interest in working hard to catch a fish, particularly when doing so requires bundling up in layers to stave off the effects of icy wind and water. But others recognize the ripe potential for catching big trout when uncomfortable weather makes them more predictable than normal. And these folks often find themselves in situations which feel bleak, and which call for desperate measures.

In a flash, the whooper strikes at something moving past its feet, extending its neck forcefully down, snatching a large mullet, then raising its head triumphantly, almost proudly displaying the wiggling fish. To dispatch its prey, the whooper then trots toward dry land, slams the silver fish onto the sand and smacks it repeatedly with its beak. At that moment, the colt appears on the screen.

The successful parent begins pulling strips of flesh off the side of the fresh dead fish, offering them to its offspring. While this unfolds, the other adult whooper arrives, standing tall and scanning the horizon, watching for signs of danger, ready to alert its family members to the presence of any approaching threat.

I’ll admit it. I cried watching the movie. Stirred so dramatically by what I’d seen, I felt almost ashamed to have underestimated these versatile, adaptable, resilient creatures. I doubt a whooper could catch a mullet easily in most circumstances, and I don’t think they relish the idea of eating one. But, sometimes, in desperate situations, in order to survive, living creatures do what they know they have to do.

My level of respect for Whooping Cranes reached a zenith. The fear and self-pity I’d been feeling largely fell away. Over the time that’s passed since then, I’ve come to realize something simple and profound, a concept reinforced by what I witnessed over those frigid days and by the events captured in the video of the hunting crane. The lesson relates most closely to those of us who love chasing trophy trout with lures, a pursuit which often places us on the water

Those of us who’ve logged many days on the water during the months of December, January and February have experienced the sensation. On some days, we head out with a positive outlook, expecting reasonably comfortable weather and a relatively easy bite. But, while we stand and grind, immersed in the chilling brine, harsh north winds begin to whistle a haunting dirge, reinforcing the effects of a recent front. Rather than rise as expected, temperatures remain steady and low, or worse, they begin to fall.

In times like those, we turn our backs to the wind and pull our hoods up over our heads. One thing becomes crystal clear—we won’t catch a fish unless we accept facts, act with resolve and adjust our methods to meet the needs of the moment. Most of us don’t relish the idea of dragging a worm across the bottom at a snail’s pace; we’d much rather walk the dog on top or wiggle a twitchbait through the middle of the water column.

But harsh winter conditions have no capacity to care what we want. Mother Nature acts without malice; she also shows no mercy. In the worst-case scenarios, she can kill cranes, wreck homes and crush anglers’ hopes. Luckily, as humans, our lives don’t depend on our ability to catch a fish when frigid weather makes things seem hopeless. Nevertheless, when Old Man Winter flashes his sternest face, we should remember the story of the brave cranes and channel their spirit. We should do what we know we have to do–shift into survival mode.

KEVIN COCHRAN

Kevin Cochran is a long-time fishing guide at Corpus Christi (Padre Island), TX. Kevin is a speckled trout fanatic and has created several books and dvds on the subject.

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

Phone 361-688-3714

Email kevincochran404@yahoo.com Web www.captainkevblogs.com T ROUT TRACKER GUIDE SERVICE

The bite proved exceedingly difficult on the day the Captain caught this 8.25 pound trout, necessitating a super slow presentation with a natural-colored soft plastic on an ultra light jighead.

Derek Petter with one of many good fish courtesy of a Corky Fat Boy.

Pushing the Mental RESET Button

STORY BY CHUCK UZZLE

Do you know that feeling you get when you get the opportunity to grab some much-needed sleep when you are just flat exhausted? You wake up rejuvenated and seemingly ready to get right back into the swing of whatever made you so tired. I got to experience the fishing version of that feeling and I have to say it was truly like a mental kickstart for me, a “little blue pill” for the soul if you know what I mean.

For more years than I care to chronicle, the big speckled trout have been virtually absent from Sabine Lake and Lake Calcasieu, at least on a consistent basis. The past ten years have been tough on both bodies of water as a seemingly endless stream of hurricanes, storms and floods have just wreaked havoc on the populations of speckled trout. In March of 2016, 25 inches of rain fell on Toledo Bend reservoir in 31 hours, which pushed the lake level to 174.36 feet – more than a foot higher than the previous record established in 1989. This emergency situation led to the complete opening of all but two of the spillway gates. Mass flooding ensued downstream and you can only imagine what Sabine Lake looked like once the flooding subsided.

Since that flooding event and another just like it 2021, along with multiple hurricanes and tropical storms, things have never been the same, especially where big trout are concerned. I truly cannot remember the last time I personally put my hands on a 6-pound trout while fishing either Sabine or Calcasieu, and that’s a mind-blowing thought for me considering how many of those fish we had before all the weather events.

Now I’m not saying there haven’t been any big fish caught in the last few years. I’m sure a few were, but they have been very few and far between. An especially telling fact considering past history, which certainly makes it more difficult to get excited about fishing for them. Unless, of course, you go where the big fish population is in much better shape.

During the past several years I have been able to scratch the “big fish” itch by making a road trip and heading south to see Jim and Carlin Leavelle in Baffin Bay. Jim was a prominent figure in the Galveston Bay complex for many years as both an accomplished tarpon guide and big trout enthusiast. Jim now resides in Corpus Christi and runs his fishing operation on Baffin Bay. Jim’s son Carlin has followed in his footsteps by becoming an excellent angler in his own right and can more than hold his own when it comes to catching big trout.

Several years now Carlin has held a “birthday tournament” in December where several of his friends get together and fish for the weekend and, fortunately for me, I have been adopted as the “foster uncle” to these young anglers. Each time I fish with them I am absolutely blown away at how talented they are when it comes to chasing big fish. It’s a shot in the arm that puts a smile on my face.

For those of you who have never fished Baffin, Mansfield, or the Laguna Madre, all I can say is you owe it to yourself to make that trip and experience it. For years I had standing invitations from some good friends to go down to that part of the world and fish but just never made the time to do it because we were catching the same quality fish here at home. Fast forward to today and I go every chance I get because each trip reminds you of just how special it is to catch fish that big and that’s exactly what we did during this particular trip.

Each day we caught twenty or more fish over the 16-20 inch slot that we released. Each day almost everyone caught a fish in the 4-5 pound range. Each day the big fish for each group nudged 8-pounds with several fish of 6-pounds or better. For me it was it was absolutely déjà vu, it was the mid-2000s all over again and I couldn’t stop smiling because it had been so long since I had seen or done anything like that.

As a matter of fact, that particular weekend was good enough to make me go back the following weekend and do it all again just for fun and it actually got better. We caught perfect pre-frontal conditions along with extended feeding periods that really had the good trout cranked up. A solid topwater bite that was topped by a ridiculous Corky and soft plastic bite kept us busy virtually all day.

The timeframe between each good fish was short and the bites were steady, which made for an incredible day on the water. If you asked for

The Dart from Coastal Brew has become a go-to bait for many anglers searching for that one special fish.

Carlin Leavelle with a beauty that absolutely inhaled a Coastal Brew bait.

Nick Vela with one of many solid trout that ate a MirrOlure Soft Dine.

The Grasswalker from Trout Support is a fantastic option for wintertime trout.

anything better than what we witnessed, you would have been nothing less than greedy. I walked away from those four days with a much-needed new outlook and desire to find those fish on my own home water.

The five-hour trip home afforded me plenty of time to reflect and think about my path forward on both Sabine and Calcasieu. I realized that I had become somewhat routine and monotonous in my approach to everyday fishing and that there was plenty I had been overlooking. The process of rediscovering water and the quest for finding a big trout in my backyard would soon begin.

It’s no secret that I have a profound affinity for redfish and part of that love is due to the fact that we just have struggled so much with speckled trout populations. The current overall state of the speckled trout for both Sabine and Calcasieu could best be described as cautiously optimistic, due to the fact that we are finally seeing some better numbers and quality of fish but have yet to put together several consecutive seasons of growth and stable weather.

This year has been the best fishing we have had in the last three or four and hopefully that trend will continue without interruption. I would like nothing better than to hear about someone on either body of water catching a legitimate big fish this winter or early spring, just knowing that they are still out there. I know that I’ll be doing a lot more looking for those better fish during the coming months and leaving the safety of just getting bites from school trout because you won’t find those better fish running under the birds with the little guys.

Now if you want to go chase those better fish there is certainly a method to the madness and you don’t have to go far to get all the information needed to do just that right here in Texas Saltwater Fishing. There are countless articles devoted to chasing big trout and every one of them has something to offer. For me, personally, everything starts with tides, solunar feeding tables, and bait. If you can put those factors in your corner, you are way ahead of the curve. Another tried and true fact of life is that sub-surface, neutrally buoyant plugs and soft plastics will catch more than the lions share of big trout each

year. Original Corkys, Soft-Dines, and Fat Boys are top producers and deserve a spot in every fisherman’s tackle bag but there are also others that deserve consideration as well.

One of my personal favorites is the Grasswalker by Trout Support. This 4.5 inch soft plastic was designed by Tobin Strickland as a way to deal with floating grass. The bait is incredibly dense and can be cast a mile even though it’s rigged weightless. I have never before seen trout strike a soft plastic and swim off with it like they do with this lure, it’s the saltwater version of fishing a Whacky Worm. The bait is incredibly versatile and can be fished in a variety of ways. I have clients who aren’t comfortable fishing baits like Corkys use this instead and the results are amazing because the bites are unmistakable.

Another soft plastic making a lot of noise this winter has been the Dart from Coastal Brew Baits. The Dart comes in 5,6, and 8-inch models and is ridiculously durable. Most commonly rigged on 1/16 or 1/8-ounce jigheads, the Dart draws reaction strikes as well as anything out there due to its erratic action and lasts longer than 95% of other soft plastics, which gives anglers plenty of bang for their buck.

Heading forward into 2025, I have my fingers crossed that we avoid any bad freezes while the state’s fish populations continue to rebound. If we are fortunate enough to put together another decent weather year here on Sabine we may very well turn the corner toward a serious rebound. I truly hope to see fishing in the near future resemble what it once was and not be a distant memory, only relived in stories and photos. If you are fortunate enough to catch a good fish this winter please do everything you can to release that fish as carefully as possible to help ensure future generations of anglers have an opportunity to enjoy the sport as much as we do now.

CHUCK UZZLE

Zach Rabe took this solid trout on a twitchbait over heavy grass.

Liam Qureshi with a Baffin Bay trophy that pushed 8-pounds.

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Hazardous Jumping Fish

STORY BY JOE RICHARD

The recent death of a popular surfer had me counting up the different fish that have jumped and harmed people. Free-jumping fish injuries are more rare than lightning injuries, and so most people don’t sweat the odds.

The Italian surfer who died last autumn was supposedly struck by a “swordfish” while she was surfing in Indonesia, local media reported. Giulia Manfrini, 36, of northern Italy, was in the water in Mentawai Islands Regency, an area that draws surfers from around the world, according to the Indonesian news agency Antara.

“Unexpectedly, a swordfish jumped towards Manfrini and struck her squarely in the chest,” said a local official.

A swordfish in the surf that speared only five centimeters into this unfortunate surfer sounds…highly unlikely. The authorities there sound unfamiliar with the habits of houndfish, which have been spearing people in tropical waters since man went to sea. Houndfish grow to four feet and have a bad habit of jumping for no reason, especially at lights used by native fishermen at night.

I have caught big houndfish off Key West, The Bahamas and Costa Rica, and know they jump with that spear for a nose, but never thought it could happen to me. Or surfers, for that matter. Years ago in 1989, I caught a big one at Sand Key off Key West, while our boat was anchored in four feet of water. Our young friend Kelly Asbury from South Beaumont was standing only feet away, and completely new to snorkeling. I had him duck underwater to watch it released, knowing that a big ‘cuda had followed the hound, was waiting nearby, and would probably attack. I tossed that houndfish in front of Kelly and wham! It was cut in half. Kelly stood up abruptly and his eyes were wide; it was his first real brush with Nature. He’d studied art under Jerry Newman at Lamar and then moved away to Hollywood and got into animation. Thinking back, that day might have ended badly but did not. Which is fortunate, because Kelly was a great guy; he went on to direct such movies as Spirit the Horse, Gnomeo and Juliet, Shrek 2, and a few others.

Barracuda. There have been numerous injuries from barracuda, which have the cruelest teeth of any fish, including many sharks. ‘Cudas have free-jumped into boats and maimed people for no reason, and will also sometimes jump into boats when hooked, chewing on the nearest fisherman with awful results. ‘Cudas are caught all the time, but few deliberately jump into boats when hooked.

