March 2014

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TIDE PREDICTIONS & SOLUNAR FEED TIMES INSIDE!

ABOUT THE COVER It’s been an old-fashioned winter but March is finally here. Warming Gulf tides put good things in motion.

Redfish will be back on the flats. Get out there and enjoy!

CONTENTS FEATURES 10 Back to Basics 16 The Absolutes & Their Related Tenets 22 Gone but Not Forgotten 28 Bodie’s Maiden voyage 32 Do What You Can When You Can 36 Black Drum Believers

MARCH 2014 VOL 23 NO 11

DEPARTMENTS Mike McBride Kevin Cochran Billy Sandifer Martin Strarup Chuck uzzle Joe Richard

42 Let’s Ask The Pro Jay Watkins 46 Shallow Water Fishing Scott Null 52 TPWD Field Notes Erin Buschfort 54 Texas Nearshore & Offshore Mike Jennings 56 Fly Fishing Scott Sommerlatte 58 Youth Fishing Marcos Garza 62 Kayak Fishing Chronicles Cade Simpson 66 Extreme Kayak Fishing & Sharks...

Eric Ozolins 68 Fishy Facts Stephanie Boyd 72 TSFMag Conservation News CCA Texas 100 Science & the Sea uT Marine Science Institute 102 Boat Maintenance Tips Chris Mapp

32 WHAT OUR GUIDES HAVE TO SAY

78 Dickie Colburn’s Sabine Scene 80 Mickey on Galveston 82 The view from Matagorda 84 Mid-Coast Bays with the Grays 86 Hooked up with Rowsey 88 Capt. Tricia’s Port Mansfield Report 90 South Padre Fishing Scene

Dickie Colburn Mickey Eastman Bink Grimes Shellie Gray David Rowsey Capt. Tricia Ernest Cisneros

90 6 | March 2014

52

REGULARS 08 Editorial 76 New Tackle & Gear 92 Fishing Reports and Forecasts 96 Catch of the Month 98 Gulf Coast Kitchen

98

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HOW TO CONTACT TSFMAG: PHONE: 361-785-3420 FAX: 361-785-2844 MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 429, Seadrift, Texas 77983 PHYSICAL ADDRESS: 58 Fisherman’s Lane, Seadrift, TX 77983 WEB: www.TSFMAG.com PHOTO GALLERY: photos@tsfmag.com PRINTED IN THE uSA. Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine (ISSN 1935-9586) is published monthly by Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine, Inc., 58 Fisherman’s Lane, Seadrift, Texas 77983 l P. O. Box 429, Seadrift, TX 77983 © Copyright 1990 All rights reserved. Positively nothing in this publication may be reprinted or reproduced. *views expressed by Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine contributors do not necessarily express the views of Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine.

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EDITORIAL Our coast stretches nearly 400 miles and includes seven bay systems. We find a river mouth estuary, Sabine Lake, on the north with a hyper-saline lagoon, Laguna Madre, at the south. Each bay possesses ecology as unique as fingerprints; generated by regional climate, average depth, freshwater inflow and inter-tidal connection to the Gulf. Hence, each bay presents its own set of management challenges.

Even though we clearly understand the above, let’s imagine being given the task of formulating a single coast-wide plan to manage Texas’ coastal fisheries—focus on seatrout.

Seatrout, we are told, reproduce and thrive best in moderate average salinity. They’re highly susceptible to predation and often victim of red tide and freeze. Throw in the fact that trout are the number one quarry of inshore anglers—to the tune of 25-30% of an individual year-class taken annually, each year they are eligible for harvest.

So let’s recap. We are responsible for seven very different bays.

We cannot control freshwater inflow or salinity, neither can we stop predation, red tide or freeze. Absent a magic wand there is but one tool in our bag of tricks—harvest limits.

TPWD commissioners are dealt this less-than-glamorous task and are currently proposing to revise middle coast trout limits from ten to five, per day. Though fisheries management regs are (in

8 | March 2014

ONE PLAN FOR ALL BAYS? theory) to be scientifically founded, there is also social science.

There is a growing shift in angler expectation as regards trout fishing and the commission has to consider this when executing their charge of “maximizing the socio-economic benefit that can be derived from the resource, with emphasis on future sustainability.”

What it boils down to is styling regulations to please fishermen without allowing them to endanger the fishery.

The first regional management plan came in 2007 when the commission reduced the trout limit to five in the Lower Laguna and it brought backlash from guides and business owners who likened it to the kiss of death. Alas the opposite came true; business has flourished with an improved fishery.

Need proof? Take a seat at the southern end of the Land Cut during summer and watch the boat races. Guides and private anglers from Corpus running 50 miles to the Lower Laguna, hoping to land bigger fish. They could have fished at home for ten.