However, after reading the story and seeing a picture of 13-year old Parker King in the hospital, a teenager who was maimed off Florida’s Atlantic coast, I’m glad we didn’t try to catch a monster ‘cuda that showed up one day under our boat off Port O’Connor. It was easily seven feet long and ate half of my hooked 20-pound kingfish and then hung around for more. That ‘cuda must have weighed 100 pounds and might have doubled the state record. One of those rare and dangerous fish we didn’t want any part of. With the high cost of helicopter flights and hospital care, it’s best not to mess with ‘cudas unless you have experience handing them.

Kingfish can jump very high and easily into boats, and their teeth and weight multiply the danger. Years ago back in the ‘60s there was a report of a fatality off Key West. Someone was hit in the neck by a jumping kingfish that was chasing a jig being lifted from the water. This was back when there were schools of kingfish stretching for a dozen miles, before the local net boats destroyed them. (Today, biologists say the Gulf’s kingfish population is down and out).

One summer day years ago, the captain of partyboat LaPesca out of Port Aransas noticed something odd, a disturbance on the water headed their way. It was hundreds of jumping kingfish feeding on baitfish. The whitewater headed straight for them. The

captain ordered everyone inside the cabin. Within minutes, schoolsized kingfish (typical 14-pounders off Texas) were flying past the windows. There were many thumps as more fish struck the boat. When the storm subsided, six or eight kings lay flopping on deck.

My buddy Pete from Beaumont watched a kingfish jump onto an oil rig’s lower deck some 12 feet above water, before flopping back in the water. I was hit in the neck by a jumping king off Galveston, while swimming alongside the boat taking pictures. Somebody was retrieving their white jig after casting it near a weedline. The king missed it, flew 20 feet and hit me in the back of the neck. Payow! There was a stunning blow and a blinding splash; the crew above me were stupefied after watching its soaring flight converge on me like a missile. Its mouth must have been closed when it hit me, because the only damage was a reddish bruise.

Eagle Rays: There have been a few collisions with people and jumping, spotted eagle rays, sometimes with injuries. In one incident, a ray estimated at 75 pounds killed a Michigan woman in March, 2008 when it flew from the water and struck her in the face off Marathon in the Keys. The impact knocked her head against the boat. The woman, Judy Kay Zagorski, 57, of Pigeon, Mich., was in a boat traveling at 25 miles per hour when the ray leaped from the water, said Jorge Pino, spokesman for Florida Fish and Wildlife (FWC). Ms. Zagorski’s father was driving the boat off Vaca Key, Mr. Pino said. “He had absolutely no warning, it just happened.”

The impact probably killed the woman, Mr. Pino said, adding that it was not immediately clear if she had puncture wounds from the ray’s barb. The ray died

Kingfish have free-jumped and occasionally hit people, including the author.

Gulf sturgeon constantly jump on Florida’s Suwannee River during spring and summer. They’ve injured quite a few boaters.

Author with a barracuda off Port Aransas. Best avoid those sharp teeth.

from the impact, officials said.

Spotted eagle rays can reportedly weigh up to 500 pounds with a wingspan of up to 10 feet. They’re protected in Florida and are typically seen swimming on the surface. They are known jumpers, but not aggressive. They use the barb at the end of their tail as a defense mechanism. “Rays jump to escape a predator, give birth and shake off parasites,” said Lynn Gear, supervisor of fishes and reptiles at Theater of the Sea in Islamorada. “They do not attack people.”

Asian Carp: According to the EPA, boaters have reported injuries including cuts, black eyes, broken bones, back injuries and concussions from jumping Asian carp. The epicenter for that action centers on the Illinois River around Peoria. If you want to see serious jumping fish landing in your boat by the dozen, launch at Peoria and run an aluminum boat up and down the river. Aluminum really sets them off.

Fishing guides in that area have been running carp-killing charters for more than 10 years, using bow and arrows, baseball bats, even shotguns. I saw a video of one carp fly between an archer’s drawn bow and his bowstring, which is too close for comfort. The guides string protective soccer netting around the gunnels of their boats. They wear protective eyewear and even football helmets. They’ve towed water skiers through flying carp, the skier hacking and hewing with a samurai sword. They’re a crazy bunch, but then most of Illinois is a pretty tame place to live. These carp mostly jump near the back of the boat and I saw one video of two women with drawn bows at the stern of a bassboat. What appeared to be a 10-pound carp flew in from the side and sucker-punched one gal in the side of the face, breaking her jaw. These carp are said to grow to 100 pounds, but 6-12 pounders seems to be the average. There are videos of hundreds of carp in the air at the same time. Commercial fishermen have netted a great many, but they’re only paid 10-20 cents a pound. You have to land tons, to make it worthwhile. It’s hard, messy, wet work, and 2,000 pounds of carp is only worth between $200 to $400. Split between several guys.

Tarpon are one of the world’s best jumpers and there’s no doubt a great many have landed in boats while hooked. What about the freejumpers? A guide friend reported anchoring in the morning in Pass Cavallo with a charter and made a single cast, reeling in a ladyfish. At boatside a hungry tarpon jumped after the ladyfish, hitting the guide in the head and knocking him out. When he awoke covered in tarpon poop and scales, every rod on his center console boat was broken. He wiped his face off and pulled anchor; that one cast was enough for one day. Not a hundred yards from there, anchored in a 14-foot jonboat during a swift, outgoing tide, we once hooked a tarpon over

200 pounds, which jumped only 30 feet away. It broke 50-pound line while in the air, landing with a crash. If it had landed in the boat, too bad for us. It felt like the Old Man and the Sea, and my jonboat suddenly felt like a joke out there.

While I was in Honduras, the locals told of a young woman meeting up with a tarpon. A panga full of people left the inlet and headed out to a passenger freighter anchored offshore in the Caribbean. Just off the beach, a big tarpon free-jumped into their boat. Everyone bailed out and when they climbed back aboard, the young woman, 20 years old, lay dead with a broken neck.

Sturgeon in fresh water have also injured and killed, especially on the Suwannee River in Florida. This national treasure of a river has no boating or speed limits, and the weekends are hectic with racing boats and bass tournaments. Running at 50 knots in a river where 100-pound armor-plated sturgeon will leap right into your path is flirting with death or serious injury. There are woeful tales of people knocked overboard, broken arms, jet skiers with their fingers cut off, ruptured spleens and worse. One five-year old girl named Jaylon Rippy was killed while riding on the bow of her family boat. That same sturgeon injured two other family members, who were life-flighted to the nearest hospital. There is a memorial for little Rippy at the boat ramp near where it happened, and boats still speed by there every day.

Spanish mackerel can jump high, often after prey, revealing their location. They have a wicked set of teeth, though thankfully small, and they’re also lightweights. However, a friend told me they were speeding along offshore of Louisiana when a friend suddenly yelled and clutched at his back; he thought somebody had stabbed him. Laying on deck nearby was a two or three-pound mackerel. Several stitches were required to close the wounded angler’s injury.

JOE RICHARD

CONTACT

Joe Richard has fished the Gulf since 1967, starting out of Port Arthur, but his adventures have taken him up and down the entire coast. He was the editor of Tide magazine for eight years, and later Florida Sportsman’s book and assistant magazine editor. He began guiding out of Port O’Connor in 1994. His specialty is big kingfish, and his latest book is The Kingfish Bible, New Revelations. Available at Seafavorites.com

Numerous tarpon have jumped into boats while hooked, but sometimes they free-jump and hit people.

PAUL BROWN’S inventive success story

STORY

KEVIN COCHRAN

Big trout seem to approve of the jointed Fat Boy!

BY

The sT ory behind T he inven T ion of T he Corky, Paul brown’s original lure, is a disT inCT ly a meriCan one. The Tale shows how T he Combined effe CTs of ingenui T y, CollaboraT ion and PerseveranC e Can lead T o T he C reaT ion of new and useful ProduCTs. The narraT ive do C umen Ts T he way small, manufaCT uring -based businesses are of T en builT u P on a foundaT ion of relaT ionshi Ps, bo T h wi T hin T he organizaT ions and be T ween T he Com Panies and T he C lien Ts who PurC hase and use T heir ProduCTs.

Editor’s Note: Here’s a piece from Kevin Cochran we published originally in January 2012. I thought that with February being so famously regarded as a top month for trophy speckled trout opportunity here on the Texas coast, this would be a great time to take a look back at the history of what many dedicated trophy anglers regard as the best trophy trout lure ever created – Paul Brown’s Corky! Jim Wallace put Paul Brown and his Corky on the map back in February 1996 when he pulled a state record trout from Baffin Bay that weighed 13 pounds – 11 ounces, and that was only the beginning of the story. I’ll let Kevin tell you the rest…

Back in the 1970s, Mr. Brown and his friend Bill Norton worked together in the aircraft industry; they spent much of their free time fishing in the Galveston area. Paul preferred using live shrimp under a popping cork, but Norton eventually convinced him to commit to using artificial lures, allegedly by throwing out all his live-bait gear! As they developed their shared interest in plugging the coastal waters, the two began to look for new, exciting places to test their skills.

They turned their gaze toward the south and found their way to the isolated, pristine flats of the Lower Laguna Madre, making many weekend forays to Port Mansfield. There they found more and bigger fish, which readily attacked and destroyed the Boone tout tails upon which they regularly relied. Industrious and frugal, the buddies decided they needed to start making their own soft plastics, first to try and save money, later with the thought of making a profit.

Paul’s wife Phyllis had some molds lying around the house; she’d used them to make ash trays and other ceramic knick knacks. Paul borrowed and modified some of the gear to create a mold in which he could produce six tout tails at a time. At first, he shaped them like the lures they’d always used, but then a third friend suggested he should alter their design.

Pete Tanner urged Paul to elongate and streamline the shape of the worms; he’s the person who came up with the idea of making the long, slender soft plastics which are so commonly sold today. Eventually, Paul made several new molds and spent many evenings pouring out plenty of lures, giving a few away to close friends and fishing associates, like Bubba Silver. He also began selling them hand to hand.

Mr. Brown’s soft plastics slowly earned a reputation in the Galveston-area coastal scene, partly due to the influence of a small tackle store on Pine Plaza in Dickinson, owned and run by Mike Carlisle. Mike organized a weekly fishing tournament, keeping the results and pictures posted

on a wall inside the store. He required winners to disclose significant details related to the fish they entered, including what lures they used to catch them. Over time, Paul’s lures showed up repeatedly in the testimonials of those collecting prizes.

Naturally, Mr. Carlisle wanted to sell the lures in his store, so Paul began making enough to keep his shelves stocked. He also spent numerous afternoons on the deck behind the place, hanging around the cleaning table, sharing cold beers with Mike and his customers who stopped by after they came off the water.

While the brew flowed from the cans and lips were loosened, Paul listened and learned what he could from these successful anglers. He not only used the information to help him make better lures, he also recognized the value of close relationships between business owners and their clients.

Paul began to nurture similar relationships in his growing endeavor with the soft plastics, seeking advice and soliciting testimonials from friends and experts who deployed the lures. Over time, some of these people encouraged him to consider making other types of plugs. Bubba Silver’s son Jim, in particular, wanted him to make a soft version of a well-know topwater plug, the Zara Spook.

Paul had by then developed a love for throwing topwater lures and relished the idea of inventing his own; he took on the task with vigor. The first attempts to imitate the plug didn’t work out as planned, but they eventually led to the invention of the original Corky lure. Today, Paul says, “You know how it is. You set out to make one thing, and you wind up making something else. We wanted to design a knock-off of the Spook, and we didn’t do such a good job of that. But we did realize we’d stumbled onto something of interest.”

At first, the boys were disappointed the lure wouldn’t float, but as they realized how effective a slow-sinking twitch bait might turn out to be, they became excited over the new plug’s potential. One essential design feature had to be perfected; they’d

Paul Brown’s Fat Boys are the author’s favorite twitch baits. The nine pound trout in this picture liked a pearl/pink one on a bright day in February 2010.

need to figure out exactly what material to place in the lure‘s center, to create the right amount of buoyancy and allow it to sink while remaining horizontal in the water.

Plastic was molded around many things which didn’t work--wood, plastic and other “stuff which melted when it got hot and made a mess.” Bubba came up with the idea of using cork, after reading about an old bottle of wine which survived a long hibernation on the ocean floor. Cork saved the juice in the jug; it also gave their slow-sinking plug an attractive set of attributes.

Soon after experimenting with cork in the center of the lure, the guys realized they had something special, and over time, their trips to the water to test the lures allowed them to refine and perfect the design. Paul is always quick to give Pete Tanner credit for testing the lures and giving him necessary and effective feedback on how they work; he cites Mr. Silver’s main contribution as being more related to how to set up and run a productive manufacturing operation.