I am going to make a prediction. If the commission enacts a five trout limit on the middle coast; guides, private anglers and business owners will be grinning as widely as their southern counterparts. It might take a few years but when Joe Angler hears about better fishing, Joe will come to your bay.

Matt with a long one.

Never be afraid to stop on what you see.

10 | March 2014

STORY BY MIKE MCBRIDE

Someone once said,

“Because things are the way they are, things will never stay the way they are.”

I guess fishing, at least as we know it, helps qualify that theory. We are having a different year down here in the Laguna, and although we are still catching some serious trout, we are just not as cocky as we were last season. What may have been taken for granted before is now taken more seriously. But hey; that can be a good thing.

A little extra challenge should not only help make us better but hopefully more appreciative as well.

Something has changed, so we have been getting back to some of the basics of cold water fishing, something we haven’t had to do much of in a while.

Last year was warm enough that if you believed in the tooth fairy you might have almost believed in Matt Watson. Challenge can global warming. Big fish were make us more appreciative. everywhere, fairly easy to

catch, and the techniques used and areas fished varied little between fall and spring. They basically stayed shallow and hit topwaters the whole time. It’s still fun to believe in the tooth fairy, but we might need to start sticking our teeth under some different pillows for now.

The bigger fish have just not been in the same areas.

One can only guess; that besides having a real winter, last summer’s drought and lingering red tide may also have altered some patterns.

Whatever the reason, it has been back to the trenches for best results.

Winter basics can mean a lot of things, mostly it means just doing what many of us have learned before but doing them with more dedication.

It is all about finding isolated pockets of fish rather than relying on broader areas; sweet spots within sweet spots, if you will. It means working norther recoveries in greater depth, literally, staying deeper longer, and TSFMAG.com | 11

Brian Cole figuring out the bite.

just plain staying longer, period. It’s watching those small signs more closely; letting that tell-tale mullet flip or subtle tap on your lure be enough to continue grinding. If the area makes sense and you are seeing some movement and getting a few bites, you are most likely where you need to be for the moment.

If you are confident in the area, having total confidence in what you are throwing is also critical. Stay with it, adjust the retrieve to figure out the bite and do not waste time tying knot after knot looking for a magic lure.

Having said that though, too much confidence isn’t good either, as it can lead to delusional hope.

For example, continuing to throw a topwater when it’s obvious they are not going to come up is about as productive as the air guitar. using all of your timing tools has been very important, making sure you are in the highest probability area when you need to be there.

For example: a bait-filled shallow shoreline near deep water, late in the afternoon (warmest part of the day), that also coincides with a solunar feeding period. Well, I’d be there. We recently did all of these fundamental things and enjoyed the challenge.

Matt Watson and Brian Cole came down right after the big January freeze. They drove all night to get here and brought all of the right stuff including the right techniques — most importantly, they brought the right confidence and determination.

The question was how long would it take for big fish to 12 | March 2014

recover and feed again after being dealt such a brutal blow.

The water temp had dropped to forty degrees. Where would they show up first, and what would it take to catch them?

Day one we chose a deep muddy draw near the ICW, old school stuff we really haven’t had to do much of in several years, the old “low and slow” thing.

It was surrounded by shallow, warming flats with a good path to deeper water. very little life was moving and it was obvious that the watery creatures had been thermo-shocked and bailed to their safe houses. However, a little mullet swirl here and a little tap there gave us the confidence we needed, so we stayed.

Redfish were first to recover and by the end of the day it was hard to stay out of them. We had a few decent trout with Brian sticking two over six pounds. That was all we needed. If the sixes are in there, you can bet fish of a higher class are as well.

It made sense to roll with the same pattern on day two.

Going with what you know is rarely a bad thing.

Conditions had moderated but the water was still upper40s and low-50s. The wind finally switched to the predicted easterly quadrant, which helped the barometer fall, among other things. We hoped the fish we thought were there would become more aggressive.

They were and they did. The slot trout moved in and were fairly easy to catch, but those occasional strong thumps and crushed Corkys suggested there was more. They still identified

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of solid fish as well. We agreed that over the three days we’d caught fourteen trout over twenty-five inches with seven over seven pounds.

Not bad, considering the wintry blast those fish had just came through.

More importantly — many if not most fishermen would never have caught these fish. They either wouldn’t have stayed long enough or they’d have spent too much time changing lures to find the groove.

Spring may take us back to easier fish and we might be able to experiment with all sorts of stuff, but keeping your head down with fundamentals will always apply. For now, just get out there in those trenches and fish like you mean it before something else changes.