With Bubba’s help, Paul eventually transformed his garage into what he and Phyllis refer to as “the shop”, where they transformed raw materials into finished lures, one at a time, building each from the inside out, using wires, beads, cork tubes, reflective tape and raw plastic cooked in hot molds.

Paul didn’t stop making adjustments once he’d created the original Corky. Eventually he modified it in several ways, altering the shape of

the molded plastic to make Fat Boys and Devils, placing rattles in all sinking plugs and adding more cork to create floating versions. He also tried other, less well-known modifications.

Soon after Jim Wallace used a dark green Corky to pull a staterecord trout out of Baffin Bay in 1996, demand for the slow-sinking twitchbaits rose rapidly. Remembering the successful interaction he witnessed at Mike Carlisle’s tackle shop in Dickinson, Paul modeled his business in a similar way, inviting customers to come to the shop in person and pick out the lures they wanted.

All the while, he kept experimenting, working on new things, giving out samples of stuff under construction and listening carefully to stories of how the lures he’d already sold were being used to catch fish. The two-laned highway of information passes back and forth between the inventor and the users of the tools he creates; it remains well-paved to this day, and has always been a critical component in Paul’s ongoing success as a lure designer.

Many accomplished anglers entered the shop over the years, bringing in stories and sharing secrets, leaving with bags of plugs, renewed hopes and bigger dreams. Mr. Brown’s place acted as a hub at the center of what was arguably the best fishing network ever developed on the coast of the Lone Star State, especially for people who love to target trophy trout. His enticing plugs are hailed by many monster trout fanatics as the most effective tools ever created for

Paul at work in the product testing lab – big grin!

Paul and Phyllis in their new shop, still making them the old fashioned way.

Phyllis did. They even set up their factory to closely resemble the Brown’s south Houston shop and purchase raw materials from the same sources Paul used.

The Browns now live near Lake Charles, Louisiana, in a home beside a bayou, only a couple of miles from the trout-rich reefs and flats of Big Lake. Paul still fishes out of the same 1968 Boston Whaler in which he shared space with Bubba and Pete for so many years. He also still spends time in the shop with Phyllis, tinkering with designs, always hoping to discover something productive and powerful.

These days, he collaborates with local guide Bruce Baugh on a regular basis. The two are currently working on perfecting a brokenback version of the Corky. Anyone interested in purchasing and trying them should contact Bruce’s Tide Line Guide Service, at 337-660-1814.

tricking big specks, especially when deployed in shallow, cool water.

Paul made these lures for the fishermen, openly acknowledging the fact he couldn’t have done it without their help. Most of the people who’ve been to the shop to buy lures go out of their way to actively promote the plugs for him. The synergy of this relationship is alive and well today.

Recently, MirrOlure purchased rights to make the Original Lure, Fat Boy and Devil from Mr. Brown. The company’s executives heeded Paul’s advice and continue to make the lures the same way Paul and

I suspect the new lures Paul is making are much like the old ones-deadly effective when presented effectively to hungry predators. Mr. Brown has always had a knack for creating lures which are effective in all seasons; they catch many kinds of fish in widely-scattered locations. Astute anglers from Texas to Virginia now use them productively, in waters ranging from calf-deep to over twenty feet.

These plugs effectively mimic bait fish like mullet, shad and piggy perch; predators who dine on such prey find them hard to resist. All kinds of revered sport fish can be enticed to bite them, including spotted seatrout, snook, tarpon, striped bass and redfish. Mr. Brown and his buddies should be proud of the pretty plugs they invented; they revolutionized the sport of light tackle coastal angling (and the lives of legions of anglers) in the most delightful way!

The Corky designs have always been angler influenced; here Capt. Bruce Baugh shares thoughts on the latest version of the jointed Fat Boy with Paul.

JAY WATKINS

ASK THE PRO

TRAIN UP A CHILD…

In this month’s article I want to talk to all of you about how important I believe it is to spend time fishing and hunting with your kids. My dad gave me the opportunity to fish and hunt throughout my early years despite his coaching and teaching career taking up much of his time. I think he spent more time with other people’s children than he did me, but I understood this and never thought twice about it. A coach’s life is full of weekend film sessions, basketball tournaments, and track meets. At one point my dad coached all the major sports as well as tennis and also taught Driver’s Education.

When my father passed away at only 60 years of age, my youngest son Ryan was not even born, and he will soon be 37 years old. My mom told me that she was guilty many times of telling my dad that we could not afford the deer lease or the fishing things we did. She said that he always told her, “Frances, we can’t afford to not do these things.”

My parents believed in being present in my life. I loved the outdoors, and they gave me the opportunity to enjoy it. My fondest memories as a child are for the most part connected to fishing and hunting in some

way. Throughout my guiding career I have had the opportunity to spend lots of days on the water with fathers, and also mothers and their kids. I have nice memories with many of them and I continue to have some good times with family groups in my present-day guiding adventures.

One of the most rewarding aspects of being able to become a part of such memories is the emails and text messages I receive that convey great appreciation for being a part of a truly memorable experience. For the record, in my younger years and maybe even still today, I am subject to having a tough day in the PR department and there is no excuse for that, but it happens. I try very hard to keep these personality flaws to a minimum these days.

My boys tell people that there is a Dock Jay and a Bay Jay. I don’t like the BS at the dock in the morning because it breaks my routine and my concentration. I don’t want guys helping with the boat, showing up unprepared or under the influence of any substances. Just be ready, be on time, and get in the boat. Once I break out of the harbor and start my run I’ll start talking about the plan for the day and how we are going to use

Malcolm Lockhart, a fine young man and a fine young angler.

what we have at our disposal to get the results we want.

I have had two specific father-son groups this past year that really stand out. The first group was the Klutts boys. Charlie, the youngest, had reached out to me through social media to see if I would let him interview me for a class project at school. After a few texts and calls we coordinated a time for the interview. Charlie was really prepared and asked some great questions and had a way about his questioning that intrigued me. I could tell he was young, but I could also tell that he had thought about the questions he was asking. I was a little nervous, wanting to do a good job and help land him a good grade.

A few weeks after the interview I noticed a trip request on my online booking calendar from his dad. I was excited to find out that Charlie had made a good grade and that the father wanted to treat Charlie and his older brothers to a day on the water with me. The August air that morning was heavy and the winds were next to non-existent, but tides were higher than normal so we had lots of options. The parents of these young men have done a tremendous job raising them. Totally respectful all day; never once complained about anything, never once failed to display anything but enthusiasm about getting out of the boat when it was time to fish, and all were totally all about the catch and release of our trout. That alone places them in a percentage of young people that in my opinion is growing smaller.

I know it is old school stuff and maybe considered to be unnecessary in today’s world, but I promise you this; Yes Sir and No Sir and Thank You Sir, still opens lots of doors in the business

world and positions one in a positive way in the success category in my books. Everyone caught fish and it seemed that everyone was happy for one another even though I know there was competition amongst the brothers.

Clayton, the dad, allowed me to control the day and reinforced my wishes throughout the day. This too is pretty darn rare. We caught a bunch of fish and I believe the boys learned a lot about wade fishing and the need for a certain amount of conservation that we as anglers are responsible for. I think they also learned some life lessons. Fishing is a lot like life, you see; it’s not always easy, it’s not always catching, and it takes a certain amount of self-disciple to become proficient at it. Isn’t the business world somewhat the same?

I have no doubt that the Klutts boys will grow up to be responsible young men and continue to make themselves proud as well as their parents. There is also nothing wrong with this mindset in my books.

My second experience, and second by no means second place. As their guide, both experiences were equal in my book. Frank Lockhart brought his son Malcolm and a couple of his buddies down to fish with me a few weeks back. Malcolm is 20 years old and already a very accomplished angler and outdoorsman. Frank has provided the platform for his son and understands the importance of spending time with his son on the water and also in the field. Again, I was dealing with a respectful young man and a group of guys that support the need for these qualities in a young person.

Malcohm put on a show for us with a lure that many wouldn’t

even attempt to throw. The Coastal Brew 8” Dart is a big profile lure and creates what bass anglers refer to as “Draw Power.” And draw it did, for two days in Port Mansfield. What impressed me most with Malcohm was his wading approach to the areas that I placed him in, his ability to establish a line, and the patience to slowly fish and allow the pattern to develop. Frank and I admitted to ourselves that we would have had a difficult time continuing to fish with a lure that we were receiving few bites on, even when the bites were larger fish. It was such a good experience and everyone caught some solid fish throughout the week.

The weather patterns for each of these groups were tough for the season we were fishing. Little wind on their respective days, clear water, super-hot during August in Rockport and unseasonably warm during December in Port Mansfield. The key to our success was the trust the groups had in the process and the willingness of the younger generation of anglers to listen and learn.

So what’s the real point that I am trying to make here? The importance of teaching our children the value of respect for

View The Video Open Camera and hover over QR Code. When link appears at top of screen tap to open in YouTube.

everyone and the value of spending time with our kids no matter what the environment. My own experiences were fishing and hunting where my parents were able to hold my attention and teach me valuable life lessons. This was the same for my two boys as they were growing up. “You are what you eat,” is another thing my dad would say. He was talking about the mental diet, of course. And he was right. The time we spend with our young ones is time that those who want to influence our children in negative ways don’t get. It’s that simple.

With winter in full swing, it’s Custom Corky and Soft-Dine time, as well as the Texas Customs Double D lures that I have so much confidence in this time of year. In last month’s article I talked about the thought process that I believe makes these types of suspending baits so productive during the winter months. Right now, we are experiencing just that. It’s Corky time!

May Your Fishing Always be Catching! -Guide, Jay Watkins

Jay Watkins has been a full-time fishing guide at Rockport, TX, for more than 45 years. Jay specializes in wading yearround for trout and redfish with artificial lures. Jay covers the Texas coast from San Antonio Bay to Corpus Christi Bay.

Telephone 361-729-9596

Email Jay@jaywatkins.com Website www.jaywatkins.com

Charlie Klutts –ready for the day!

The Klutts crew with Yours Truly.

SHALLOW WATER FISHING

COLD DAYS ON THE ROCKS

So we’ve had some winter weather but nothing too drastic. Wintertime fishing patterns have become fairly well established and the month of February holds plenty of opportunity for anglers that are willing to brave some wind and occasional chilly days. Most are looking to hang a trout of a lifetime and right now is a perfect time to do so. However, if you are into catching big fish, I’m talking really big fish, your nearest jetty is a prime place to hang into a monster.

When most Texas fishermen think of jetty fishing their thoughts run toward calm summer mornings throwing topwaters or live shrimp under popping corks along the rocks and catching mostly schooling trout and a few reds. This is no doubt one of the best times to be there and I am sure that we all have memories of days with steady action that seemed almost unreal. I certainly do, and in fact I even have a painting from famous Texas artist David Drinkard where he portrays a summer day of fishing on the Sabine Jetties.

Summertime may be great on the rocks but what is rarely ever talked about is fishing them during the winter and other cooler months. No, you are not

likely to box limits of trout during this time but when conditions are right, the bull reds will move in and can make for another type of memorable day.

Looking for bull reds on the rocks during winter can become rather tedious at times. The problem with it is that there are a lot of rocks and not so many signs of bull reds being present. However, there are a few things that I have learned that will increase your chances of finding them.

One of the major factors for finding and catching bull reds on the rocks during winter is having the right tide. To be truthful, this is one of the few times of the year that I really pay attention to the tides. I have found that the incoming tide seems to really make all the difference and will sometimes put these fish in a frenzy. I believe that a good portion of this is because of warmer water being delivered through the jetties from the gulf. The other important factor is bait being swept along with the fast-moving incoming flow. Days with stronger incoming flows naturally work the best. Once you get the water moving you will want to focus on areas where the water is flowing strongest across the

DAVE ROBERTS

CONTACT

rocks. This can either come from low points in the rocks or cracks and crevices that connect the gulf side to the inlet. Regardless of location, anglers should target the areas with the strongest flow.

I like to keep lure selection as simple as possible. I will keep a 6th Sense crankbait on one rod; usually one that runs to a depth of 2- to 4-feet. From my experience 6th Sense has the strongest hooks right out of the box compared to any other brand of crankbait, and landing redfish of 40-plus-inches reliably certainly calls for strong hooks. Also, crankbaits are very good for bouncing off rocks and not getting hung up.

On a second rod I will typically have a 4” GULP Shrimp (white), Texas-rigged with a 5/0 offset worm hook and 1/2-ounce bullet weight. This presentation allows me to hide the tip of my hook in the bait and keeps hangups to a minimum.