(Editor’s Notation: This is rerun presentation of a piece Mike did for TSFMag back in March 2010. Mike’s been very distracted lately, with the passing of his father, and we hope a re-read of this piece will prep you for March’s big trout challenges. We offer our sincere condolences and sympathies as Mike resets his focus.)

Mike McBride

Contact

with the deeper gut but moved higher in the water column as the day wore on. By gradually adjusting presentations higher and faster we started tangling with some better fish. The best ones fed right on the solunar cue. Important to note here; had we left earlier we would have missed them.

I know many still don’t subscribe to the moon playing much of a role, but I can only comment on what we continue to see, barring other factors of course. Like a light switch, each day, the best fish turned on right as the new moon was setting in the afternoons and it lasted about an hour. I caught two over seven, I think Brian had two and Matt stuck one among several others better than twenty-four.

Day three looked awesome in theory, another warming day, and even closer to that mystical new moon. Capt. Tricia joined us and we went back towards where we had been. It ended up being the coolest part of the whole trip, and was also another reminder to be diligent to read nature’s signs while running to “your spot.” Sometimes “what you know” changes unexpectedly.

The wind miraculously died and the water went to glass, and out of nowhere the surface suddenly changed. Before us were literally hundreds of wakes spanning more than a hundred yards. The delicate ripples said they were all trout, not to be confused with bullish wakes made by football-headed redfish.

We quickly bailed out into mostly knee-deep water. The moral here is; “Always maintain a careful watch and never be afraid to stop when you are supposed to.”

Tricia stuck two big ones out a little deeper while Matt threw a Corky up shallow for a fat twenty-five and a long thirty. I had a couple

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

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STORY BY KEVIN COCHRAN

Few absolute truths

exist in the world of lure fishing.

Important principles impact various aspects of the endeavor, but most of them do not meet the definition of an absolute, one which rings forever and always true. I’ve spent considerable effort trying to identify as many absolutes as possible, because I know they provide a conceptual foundation for the sport. Analyzing all the aspects of these truths helps one better understand some of the most profound and basic tenets related to lure fishing.

In ranking the absolutes I’ve identified, I place them in a temporal order, on a time-line of sorts, related to what happens before, during and after a potential fishing trip. For me, this makes the most sense, and facilitates a meaningful discussion of various aspects and ramifications of each of the concepts. While attempting to generate the “best” wording for each of the absolutes, I’ve tried to keep things simple and direct. Although I generally avoid using second-person perspective in my writing, I find it works best in this case.

At the top of the list, as Absolute Number One, I place the following statement: You won’t know if you don’t go. No matter how hard one 16 | March 2014

thinks about what might have been or would have been, one will not truly know how an excursion would have turned out if one does not make it out onto the water. This undeniable, inexorable truth results from the following fact, which essentially restates Absolute Number One: An angler who isn’t fishing will not catch a fish.

Mostly, Absolute Number One relates to the decision of whether the prevailing or predicted weather conditions provide enough hope to justify the expense, trouble and time of making the effort to go. Most anglers check the weather before embarking on a fishing journey, either to decide what area or areas to try, and/or to decide whether to go at all.

On some occasions, when marginal conditions prevail and/or forecasts call for marginal or excessively harsh conditions, anglers decide to go anyway, citing Absolute Number One as a factor. The idea behind this has to do with a correctly perceived notion that difficult conditions can push anglers to adapt their methods and strategies in ways which eventually lead them to grow and improve.

Fishing guides and tournament anglers can generally verify the truth of such a belief, having fished in rough weather out of necessity.

Fish tend to bite better with the moon near the horizon.

Most of them can cite instances when making a sincere and dedicated effort to cope with extreme conditions led them to some significant discovery related to catching fish. Eventually, guides and tournament anglers become better at recognizing which specific variables in a prevailing “conditions puzzle” carry the most importance.

Some situations which appear harsh and destructive to fishing efforts do, in fact, offer ripe opportunity to anglers who know exactly how best to deploy the strategies and methods which not only properly cope with the conditions, but exploit the opportunities they facilitate. In other situations, experts know the situation will likely make fishing a frivolous and fruitless idea.

For beginners and novice anglers, these issues create a kind of dilemma. On the one hand, difficult conditions help forge their skills and potentially accelerate the pace of their learning curves. On the other hand, failing to recognize when conditions offer nearly zero potential for success can lead to frustration, futility and even danger.

In a sense, this dilemma results from a related aspect of Absolute Number One: Anglers with more experience have a better sense of what to do to catch fish in various types of situations. In order to gain

experience, one must roll the dice and make a sincere effort to cope with difficult conditions. Over time, one should become better able to recognize the situations which scream out for staying home and doing something else.