The name of the game is to be in the rocks as much as possible without getting hung up. If you are worrying about losing your lure you probably aren’t casting close enough. Don’t worry though, these presentations usually do a good job of preventing hangups. The way I prefer to target the rocks is to make plenty of casts into the current while continually moving forward. Cover lots of water!

Once you get a bite and land a fish, mark the location on your GPS-Depth Finder or make a mental note if a landmark you can return to is available along the wall. Quite often we find that these fish will congregate along certain features or stretches of rocks and returning to the spot can yield more bites. However, be aware that there are times that one bite will quickly turn into two or more, and the next thing you know you are completely worn out.

When everything comes together on the rocks the fishing can be just stupid good. I recall one evening a few years ago that I met my buddies out there and I was alone in my boat. I trolled maybe 50 yards before I caught my first fish, and then caught at least 20 more on as many casts. The best part was they were all 30” and up. It will completely wear you out at times but can also be so much fun!

Winter has finally settled in and warmer days are not too far ahead. When the weather is right the fishing can be spectacular if you are willing to get out there and go. If you do, please be mindful of the weather and stay dry while out on the water. Never pass the chance to swing by your local rocks and see if you can’t find some bigger fish to put in the boat.

Dave Roberts is an avid kayak-fishing enthusiast fishing primarily the inshore Upper Coast region with occasional adventures to surf and nearshore Gulf of Mexico.

Email: TexasKayakChronicles@yahoo.com

Website: www.TexasKayakChronicles.com

TEXAS OYSTERS AND A PATH TO A SUSTAINABLE FISHERY

Texas is one of the few remaining states with a significant public reef oyster fishery. The harvest season spans from November to April, and any of the 546 state-issued licenses can be used to dredge oysters from designated shellfish harvest areas which are managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS). While annual landings fluctuate, public reef harvest typically accounts for 78% of the total landings reported to TPWD, with the remaining 22% coming from private lease areas.

Each year, before the season begins and throughout its six-month duration, TPWD conducts targeted oyster sampling in harvest areas on historically fished reefs. By assessing the abundance of harvestable oysters, TPWD determines whether an area is suitable for public reef harvest. In recent years, most harvest areas have been closed to allow the oyster population to recover which has forced oyster boats to concentrate within fewer locations, intensifying the impacts of dredging. Temporary closures by TDSHS for human health concerns can amplify consolidation of oyster boats. A drive along Highway 35 across the Copano/Aransas Bay or Lavaca Bay Causeways provides a clear view of this situation in real-time.

Oysters are invaluable to Texas’ coastal ecosystems, providing essential ecological services that benefit marine life and human communities. As a keystone species, oysters (particularly the Eastern OysterCrassostrea virginica), help form intricate reef systems that support biodiversity, stabilize shorelines, and enhance water quality. However, the oyster fishery

faces significant challenges due to environmental changes and commercial harvest via dredging reefs. To ensure a sustainable future, we must recognize the full ecological value of oysters and implement effective conservation strategies.

The Ecological Importance of Oysters

Oyster reefs are much more than a source of seafood; they are a critical component of Texas’ coastal ecosystems. These reefs act as natural barriers, slowing water surges and helping to prevent shoreline erosion. They also provide structured habitats for a wide variety of marine species. More than 300 species rely on oyster reefs for shelter, food, and habitat, including commercially and recreationally valuable fish like blue crabs, sheepshead, red drum, and spotted seatrout. Oysters are natural filter feeders, capable of filtering over 50 gallons of water per day. Through their removal of nutrients, such as phytoplankton and chlorophyll, they help improve water quality and reduce turbidity. This filtration process also aids in sequestering carbon, contributing to coastal resilience in the face of climate change. Additionally, oysters enhance benthic (bottomdwelling) ecosystems by creating complex habitats that support higher biomass than other coastal environments, such as seagrass beds or salt marshes. The economic value of oyster reefs extends far beyond the harvested product, especially when you place a value on the ecological services they provide in the water. Restored reefs can generate significant ecosystem services, including fish production, habitat provision, and shoreline stabilization, with annual ecosystem service values ranging from $2,000 to $40,000 per acre, depending on the health of the reef. Additional benefits of oyster reefs for recreational angling are estimated at $23,000 per acre. In contrast, the commercial value of oysters harvested from public oyster reefs is estimated at $800 per acre.

Challenges Facing the Oyster Fishery

Despite their resilience, oysters face increasing pressure from human activity and environmental changes. Historically, the most significant threat to their survival is the alteration of freshwater inflows to coastal ecosystems. Over the past century, the flow of freshwater from

Beldon Reef circa 1926 by Paul Galtsoff

major rivers has been increasingly impounded and diverted for agricultural, industrial, and municipal uses, with some bays now experiencing near-total lack of freshwater inflows. This reduction in freshwater flow negatively impacts estuaries, depriving oysters of the vital conditions they need to thrive.

The accelerating pace of environmental change, driven by both climate change and human intervention/development, has also taken a toll on the oyster population. Rising sea temperatures, droughts, hurricanes, and flooding events, along with an overcapitalized Texas fishery, have led to the destruction of public oyster reefs. In some cases, unscrupulous fishing practices, such as the illegal harvest of undersized oysters and/or harvesting on closed reefs, exacerbate the problem.

As a result, many oyster reefs in Texas have reached a point of ecological degradation that may be beyond restoration. While some reefs may not recover to their former status, there is still hope for protecting and rebuilding oyster reefs and enhancing the oyster fishery through proactive, sustainable conservation and restoration efforts.

Solutions for a Sustainable Oyster Fishery

Restoring and preserving Texas’ oyster reefs requires a multifaceted approach that prioritizes ecological values alongside sustainable oyster production and harvesting practices. Key solutions include:

1. Enhancing Conservation Efforts: License Buyback Programs: Expanding participation in oyster license buyback programs will reduce fishing pressure on overexploited reefs and encourage responsible harvesting. Texas will likely need to reduce the number of licenses in the fishery from 546 licenses to somewhere between 175-200 licenses.

Bay-Bottom Lease Expansion: Expanding the number of state-managed bay-bottom leases provides commercial oystermen with the opportunity to invest in creating their own reefs, maintaining them through thin-layer cultch placements, and harvesting them sustainably. Growing this program will reduce dependence on public reefs, helping to protect sensitive habitats from the impacts of the public fishery. Currently, around 22% of annual landings in Texas come from 43 areas (approximately 2,300 acres) in Galveston Bay that are under location certificates (leases),

Oyster ManageMent recent HistOry

While future action is needed for the long-term sustainability of Texas public oyster reefs, it is important to recognize the steps that have been taken thus far. Let’s look back at the last few years.

2017

Legislative Action - House Bill 51:

• Established the commercial oyster license buyback program.

• Required shellfish certificate holders (oyster dealers) to distribute oyster shell or approved cultch material equal to 30% of the oysters purchased in waters designated by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) or pay TPWD for shell acquisition and deposition at the same rate.

• Increased penalties for undersized oysters, with repeat or severe violations resulting in a Class B misdemeanor and a 30-day license suspension.

• Seafood dealers held accountable for repeat violations related to undersized oysters.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission Action:

• Daily sack limit reduced to 30 sacks.

• Commercial oyster harvest closed on Saturdays.

• Tolerance for undersized oysters reduced from 15% to 5%.

• Permanently closed harvest in Christmas Bay, Carancahua Bay, Powderhorn Lake, Hynes Bay, St. Charles Bay, and South Bay.

• Creation of a 300-foot shoreline buffer along the entire coastline, prohibiting harvest from the water’s edge.

2019

Legislative Action - House Bill 2321: Enhanced penalties for oystering in closed areas.

Legislative Action - House Bill 1300: Creation of the Texas Cultivated Oyster Mariculture Program.

2022

Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission Action: Permanently closed oyster harvest in Ayres, Mesquite and Carlos Bays.

2023– 2024

• Creation of a Governor-appointed Commercial Oyster Mariculture Advisory Board.

• Creation of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Oyster Advisory Committee.

Unharvested Oyster Reef, demonstrating structural complexity and species diversity.

Photo Credit: Harte Research Institute

and efforts are underway to further expand this program. Non-Harvestable Conservation Leases: Along with the expansion of the commercial oyster lease program, conservation groups and research institutes will be able to lease bay bottom for the specific intent of creating or restoring oyster reefs which will be permanently closed to commercial harvest. Creating conservation leases for nonharvestable oyster areas can safeguard critical spawning grounds and help replenish depleted reefs.

2. Promoting Oyster Mariculture:

Cultivating oysters through mariculture (oyster farming) offers a sustainable alternative to wild harvesting, reducing pressure on natural reefs and providing a controlled environment for oyster production. Growing farmed oysters in the water column creates a cleaner, better-tasting and more desirable product for the half-shell market. In Texas, there are currently 12 farms, 2 nurseries and 2 hatcheries fully permitted, and another 31 farms with conditional permits.

3. Establishing Oyster Sanctuaries:

Designating oyster broodstock sanctuaries in bay systems will help protect broodstock, ensuring the continued production of larvae that can repopulate nearby reefs. Sanctuary reefs serve as critical spawning reserves, bolstering oyster populations in the surrounding public waters.

4. Strategic Restoration Plans:

Large-scale restoration efforts should focus on rebuilding oyster reefs that support ecological functions, coastal resiliency and greatest value to local economies. Scientific research can guide the development of these restoration projects, ensuring they are designed to achieve measurable improvements in ecosystem health and productivity. Strategic restoration plans work hand in hand with lease expansions.

5. Continued Enforcement and Adaptive Management:

Continued enforcement against illegal harvest and targeted

sting operations are necessary to ensure that active participants in the oyster fishery are following existing regulations and that safeguards for resource protection are effective. There are numerous management tools, such as sack limit changes, gear restrictions, and number of fishing days, that are available for fishery managers to consider in the near term to further improve the sustainability of the public reef oyster fishery; after the implementation of a successful buyback program, fishery managers can adapt to a new landscape and consider strategies to spatially or seasonally spread out the remaining fishing pressure.

By safeguarding existing reefs and promoting the creation of new ones, we can restore the ecological health of our coastal ecosystems and ensure the long-term sustainability of the oyster fishery in Texas. With strategic planning, collaboration, and a commitment to responsible management, the future of Texas oysters can remain bright, benefiting both the environment and local communities.

Conclusion

Oysters are indispensable to the ecological health of Texas’ coastal ecosystems. Their reefs provide habitat for numerous marine species, stabilize shorelines, and improve water quality, among other essential functions. However, the challenges they face—ranging from habitat loss to fishing pressure—threaten their future. By embracing conservation initiatives such as license buyback, supporting sustainable oyster farming, and investing in restoration efforts, we can work to ensure that oysters continue to thrive in Texas waters, benefiting both nature and the economy for generations to come.

For more information about CCA and current happenings, scan to read the latest issue of Currents, CCA Texas’s eNewsletter.

Commercial oyster harvest in the Beldons and Cedar Reef area prior to the closure of the Mesquite Bay complex to all oyster harvest.

Healthy oyster reefs provide a healthy ecosystem. Everett Johnson standing on edge of Panther Reef. Photo Credit: Everett Johnson

By Jo Vaughan | Corpus Christi Bay Fish and Wildlife Technician

FIELD NOTES

FISHY FACTS FOR DISPELLING MARINE MYTHS

Have you ever heard that rubbing two spoons together while breathing through your nose and crossing your eyes will cure your foot fungus?! You have now. And thus, a tall tale is born. Okay, not really. What we commonly call a tall tale, or an “old wives’ tale,” usually stems from a nugget of truth. As a tall tale is verbally passed down over time, it either retains that nugget of truth or loses it altogether. Let’s look at a few fishy tales to see if they have retained their truth over time and determine the truths underlying those marine myths.

Pufferfish are Poisonous…right?

Have you ever heard that pufferfish have a toxin that will kill you if you eat it? This one is true…for the most part. Although there are species of puffers that do not contain the toxin it can be difficult to determine which species you’re looking at. Here in Texas, we have two species, and both contain a fatal toxin that attacks the nervous system. This toxin is the result of the food they eat. There is a bacterium that is passed up the food chain from small invertebrates to the pufferfish.

The bacterium in pufferfish are metabolized into a toxin and are usually stored in the liver and ovaries

but can also be held in the muscles and skin. The high temperatures of cooking will not kill the bacterium should any be present, making it a life-threatening risk if one tries grilling it at home. However, there are some professionals in the world that can safely prepare them through a very specific process. We therefore recommend that only professionals, lizardfish, and sharks make attempts at puffer snacks.

Toadfish are Venomous…right?

Gulf Toadfish, commonly called dogfish, are a type of bottom-dwelling carnivorous fish. They are a slimy, oddlooking fish with a big mouth that can deliver a painful bite. Have you ever heard warnings not to touch or eat them because they have toxins? That tale is false…well, at least in Texas! They do have some cousins that contain mild venom in their spines, but while fishing Texas waters you are looking at our harmlessly squishy species. They do still possess some nasty spines, just not the kind that inject venom. Now, are they good to eat? Well, next time you catch one find your closest daredevil buddy. If you don’t have one of those then it might be you.

Jellyfish stings, Just Pee on it! …right?

“If anything unseen burns the skin it’s a safe bet to pee on it.” That’s what Grandpa always said anyways. Let’s break this tale down by first asking why we would pee on something. The idea of using urine is that it contains compounds, like urea, that could break down the stinging cells of a jellyfish. However, urine does not contain enough of these compounds to do this job effectively, but it does contain a lot of one particular compound… water. Fresh water. An important fact to consider is that freshwater can set off more of the venom in the stinging cells that have lodged into your skin. Therefore, peeing on a jellyfish sting could stimulate more pain!

One of the quickest and easiest ways to combat pain from the stinging cells of a jellyfish is HOT water. The heat breaks down the proteins in the venom, significantly reducing the pain and almost eliminating it after a while. The hot water can be either fresh or salty. As long as it’s sufficiently hot (but not scalding) the toxins will begin to crumble. This trick also works on stingray and hardhead wounds! While on a boat, the fastest way to get hot water is to idle your motor and allow the telltale stream, or the ‘pee’,

Pufferfish by the author, Jo Vaughan.

to run over the affected area. You shouldn’t let your friend pee on you, but you can let your boat!

Vibrio eats your flesh…right?

Vibrio is a bacterium that thrives in warm water temperatures and does occur in our warm Texas waters. But does it actually eat your flesh?! The short answer is… yes. However, it comes with some caveats.

When someone sustains a wound their body is at risk of that wound getting infected. This is why it’s important to clean out wounds before bandaging them to kill off any potential bacteria. It’s common for small cuts to be exposed to bacteria from whatever made the cut and even more common if the cuts are exposed to the elements… in this case saltwater, sand, mud, fish slime, etc. Vibrio vulnificus can eat at the tissue surrounding a wound if

1) The water is warm enough

2) There is vibrio in the water

3) You don’t properly clean out that wound within at least a few hours

4) You have a compromised immune system.

Good hygiene and an understanding of your risk factors play a significant role in avoiding any kind of major damage from this bacterium. If in doubt, always seek professional medical attention.

That was fun! Let’s keep searching for the truth and asking “why.” Stay curious. Life is better outside!

Check the TPWD Outdoor Annual, your local TPWD Law Enforcement office, or tpwd.texas.gov for more info.

Toadfish by Fish and Wildlife Technician, Vincent Careta.

ERIC OZOLINS EXTREME KAYAK FISHING

& SHARKS FROM THE

SAND

YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES OF PROMINENCE

One of the great joys of my life is sharing my passion for the outdoors with the new generation. My own children and other excited kids taking part on my charters need early experiences in the wild world to set the foundation for their lives in the great outdoors. I take the responsibility of sending them down the right path very seriously. After all, our kids will eventually be the stewards of our fishery. Many of us were introduced to angling at an early age. My introduction came at the age of about four or five years. Born and raised in upstate New York, I grew up on the shores of the beautiful Saratoga Lake, isolated in the woods, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I remember my parents walking me down to the water to fish for a variety of species, including largemouth, smallmouth, and rock bass. Yellow perch, bullheads, and pike were also possible, and the more different types of fish I caught, the more interested I became in the sport. There, my obsession with fishing began; to this day, the spell lingers, perhaps stronger than ever.

Now I have two beautiful daughters of my own – sixyear-old Rory and Leah, who recently turned four. As a father, I think it’s important to share my coastal lifestyle with my kids. Both girls have a growing love

for the outdoors; they’re hard to pry away from the beach when it’s time to go home. I can relate to their attachment to the elements because I have felt the same way since I was their age.

Here in Texas, we’re blessed to have such a variety of outdoor opportunities from which to choose. Whether it’s fishing, hunting, or simply enjoying the sights and sounds of nature, some outdoor experience awaits us at just about any given time. One of Rory’s passions is checking the crab traps in the canal behind the house. She’s not only eager to count and unload the crabs, but also to cook and eat them for dinner. Anything I can do to focus my girls more towards outdoor adventures and less on social media sites, tablets, and televisions contributes to shaping their lives in a positive way.

Comparing myself to my offspring, I think my kids are more advanced than I was at their age in their appreciation of outdoor experiences, and I find this quite comforting. I have no idea where the paths of their lives will lead them, and I doubt they’ll become fishing guides. More likely, they’ll evolve into entertainers or scientists. Wherever they go and whatever they do, I predict their appreciation for the outdoors will remain present throughout their

E, aka Emiliano Salinas, and cousin Alfonso, with a winter blacktip.

Aurora Ozolins with a fine specimen of a winter pompano.

lives, and this makes me feel proud.

For now, the best I can do is keep taking them on big adventures and entertaining them with the wonders of the wild world. The girls have been fortunate to tag along on some shark specialized beach charters where they get to hang out with kids their age who share their interests. Since she’s the older sibling, Rory feels obligated to lead and protect her little sister. Unafraid to get her hands dirty, she follows me around with a bucket when I’m casting a net to catch bait. She inspects all the things that fall out of the strings, becoming well educated in the art of fishing. Already, she can identify many different species of fish and other creatures.

In winter, when the public’s desire to fish for sharks slows to its lowest rate, I have time to catch my breath and prioritize a few trips for myself. I often do so by heading to the beach specifically to nurture my girls’ emerging interests. I love it when they come to me and ask, “Can we go camping?” Their version of camping involves spending the night on the beach, fishing with brisk, humid air blowing in their hair, their hands and feet covered with sand. Sometimes, we head out without a single rod, just to enjoy the outdoor elements. It’s important to keep things balanced and simple and not to force a specific kind of journey on kids. They’re well capable of indicating when they’re ready and fit for the most serious kinds of adventures.

On one of my recent charters, the girls had the opportunity to join

and help me work. The client, who has a boy we call E, requested I bring them along. My girls knew the client and his son, and we’d all fished together before. E has been honing his angling skills since we first met and has come a long way. He’s keen on learning the tactics of the sport. Like me, his father gains great pride and happiness seeing his kid show such great enthusiasm and eagerness to excel in our hobby. This time, the client’s nephew came along on our sharking adventure.

The four young rascals enjoyed the unseasonably hot winter weekend. We measured the temperature at 86 degrees while riding south on the beach, and though the dirty waves were full of weeds, the shark activity was impressive for this time of year, well on the productive side. The kids caught and interacted with four different species of sharks. The smiles and excitement they expressed was awe-inspiring.

Over the years, I’ve experienced a large number of trips including entire families and enthusiastic kids. I thoroughly enjoy embarking on these educational and foundational adventures. If the children are new to saltwater fishing, numerous surprises await them, inspiring to watch as they unfold. I introduce other children to the angling world the same ways I introduced my own.

Educating young boys and girls about sharks while we interact with live ones is powerful indeed. I’ve felt satisfaction and honor when helping fuel a child’s obsession with the world of sharking by putting them in situations where they stand face to face with these unique creatures. For a few, the process has sent them down routes to spectacular lives built around the marine environment.

The youth hold the future of the fishery and of this planet in their collective hands. Accordingly, we should do what we can to groom them the right way. Seeing them in their natural state, feeling awe and excitement over the fish and the world in which they live is not only satisfying, it’s an investment which pays handsome long-term dividends.

For the past decade Eric ‘Oz’ Ozolins has been promoting shark catch and release and assisting various shark research programs. Eric offers guided shark fishing on Padre Island National Seashore. Also renowned for extreme kayak big game fishing, Eric is the owner of Catch Sharks Tackle Company.

Email oz@oceanepics.com Websites oceanepics.com | catchsharks.com

Emiliano Salinas and Aurora Ozolins pose with a nighttime blacktip.

Aurora and Leah Ozolins celebrate the landing of a winter blacktip.

Leah Ozolins enjoying a winter beachcombing trip.

NATHAN BEABOUT MOSTLY SIGHT-FISHING

IT’S WINTER; SHOULD I BE SLOW-ROLLING MY LURES?

A while back in one of my articles, I mentioned lure presentation speeds while fishing the colder months. In that article I shared that I tell my clients it’s like building a fence – there are at least a hundred ways to do it and none of them are wrong. In my opinion it boils down to personal preference and what you have confidence in. Now, I’m not saying I never fish a slow presentation. However, I think most anglers automatically assume that because the water or air is cold you must work your lures slowly to produce a bite.

I like to look at each day individually and the conditions we are facing. This tells me a lot about which few baits I am going to select and the action I need to put on those baits in order to produce a bite. Let’s dive in and take a more detailed look.

Let’s say a front hits early morning around the predawn hours, air temps are in the 60s and falling as you leave the ramp. By day’s end temps are in the low 50s. These are some of the best conditions to produce a big

bite. The reason I say this is because the fish have already pulled out into their refuge areas and should be going on a very aggressive feed ahead of the colder conditions setting in. The barometer is on the rise and they will be fattening up to have enough energy in reserve to hold them for a day or two. I believe that when the pressure reaches a certain point, usually around 30.2, the bite shuts off. With the colder temps I am going to throw a Down South Super Model or a Corky because I know these fish are going to start dropping lower in the water column. This doesn’t mean I’m working my bait slower, though. In fact, under these conditions I rip my baits through the water, trying to keep them in the middle of the column with a swift popping action. Almost like walking the dog with a topwater, but sub-surface. I’m looking to appeal to the aggressive feeding mode I have experienced under this scenario. Call it game of many casts; the more casts I can make and the more water I can cover, the more bites I get.

Let’s take this same scenario, same temperatures, but the front blows in at 9:00-10:00pm the evening before you plan to leave the dock. Well, chances are we’re not leaving; I would likely advise my guys to sit out the day. The winds are already beyond what I consider the safe threshold and all your water is chocolate milk. Just getting out of the harbor can be dangerous. So, you sit out that day, knowing the winds are going to be backing off, waiting for the second day. Instead of fighting steady 25-35 mph wind, on day two you’ll likely have 15-20 mph early, backing off to 10-12 mph by mid-morning and on into the afternoon.

The biggest factor I consider at this point is what the overnight low temperature will be. Let’s say the forecast calls for low 40s to upper 30s. While there’s no guarantee, but with some of these fronts this is the day we start to see the barometer beginning to fall. We know the north wind has drained a lot water out of the bay, and as the wind continues to back off, the water will drop a little more. I will tell my anglers there’s no need to rush. Let’s let the sun come up and start warming things up, and let’s stay out until sunset.

Generally speaking, in the winter months, the last couple hours of daylight are the warmest of the day. We leave the dock around 9:00-10:00am, or in time for a mid-morning solunar feed prediction, if there is one for that day. Leaving later like this allows us to not only catch the wind backing off, but also allows me to survey water as we are running along – looking for the best water clarity with the right amount of bait activity. Activity we would have missed if we left at or before sunup.

We find our first stop and I’m instructing the anglers on how we are going to approach it, and giving lure suggestions. Two days of cold temps with a big dip in the overnight lows – I’m going to suggest the same Down South Super Model plastics and Corkys – but this time I’m going to suggest that we keep it low to the bottom.

Most all of us have seen fish after a big front. They have red bellies and some even have tiny lice clinging to them. This suggests they are lying on the bottom, soaking up whatever warmth they can from the bay floor. Now, just because I say to keep it low to the bottom does not mean I am going to work my lure slower. Most of the time working a Corky, I can’t do that without getting balled up in grass. When I’m working it low to the bottom I am still working it fairly quickly. Erratically is probably a better word.

When I make a cast I allow time for it to fall through the water column, visualizing it being just above the grass. Then, instead of big rod tip pops, hopping the bait from the bottom to within an inch or two of the surface and letting it fall

again, I am usually holding my rod out to the side and ripping the bait in 6- to 12-inch bursts and then pausing for a second or two. We know they’re hunkered down, and I believe this erratic “in their face” presentation will draw more curiosity strikes when they’re not actively feeding. I sense this to be true because I often feel short, quick thumps and setting the hook produces no hookup. It’s almost as though I happened to put it within a few inches of their nose and, without

moving, they try to gulp it in but do not succeed. None-the-less, a bite is a bite, and sometimes we connect.

Hands down, the winter months are my favorite time of year to fish and, you can ask my wife, I have spent countless hours out there on days off earlier in my career, trying to figure out patterns. I look at winter as a giant puzzle and challenge myself to put it together under every possible scenario as quickly as I can.

Bottom line here is that I personally do not believe it’s a must to slow your presentation to a crawl simply because it’s winter. Instead, like I tell my clients on days with conditions like those I have described here, do what you are comfortable doing. If slow-rolling is your game, well, continue with it. I just wanted to share what I have learned through my own wintertime experiences.

Be safe on the water, and especially this time of year, check the weather forecast the night before or at least before you launch the boat in the morning. No fish is worth taking that chance.

See you on the water!

CONTACT

Captain Nathan Beabout USCG/TPWD Licensed Full time guide since 2007 Seadrift, Port O’Connor, & Port Mansfield, TX Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Phone 210.452.9680

Email www.nmsportsmansadventures.com

Science Sea and the

The Ghostly White New Predator

It’s harder to imagine a more hostile environment on Earth than the ocean’s hadal zone. Named after Hades, the Greek god of the Underworld, the hadal zone is the deepest part of the ocean, located about 3.7 to 6.8 miles below sea level in marine trenches. Not only is it pitch black, but the organisms living there must withstand intense pressure, which also makes it challenging for researchers to explore. It’s no wonder that scientists know so little about the creatures that manage to survive in these conditions.

Ducibella camanchaca is a newly discovered crustacean that lives in the deep, hadal zone of the Atacama Trench. Credit: Johanna Weston, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

But that hasn’t stopped researchers from exploring—and discovering new species, such as a ghostly white predator named for the darkness it inhabits. A team of scientists from the U.S. and Chile recently discovered a crustacean that is not only a new species, but is a whole new genus, one step higher than species in the classification of organisms. They named it Dulcibella camanchaca, two words that mean “darkness” in the languages of indigenous people from the Andes Mountains. While it lives in darkness, Dulcibella camanchaca’s whole body is an eerie, milky white. And though it only measures about 4 centimeters long— just about an inch and a half—this fast-swimming predator certainly looks frightening enough, with its elongated, snout-like head and the specialized appendages it uses to snatch prey.

The discovery occurred during an expedition aboard the research vessel Abate Molina with scientists from the Instituto Milenio de Oceanografía in Chile and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. They collected four Dulcibella specimens at nearly 5 miles (7,902 meters) deep in the Atacama Trench, which lies in the Pacific Ocean about 100 miles off the Peru-Chile coast. Trench expeditions are continuing, so it remains to be seen what researchers will find next in those mysterious hadal depths.

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The Berkley PowerBait Unrigged CullShad is a versatile swimbait designed for anglers who want full control over their rigging options and presentation. Featuring Berkley’s proprietary Honey Comb Technology, it offers enhanced durability and realistic swimming action, even at slower speeds. Perfect for mimicking various types of prey, the Unrigged CullShad’s natural head wobble attracts fish in any environment. Ideal for use with screw lock swimbait hooks, swimbait jig heads, or line-through treble hooks, it’s adaptable for a wide range of fishing techniques. Customize your setup and target big fish with the PowerBait Unrigged CullShad, the ultimate addition to any angler’s tackle box. www.PureFishing.com

Lander’s Trigger Fish Lip Grip

Be sure to check this out at both Fishing Tackle Unlimited locations in Houston and also on our online store...Landers’ Trigger Fish Lip Grip has a convenient trigger to open its gripping teeth, which clamp onto a fish’s lip and holds on tight! Internal scale accurately weighs fish up to 30 pounds, with weights reading on the shaft under the handle. This tool also has a flexible leash for attaching to your belt or vest, so it stays close to an angler’s hands when needed. www.FishingTackleUnlimited.com

New from Humminbird: MEGA Live 2 and XPLORE

MEGA Live 2

Humminbird MEGA Live 2 sets a new standard in live sonar technology, delivering unmatched clarity and real-time imaging of underwater activity. Featuring enhanced MEGA Imaging+ technology, it provides a crystal-clear view of fish, structure, and bait in motion. Its advanced target separation and extended range give you the edge, whether you’re scouting deep waters or shallow banks.

XPLORE Series

The XPLORE Series is lightning-quick and laser-focused on anglers’ favorite features. Find your fishing spots faster with included LakeMaster and CoastMaster charts. Sync 10,000 fish spots with custom colors and icons to your phone through a new waypoint management system. Connect with Minn Kota products and control them on command – from enabling Advanced GPS navigation to deploying shallow water anchors – with One Boat Network compatibility. www.Humminbird.com

Matagorda

Bink Grimes is a full-time fishing and hunting guide, freelance writer and photographer, and owner of Sunrise Lodge on Matagorda Bay.

Telephone 979-241-1705

Email binkgrimes@yahoo.com Website matagordasunriselodge.com

THE VIEW FROM Matagorda

February is that month to catch my breath after a long duck season and do all those refurbish jobs at the lodge to get ready for a busy spring; and by all accounts it’s going to be a busy spring.

Hopes for a great 2025 fishing year are very bright, especially with the solid December and January catches we have enjoyed. Our fishery is definitely responding to sound conservation measures. Catches are up, quality is up, and angler confidence is steadily climbing.

It will probably be chilly; however, colder weather narrows down the productive water in the bays. We focus on the guts and sloughs when fishing this month, since February normally hosts some of the lowest tides of the year. I don’t enjoy bundling beyond freedom of motion just to survive the chilling boat ride, yet, if you choose your days and fish between cold blasts, February can be quite a productive month.

We work toward the guts with Bass Assassins, Texas Custom Soft-Dines and Corkys. The slightest twinge on the line signals the bite. Sometimes it’s more like a peck, but the sharp hooks find lips.

I look for the slightest sign of life this month. One mullet in February is like an acre of mullet during the summer months. Find points of sloughs and bayous and anchor within casting distance. These points normally

hold the deepest water as outgoing and incoming tidal flows create depressions.

If speckled trout don’t cooperate, redfish are readily available in guts and bayous up and down the coast. Some of the lowest tides of the year occur this month, so you can eliminate lots of water. Concentrate on the areas that fall from waist to chest deep during the summer –those same areas are probably knee to waist deep in February.

Know that when there are acres and acres of mud showing on the flats and along shorelines, those fish have to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the adjacent deep water. Remember these areas because you will find the same fish in July when the lowest tides of summer commence.

The Colorado River has been a mainstay thus far through fall and winter. We have not received much rain for the past four months and the river has remained a beautiful emerald color with trout hanging along the ledges. Soft plastics do the trick here. The river can be a hit or miss locale. One day they bite, one day they don’t. That doesn’t mean the fish aren’t there – they just don’t feed every day in the winter. We always hold to the winter adage: if the bite was slow today, there is the much better chance the fish will bite tomorrow. I guess that’s why optimists seem to catch more fish.

The Houston Fishing Show will run at the George R. Brown Convention Center, February 12-16, 2025. Come by and see us in the Sunrise Lodge on Matagorda Bay booth. Ask us where we go and what we throw. All of our sponsors will be around and we will be happy to walk you to various booths and show you the equipment we use.

Renovations to our Lodge were a hit in 2024. Guests really loved the new pool and putting green and a lot of laughs were had and bets lost over a smoky grill and good company. We hope to see you in 2025.

Sunrise Lodge and Properties is a full service waterfront lodge and coastal real estate company specializing in vacation rentals, coastal homes, and farm and ranch properties.

Port O'Connor Seadrift

MID-COAST BAYS With the Grays

Captain Gary Gray is a full time guide, born and raised in Seadrift. He has been guiding the Seadrift/Port O’Connor region since 1986. Gary specializes in year ‘round wade fishing for speckled trout and redfish with artificial lures.

Telephone 361-785-6708

Email bayrats@tisd.net Website www.bayrat.com Facebook @captsgaryandshelliegray

Well, here’s another case of “careful what you wish for.” I have been complaining to my clients and anyone who would listen that we need some colder, more winter-like weather. So, here I sit writing my February article during a screaming norther that dropped the temperature from yesterday’s balmy 70° to a crisp 33° this morning. With the wind howling 25 mph it makes me very happy to be sitting inside my warm house with a fire blazing, and not out on the bay.

I would consider this the first arctic front of this winter. Sure, we had some earlier fronts that brought in cooler weather but nothing that lasted more than a couple of days. This arctic blast will be with us for the next six to seven days. That being said we will talk about areas that you need to target on these frigid days.

There are a lot of scenarios to consider this time of year when these fronts arrive to the Texas middle coast. First and foremost will be the water levels. Tides will drop dramatically, so much so that places you were running your boat two days earlier will now be nearly void of water. Reminds me of a time I was fishing a shallow backwater area before an approaching front and the front hit while we were in this small area. The wind blew in with such force that it left my Shallowsport sitting on bottom until the wind slowed and allowed water to funnel its way back in. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Just thankful we weren’t in an open water area, which likely would have become a dangerous situation. Anyway, back to the colder temps. During these colder times we will be fishing deeper areas until the sun warms the water on the flats. The areas we will target are usually the drains that feed the backwaters of Matagorda Island, such as the drain that feeds the east end of Pringle

Lake or the old entrance channel to Contee Lake, to name a few. They are not exceptionally deep but they provide enough of a thermocline that it will make the difference between life and death for the redfish and trout we are seeking. Not to mention all of the mullet and other baitfish from the areas also know where these deeper areas are and will be staying snug and warm with the same predators that will be feeding on them as soon as they feel like eating. It’s not uncommon to foul-hook mullet while fishing these deeper areas during drops in the temperatures, which just lets you know you are in the right spot.

There are other areas that will produce during the coldest of days – the Army Hole near Port O’Connor, the Refuge Harbor in Port Lavaca and, of course, the Victoria Barge Canal. The Barge Canal can be great during a howling norther as it has high bluff banks that will protect you from stiff northerly winds. The preferred method in the Barge Canal is to either drift or troll while throwing soft plastics such as the 4” Saltwater Assassins Sea Shad in darker colors – Morning Glory or Magic Grass. We typically rig these on anything from 1/8 to 1/4-ounce Assassin jigheads.

If there was one thing that I would strongly advise to improve your wintertime fish catching, it would be to spool your reel with braided fishing line, now. I switched to braid some years ago and will never go back. It took a lot of trial and error and reel set-ups, but man, what a difference it makes when chasing the light pickup of a frigid trout. I settled on the Fins Wind Tamer Pitch Black braid in 30-pound test. The great thing about the Pitch Black is that it doesn’t fade, ever. It stands up to the everyday rigors of fishing around oyster shell and other underwater hazards. The 30-pound Pitch Black paired with my Lew’s CL1SH on my Waterloo HP Lite rod are a hard combination to beat any day of the year.

In closing I would like to remind everyone that TPWD may enact fishing closures in certain areas when temperatures dip below freezing for extended periods. You can check their website to discover where these closures will be enacted to insure you are not unintentionally breaking the law. This was put in to affect to protect species from overharvesting while they are vulnerable and trying to survive the cold water temps.

Fish hard, fish smart!

Trout action on mid-bay reefs can get pretty hot between cold fronts.

Doug fights a shoreline redfish on a chilly but sunny afternoon.

Upper Laguna/ Baffin

David Rowsey has 30 years in Baffin and Upper Laguna Madre; trophy trout with artificial lures is his specialty. David has a great passion for conservation and encourages catch and release of trophy fish.

Telephone 361-960-0340 Website www.DavidRowsey.com Email david.rowsey@yahoo.com

@captdavidrowsey

HOOKED UP WITH Rowsey

I’ve been back in full swing of things since after Christmas following my fall hunting hiatus and I think I have my head right now...no longer daydreaming of hanging from a tree with a bow in my hand. Blessings! I have many!

Anyone with even the tiniest amount of salt in their veins knows February is among the upper echelon of trophy trout months. Fishing during February has been discussed, written about, and fought over since I came into the game in the 1980s. I don’t know if every story you’ve heard is true, but most include some real-life experience and likely grew from there. One thing rings true, though, trout are big and fat right now and they gather in places where comfortable wades can be made and the potential for a “best day ever” is not only within reach, it’s quite possible to achieve.

Throughout the 90s and up to about 2010, the numbers of large trout we caught on a daily basis was something I that would likely get me accused of being a liar. But, if you’re age 50 or older, you might have seen it firsthand and can vouch for me.

As luck would have it, I was in my mid-20s and had a day job that allowed tons of evening and/or morning fishing. My little Mowdy scooter or Majek 20V was a big part of the landscape on any given day of the year, but especially during the winter and spring months. Seeing the same few boats over and over again was routine. I rarely knew who was behind the wheel but, like me, they were out there a lot. Over time I would eventually get to know them through chance meetings at a gas station or loading the boat in the dark at C&W Marina in Flour Bluff. A couple of my favorites have passed now, Capt Doug Bird and Capt Johnny Mendleski. Those guys left a great legacy and example on these waters and one that I hope I personify while floating my Haynie along behind me on a long wade. In full disclosure, it’s not always easy to keep your composure with some of the shenanigans and selfish behavior that takes place by lots of folks that ought to know better, and a few that just have no clue. This leads me into my next point about what you may expect over the next couple of months as the pattern will not change all that much. As previously mentioned, the big trout are in water that we

are comfortable in, meaning relatively shallow. In a perfect world we would be able to access these fish quietly and have the joy of catching them for months but, realistically, we now have to contend with the human element and its effect on fish movements.

Yep, I sound like a broken record on this subject; but facts are facts. As long as we have guys running miles and miles of shorelines and flats in hopes of spotting fish, although it is super rare to catch big, smart fish immediately after skipping a prop across their nose, those waters are ruined for every other angler trying to make a productive wade or drift. Contending with Mother Nature and having a rough day is one thing, but this manmade spoilage by a few that want instant results without putting in the effort to pattern fish while not taking others utilizing the same water into consideration, is just about the most selfish thing I witness out here.

And you guessed it; if you aren’t getting that bite early on your first shoreline wade, you better be planning on getting a lot deeper to catch them after the “bay angels” come flying by, ten feet above the water in their lofty perches. I promise you, that’s where they have been run off to – deeper, safer water. I mean, seriously, how many times would someone have to run a buzzsaw over your ear before you said, “I’m out of here?”

If all of that came off as being negative, it was not my goal. My point is simply that you have to be aware of every condition around you to be successful out here nowadays. With tournament season in full swing this month and several months coming, this type of behavior will unfortunately be prevalent. You are going to have to be realistic and adapt to be successful. Remember the buffalo! -Capt David Rowsey

I sometimes get to catch a big one like this 8.5-pounder walking behind the clients. Trout like this becoming more routine is very encouraging. Bass Assassin 5” Alewife – Released!

Bulkhead & Seawall Repair

Port Mansfield

Captain Wayne Davis has been fishing the Lower Laguna-Port Mansfield for over 20 years. He specializes in wade fishing with lures.

Telephone 210-287-3877

Email captwayne@kwigglers.com

WAYNE’S Mansfield Report

Greetings from Port Mansfield! Hoping everyone enjoyed a splendid Holiday season. What a joy to be able to spend the Holidays in such a wonderful place as Port Mansfield, one of the best fisheries left in the entire world. With that said, let us pray the landscape of Port does not change too drastically and we can balance growth with conserving the resources the LLM provides. February, which many of you already know, is prime time for trophy trout and I am confident there will be some personal-best fish coming to hand for some lucky anglers this month. As of this writing our water temp has only dipped to the mid-50s a couple of times and then rebounded quickly. Not exactly what I like to see this time of year but at least a glimpse of what is out there. When we witnessed these brief declines in water temperature the fish responded right on queue. Trout (and reds) have packed on weight appropriate to the seasonal conditions. That said, if the water stays cold enough for long enough, the fish will gradually keep adding weight. Wintry weather is key this time of year and how it relates to fish being their heaviest. In addition to what could be termed “cold weather weight gain” females will soon become even heavier with developing roe beginning mid-tolate March and continuing into April.

Water levels should be lower than the year-round normal and despite having miles of shallow flats there are still opportunities within those flats. There are low-lying bottom contours within the flats that hold these big fish, both during the cold snaps (so long as it’s not critically cold) and warming trends. Some of these areas within the flats might be as small as a big pothole while other areas could be one hundred yards or more in circumference. Most of these can be located relatively close to deeper drop-offs or even the ICW. These areas are key when targeting big fish.

Wes Sadler got into the reds with a

are in a holding pattern and will begin to dissect the zone thoroughly because the fish are not feeding actively. If the Wig-A-Lo is not getting the love it deserves I will switch to a Ball Tail Shad or a Darter suspending hardbait. Each bite will tell me what mood the fish are in. If I start getting hard thumps on plastics or suspending baits I will often switch back to a topwater. This usually occurs when the water temperatures are on the rise.

As I noted above, the big fish bite can often be very light, which emphasizes having gear that is sensitive enough to detect it, while also having the power and backbone to get a solid hookset and manage heavy fish. The G2 Green Rod by Fishing Tackle Unlimited is hard to beat in this situation. These rods are also reasonably priced for just about any budget. Aside from the G2, the original Green Rod is still a workhorse that provides exceptional quality with an even friendlier price point. You also need a superior quality braided line such as American Fishing Wire’s Quatro, topped with a fluorocarbon leader. I am still a huge fan of Shimano reels but there are certainly some other excellent tools available in today’s market.

Wrapping up, I would like to remind everyone the Houston Fishing Show will be held February 12-16 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. I hope you can find some time to swing by the FTU booth where I know we will have the G2 rods available. I also encourage that you check out the Mansfield Knockers and KWigglers there under the big FTU tent. Most of their Pro Team should be present, which makes it a perfect time to renew acquaintances, ask questions, and grab a few essential items at show discount prices.

Until next time… Remember fresh is better than frozen.

I have mentioned in the past parking my boat and not cranking the motor until time to come home. This would likely be when working such areas. You see, fish will either be holding there or transitioning in or out depending on the temperatures. I believe it possible to catch them coming, going, or even holding within these smaller but deeper zones.

If I’m confident fish are present and the water temperature is 63° or warmer, I’ll try to get them on a topwater. If that doesn’t work, I will slowly roll a Wig-A-Lo on a 1/16 or 3/32-ounce jig through the zone. If the bite is a “slight tick” but the fish are heavy, I assume they

Eric Rabinowitz shows off a recent personal-best trout he tricked with a Mansfield Knocker topwater.

View The Video

Open Camera and hover over QR Code. When link appears at top of screen tap to open in YouTube.

Mansfield Knocker!

Arroyo Colorado to Port Isabel

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

SOUTH PADRE Fishing Scene

A target area is a specific region or location identified for a particular purpose or action. One of the primary purposes of fishing is to catch fish, and the areas we target are locations we think will hold fish. They do not always have fish, but when we guess right, it’s always a blast to experience tight lines, especially in the middle of winter.

Some say February is a “killer” month, referring to its reputation for producing trophy trout. Unfortunately, that name would also apply to February’s history of below-freezing temperatures and significant fish kills. Let’s hope this is not the case this year as our trout fishery is making great strides in recovery since the last one in February 2021.

Water temperatures will fluctuate more widely during February than any month of the year, which means fish movements and feeding habits can also vary widely. The colder the water gets, the more these fish will travel to locate more comfortable conditions. So far it’s been a mild winter but that can change overnight with a blast of arctic weather.

If and when a cold blast arrives, fish metabolism will slow down and they’ll hunker near bottom, even in relatively shallow water, and especially on high-pressure days. Mud puffs or mud boils will be common this month. Seeing a mud boil pattern in the areas you are fishing will tell you three things. You must work your bait slower – the bite will be a slight tap – and they will not travel far to eat it.

Referring to the beginning of this article, what and where are the most likely target areas this month? For one, a temperature gauge can be an invaluable tool. Once you find fish, check the water temperature and work other areas of similar temperature. Pay attention to bottom ledges whether slight or significant when wading, and also your depth finder when drifting. Think of water depth as a blanket; deeper is warmer. And by the same token, shallow water warms quicker when the sun pops out. Another thing to consider is that water adjacent to a land mass will often be warmer than open water.

Redfish are hardier than trout and thus more tolerant of colder water temperatures, albeit a bit lethargic at times. Present your lures a bit slower and lower than normal and expect the bite to be light. Study Google Maps and find areas near the ICW with grass beds and potholes. A depth of two to three feet is all they need to hold and feed, and then bail off into the ICW’s depths when the weather worsens. Redfish have a tendency to bunch up this time of year; hooking one may bring another and another.

I increase the weight of my jigheads this time of year. Instead of my usual 1/8-ounce I switch to a 1/4 or even 3/8-ounce at times. The ZMan Texas Eye jighead is a perfect setup because your bait can be worked slowly near the bottom without getting hung up. A bigger presentation with a paddle tail, like the Diezel Minnowz or a Paddlerz, seems to work well during windier, off-color water conditions.

If I could pick only one month for targeting trophy trout it would be February. Trout are less tolerant of colder water temps than redfish, so they tend to move further to find sustainable water temperatures. Cold snaps can send them to the deepest water. During warming periods between fronts they can be found in abundance in thigh-to waist-deep water, usually in areas with lots of potholes.

Typically, where you find one big trout, you can almost bet there will be more. However, the pursuit of trophy trout is never easy. They are extremely wary creatures and very aware of their surroundings, plus they do not feed as frequently as smaller trout. Still, landing a 30-plus trophy fish is what drives us and the reward is definitely worth the effort. Just ask any of the few anglers who have accomplished it. Here’s hoping 2025 is your year!

Our snook have headed deep, and as far as numbers I would say we are enjoying as good a year as I can remember. Lots of small to keepersize snook can be caught if you catch the right tide. Oversized snook have been few and far between but the bigger ones will become more predictable as water temps continue to decline.

Pay close attention to the weather forecast. Every year boaters get into trouble by ignoring approaching frontal systems. Dress warm; you can always remove a layer if it gets warm. Use extra caution navigating lower than normal tides.

View The Video Open Camera and hover over QR Code. When link appears at top of screen tap to open in YouTube.

Richard Garza’s wish came true when he landed this winter snook.

I just had to share this; my lifetimebest fish, Ascension Bay – Mexico.

FISHING REPORTS AND FORECASTS from Big Lake to Boca Chica

Trinity Bay - East Bay - Galveston Bay | James Plaag

Silver King Adventures - silverkingadventures.com - 409.935.7242

James loves fishing in February, because he recognizes the stability of the available patterns in the Galveston Bay area. “This month, the wading is much better on average than it is in January. In January, wading is productive only in a few limited conditions. But by this month, wading is much more consistent. In West Bay, the wading is usually really good in the coves and along stretches of the south shoreline when warm temperatures linger for at least two or three days once a cold snap turns the corner and southeast winds start to blow. When the incoming tide floods back into the shallows, the mullet are usually numerous, and catching fish can be easy in the afternoons on hardbaits and topwaters. If and when the weather is colder, the fish basically move out into the middle for a while, and catching them requires getting into the boat. In depths of about four to seven feet, we target our fish by making long drifts through water that isn’t super clear, with at least some muddy streaks. The bites usually happen close to the bottom, in places with some scattered shell. We mostly throw soft plastics like Assassin Sea Shads out there.”

Jimmy West | Bolivar Guide Service - 409.996.3054

Jim was headed home from a fishing trip when he gave this report. “We got a big push of freshwater into the upper reaches of the Galveston Bay system. Until today, the fishing has been great in the bayous and marshes up the rivers. This small flood event will push the fish out of there, but it won’t flood the bay itself, so fishing should remain steady in these areas. We’ve been catching lots of reds and easy limits of keeper trout, but no big trout. The fishing has also been good at times on the Bolivar Peninsula. Over there, we’ve had good luck targeting our fish in small ponds and lakes near where the bayous drain into the main bay. In February, this is often a great pattern in that area. When strong north winds dump warm water out of the backwater areas and into the main bay, the trout and reds often stack up and feed in the current, while it’s rolling. Then, we’ll have a tougher time catching for a day or so, until the weather warms back up and the tide level starts to rise, then we can catch ‘em pretty good again wading shorelines with twitchbaits and topwaters.”

West Galveston - Bastrop - Christmas - Chocolate Bays

Randall Groves | Groves Guide Service

979.849.7019 - 979.864.9323

Randall rates February as his favorite month for chasing big trout in the area around San Luis Pass. “This is a month to tie on some Paul Brown Lures and target big trout in places with a muddy bottom and some scattered shell. They like to feed on mullet, so we primarily look for them in the places where we choose to stand and grind for a few big bites. Another key to locating good spots to try is finding some birds in the area. Both species of cormorants, both species of pelicans and red-breasted mergansers all tend to show up in places where the big trout lurk. On the warmest days, when we see lots of mullet herding up on the surface and/or actually jumping, we catch better on full-sized topwaters like Skitter Walks. On the coldest days, the fish often retreat to the deeper water in the channels and bayous, or into the basin of West Bay. On those days, we do best throwing Norton Sand Eel Juniors rigged on 3/8-ounce Norton SpringLock jigheads. The best color depends on water clarity and amount of light in the sky, but my favorites include salty chicken, chicken on a chain and red magic.”

Matagorda Bays | Capt. Glenn Ging - Glenn’s Guide Service 979.479.1460 - www.glennsguideservice.com

February is a great month to target some of Texas’ biggest trout in East Matagorda Bay. Wading works best for most people, but people fishing out of a boat catch their fair share too. The wading is good on both sides of the bay at times. Generally, the action is better on the south shoreline and in the coves when the weather’s fairly warm, and tides are high. Lower tides and colder water favor the other side. Muddy flats and patch reefs close to the ICW produce some big fish during the cold snaps. Waders normally throw topwaters and slow-sinking twitchbaits when they’re after a big trout, sometimes soft plastics on light jigheads. It is also possible to wade on some of the main reefs in the middle of the bay, and areas around those will produce some big trout for folks fishing out of a boat and throwing soft plastics on jigheads heavy enough to keep the lures in close contact with the bottom. When tides fall way out, the fishing out in the middle is usually better than on the shorelines. Super low tides enhance fishing for reds on the south shoreline of West Matagorda Bay too.

Palacios | Capt. Aaron Wollam www.palaciosguideservice.com - 979.240.8204

Winter fishing remains steady in the Palacios area. Trout fishing remains solid in the harbor when temperatures drop. These same conditions favor fishing at the deep hole at the end of the ship channel. Down South Lures in blue moon and magic grass rigged on quarter-ounce jigheads have produced best for keeper trout. The seawall has been a pleasant surprise so far this winter for some solid trout and reds. Over there, on incoming tides and low winds on warm winter afternoons, we’ve found fish crushing Paul Brown Fat Boys and MirrOlure Soft-Dines in clear with speckled glitter. The redfish have been pretty thick in the creeks, bayous and back-lakes, and have been feeding heavily on grass shrimp and small crabs. Gold spoons and pumpkin/chartreuse Bull Minnows have been best lures for them. Another good surprise this winter has been the number of flounder left in the bays. Lots of solid keepers have been caught by folks chasing reds in the backwaters. Sheepshead fishing in the harbor has also been good this winter. Small pieces of dead shrimp rigged on J-hooks jigged along the barnacleencrusted poles in the south end of the harbor have accounted for some solid catches of these tasty fish.

Port O’Connor | Lynn Smith

Back Bay Guide Service - 361.935.6833

Lynn mentions some familiar ideas and patterns he intends to work once February arrives. “I like the cold weather partly because it means we don’t have to get up so early to start fishing. Lately, after the cold fronts roll through and winds settle down a bit, the fishing has been better in the afternoons, after the sun heats up the water four or five degrees or even more. The best spots are flats with a mostly muddy bottom and at least a little bit of scattered shell and dark grass. We like to stay close to some deeper water, either a channel or a main part of the bay. On the best days, we are catching some pretty big trout. Mostly, we’re throwing Paul Brown Lures and Soft-Dines. I like the regular Soft-Dines more than the XLs. I work them slow, with a steady turn of the reel and some occasional twitches, to pull the lure up a bit. Then I like to let it settle back down into the water some. These lures

worked this way have produced some really satisfying bites over the years. My favorite color is the chartreuse one with a flashy silver insert.”

Rockport | Blake Muirhead

Gator Trout Guide Service - 361.790.5203 or 361.441.3894

Blake will still be chasing reds in his airboat once February arrives and duck season ends. “We do really well catching reds this time of year in some of the back-lakes and coves where we hunt ducks all winter. Normally, we find them in water about knee to thigh-deep. They favor a muddier bottom when it’s colder, and scatter out more over the rest of the area when it warms up. On the coldest days, they stack up in the holes in the bayous and drains, especially if the tide drops to a really low level. If we have warmer than normal weather this year, I’ll start targeting the trout more often. They’re much like the reds, preferring areas with a muddy bottom and some shell when it’s cold. If we have prolonged stretches of warm weather, we start to catch ‘em better in areas with hard sand and grass on the bottom. The trout fishing can be great around some of the reefs this time of year too. And, I always have my eyes on the surf. Not too many people head out there this time of year to wade, but I won’t hesitate to do it if the conditions get right.”

Upper Laguna Madre - Baffin Bay

Captain James Sanchez Guide Service - 210.260.7454

In February, strong cold fronts can bring some of the coldest temperatures of winter, causing both air and water temperatures to drop significantly. This month, fishing late in the afternoon through the evening can yield great results. On colder days, I recommend targeting trout by wading along the edges of drop-offs in waist to belly-deep water. Effective lures include the KWigglers Ball Tail Shads rigged on eighth-ounce jigheads, Mansfield Knockers, Soft-Dine XLs or Fat Boys. During warmer post-front conditions, trout and redfish become more active, feeding on flats, along shorelines and around spoil islands with seagrass and scattered potholes. Good lure options for shallow water include the KWigglers Willow Tail Shads and Wig-A-Los, both rigged on 3/32-ounce jigheads. Surface action may be slow at times, but when the fish are active, I recommend using the Mansfield Knockers or Paul Brown Floating Fat Boys. When seeking a potential trophy fish, making short, methodical, targeted wades in a small area is the preferred method. If we catch good fish, see active baitfish still present, and we have an approaching predicted major or minor feeding period, we often repeat the wade. In these situations, stealth is one of the keys to success.

Corpus Christi & Baffin Bay

Capt. Chris Elliott’s Guide Service captchriselliott@yahoo.com - 361.834.7262

The calendar says it’s winter, but the conditions many days lately have felt more like fall here in Baffin Bay, and the fish have remained mostly in fall-like patterns. We’re still seeing plenty of bait in lots of places, including shrimp and pinfish that should have migrated out by now. As we get farther into January and February, we’ll expect the cold fronts to be stronger and arrive more consistently. When and if water temperatures drop and stay low, the fish should start holding along drop-offs and around the rocks in Baffin. We’ll definitely want to be on the water the day before these cold fronts hit, and then again a few days after the winds behind the front fizzle, when temperatures start to rebound. Big lures like Paul Brown Lures, larger topwaters and full-sized soft plastics like a KWigglers Ball Tail will be effective from now until sometime in the spring. We’ll target our fish on flats with quick access to deeper water, always putting a priority on finding active bait. We’ll look for any signs of mullet in the areas we target, knowing at times, a single mullet flipping can be enough reason to stop the boat and investigate.

P.I.N.S. Fishing Forecast | Eric Ozolins 361.877.3583 - Oceanepics.com As we head into the middle of winter, we’ll likely have a lot of fog on the beaches. Anyone driving the beaches should be careful and alert for other camps. This time of year, pristine days with good water conditions are favorable for pompano. Traditional Fish-Bites or peeled shrimp will be the ticket to catching them. Red drum will be around, but expect to see more slot-sized fish showing up. Casting shrimp, mullet or cut whiting will work well on most large reds. Trout fishing can be hit or miss, but any that are available in the surf will likely be large and healthy. Black drum, both slot and oversized, will also be in the surf. Shrimp or Fish-Bites will also work well for this species. Up to this point, lots of blacktip sharks have been in the surf. With temperatures finally cooling down, expect large sandbar sharks to take over and become abundant. Sandbars are suckers for a large, whole whiting or sheepshead. If the water is warm, we might see a short run of small/medium-sized bull sharks. Structures or wrecks in the surf will hold a variety of fish that can be caught on both bait and lures.

Port Mansfield, Texas | Ruben Garza Snookdudecharters.com - 832.385.1431

Getaway Adventures Lodge - 956.944.4000

Fronts have been coming in with more regularity lately, so trying to figure what areas to fish can be difficult. Those headed south should look at the Saucer; it can be a good place to look for fish. The number one key, especially this time of year, is bait. Bait activity can be minimal when the water is cold, so even scant signs of life can make a huge difference. Even single jumping mullet can lead to the motherlode. Early in the mornings, starting shallow, around the grass and sand break makes good sense. Eventually, moving toward the west, closer to the cabins, is a better bet. West Bay is another spot worth trying south of town, especially in mid-thigh depths, around potholes. Folks headed north should check areas like Century Point, on up to the Big Oak Mottes. Also, the shorelines both south and north of the opening to Little Bay are often be good in February. This time of year, starting with a Mansfield Knocker in colors like Bone Daddy, Ruby Tuesday and Zombie is a solid plan. As for plastics, KWigglers Ball Tails and the Wiga-Lo in natural colors work well.

Lower Laguna Madre - South Padre - Port Isabel

Aaron Cisneros | tightlinescharters.com - 956.639.1941

With winter fishing now in full swing, the tide levels in the Lower Laguna Madre have receded, making for some great fishing on average, at least for those who know how to target fish in the right places. The trout bite has been good most days; we’re finding most of our keeper trout in three to four feet of water. Best fishing has been on flats riddled with big sand pockets close to the ICW. We’re throwing four-inch ZMan Big BallerZ in redbone rigged on Eye-Strike Trout-Eye quarter-ounce jigheads. On colder days, our favored retrieve is slow, with an occasional light twitch to jump the lure slightly off the bottom, in and around the potholes. The redfish bite has been healthy; we’re finding most of our reds scavenging on the bottom on shallow, muddy flats or shorelines covered with two or three feet of water. Four-inch ZMan Big BallerZ in plum/chartreuse rigged on Eye-Strike, eighth-ounce Trout-Eye jigheads have been most productive. We’re working them slow and in close contact with the bottom on most days. As colder weather approaches, locating bait will become a bigger factor in the catching. Finding even small concentrations of bait in cold water is key to locating predators.

Jerry Rodriguez Port Mansfield - 26” pb red!

Preston Mace

Laguna Madre - 56.4 lb 54.5” Record Red!

Ryan Ramsey South Padre - 7.92 lb 25.25”flounder

Ratha Lelek 19 lb 35” black drum

John Bolinger Laguna Madre - first red!

Mason Stueber West Matagorda - first red!

Ozzy Rodriguez 43” personal best snook! CPR

Ines Moquete East Matagorda Bay - trout

Anthony Giorno Lower Laguna Madre - Texas Slam w/pb trout

Photo Gallery Guidelines

First come – first published! Photos are judged on artistic merit and sporting ethic displayed. No stringer, cleaning table, or hanging board images allowed. Digital images only. Adjust camera to high or best quality. All images become property of TSFMag. Email to: Photos@TSFMag.com Include short description of your catch with name, date, bay system, etc.

Hayes Ledger Little Bay - snook

Annie Mae Olinick Redfish Bay - 22” first redfish!

Wladimir Moquete East Matagorda Bay - first alligator gar!

Julian Lerma Galveston - 27.5”redfish

Jr Gonzlaez trout

Angie Reynolds Lavaca Bay - 26.5” redfish

Amy Bolton Galveston Bay - 28” redfish

Jessica Jones Lavaca Bay - 24” redfish

Got ideas, hints or recipes you’d like to share? Email them to pam@tsfmag.com or send by fax: 361 792-4530

Gulf Coast

Shrimp & Crawfish Bisque

This wonderful recipe comes from Debbie Ulrich and was featured during the cooking presentations at the Port O’Connor Boat Show and Fishing Expo this past October. I have personally prepared more than a few seafood bisques and this one is tops in my opinion. Many thanks to Debbie for sharing. -Pam Johnson

4 tbsp butter 2 medium onions – chopped 4 cloves garlic – minced

2 medium carrots – chopped

2 stalks celery - finely chopped

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

3 tbsp tomato paste

4 cups shrimp stock (see note)

1 cup white wine

1 bay leaf

1 ½ cups heavy cream

1 lb. fresh shrimp – peeled and deveined

1 lb. crawfish tails

homemade croutons and fresh parsley for garnish

PREPARATION

Melt butter in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion, celery and carrots cooking until softened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and smoked paprika. Stir in minced garlic and tomato paste, cooking until the garlic is fragrant, and vegetables are well-coated, about 2 minutes.

Gradually add the shrimp stock, white wine, and bay leaf. Reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, allowing the liquid to reduce and the flavors to blend, stirring occasionally.

Remove the bay leaf. Use an immersion blender to puree’ the soup until smooth. Alternatively, carefully transfer the soup in batches to a blender, blend until smooth, and then return to the pot.

Return the pot to medium-low heat. Stir in the heavy cream and the shrimp, cooking until shrimp turns pink. Add the crawfish tails and heat until just warmed through, about 5 minutes.

Ladle the bisque into bowls. Garnish with chopped parsley and homemade croutons.

Note: To make 4 cups of shrimp stock. In a medium pot add 5 cups of water, 1 Tbsp Zatarain’s Liquid Concentrated Shrimp and Crab Boil and shells of peeled shrimp. Bring to a boil for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and strain.

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