When one does decide to go fishing, Absolute Number Two comes into play. I find it easiest to understand when stated this way: You can’t catch a fish that isn’t there. Using more sophisticated words, it reads like this: An angler cannot catch a fish which swims outside his reach. The undeniable truth of this absolute suggests some other, related facts.

Fish location skills carry more importance than all others. I do not consider the previous statement to be an absolute, because it isn’t always true, but it’s certainly a reliable tenet. Sometimes, people find fish and cannot catch them, because they lack the skills to get the job done. They don’t always realize this, when they can’t verify the presence of the fish. Sometimes, they (we) can see the fish we cannot catch, and we realize in such situations that lure-choice/presentation skills carry more significance than fish-location skills.

Absolute Number Two relates to what I’ll call Absolute Number TSFMAG.com | 17

Mike Fenske’s colorful specimen also bit on the day of the full moon in January.

Two(A): Fish will always be found IN the water.

I realize the absurd simplicity of the previous statement; profoundly true statements, by definition, run the risk of sounding unsophisticated. The facts implied by them do not, necessarily. A prominent tenet related to Absolute Two(A) relates to the relative ease of catching fish in high and low tides.

Low tides can reduce the number of places capable of holding fish. In other words, low tides tend to concentrate fish in some areas, while eliminating others. If all the water drains off a flat, leaving sand exposed, one can clearly discern no fish can be caught on the flat! High tides, on the other hand, create confusion, increasing the number of places suitable for

Cold weather makes big trout more susceptible to the efforts of anglers fishing with artificial lures. This is not an absolute, but it is generally true.

18 | March 2014

fish. If tides rise high enough to cover everything but the tallest sand dunes and spoil islands in the bay, locating fish can feel like searching for Sasquatch in the shadowy forests of the Cascades.

Furthermore, high tides make it impossible to fish some places in some ways, while low tides can make accessing those areas easier. Consequently, I conclude the following: Low tides facilitate catching fish better than high tides. This tenet rings generally true, but certainly does not qualify as an absolute. In some places, higher tides make the fishing better, if only because they make the fishing in those places possible.

Good fishing means good catching. Catching is more fun than fishing. And, bigger fish are more fun to catch than smaller fish. All these things are opinions, not facts. They are, however, widely held opinions. Related to these facts, Absolute Number Three comes into play: A dead fish cannot be caught again.

Caleb McCumber’s 32 inch trout bit during a positive upturn in the weather on the day of the full moon in January, providing evidence for Captain Kev’s love of fishing on days influenced by strong moons.

Catching, carefully handling and releasing fish promotes the health of the fishery. A fish caught and released by one angler can provide joy to another angler if it survives to bite again. Lower limits would mandate the release of more caught fish. So, lower limits facilitate a better fishery by increasing the number of fish available to catch.

In relation specifically to speckled trout, the previous statements bear importance, as do the following ones.

Larger trout produce more and better eggs, so they serve the most important role in sustaining the population of the species. As a result, releasing big trout to live on and spawn again can result in two positive outcomes. For one, it will allow the fish to produce more of its kind (possibly numerous times) and it will allow other people to catch the fish again (possibly numerous times).

Parks and Wildlife’s research suggests reducing the limit on trout by one half would result in twice as

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many trout over twenty fish that isn’t there. A fish frozen in a bag When it’s difficult to lift an entire trout out five inches populating inside someone’s garage is not in the water of the water, it’s a good thing! That’s an the estuaries within a and cannot be targeted by an angler who opinion Matt McCollum would surely agree relatively short span of chooses to go fishing. In conclusion, I with, after handling his first thirty incher. time. For most anglers, offer these thoughts, with my tongue held such an idea seems like firmly against my cheek. a good one. Kill fewer You won’t know if you don’t go. If you do go, you will trout, especially big ones, have to locate some fish in order to catch them. You will and we all have a higher always find your fish IN the water. If you find fish, you have chance of catching more a chance to catch them, though you won’t always be able to big ones when we choose do so. If you catch some trout, you should release some of to go fishing. them to live on and spawn and be caught again. Because Such an idea forms catching is more fun than fishing, and catching big trout is the basis for the “one over more fun than catching dinks! twenty five” law, which allows anglers in Texas to keep and kill just one trout over twenty five inches per day. I’d say we’d be better Kevin Cochran is a full-time fishing guide at Corpus Christi (Padre Island), TX. Kevin off if the state managed is a speckled trout fanatic and has created trout the same way they several books and dvds on the subject. manage redfish, issuing a Kevin’s home waters stretch from Corpus Christi Bay to the Land Cut. trophy tag to allow anglers to kill just one trout over twenty five inches per year, rather than per day.

TROuT TRACKER GuIDE SERvICE That is just my opinion, but the facts suggest changing the law in that Phone 361-688-3714 way would result in more big trout for everyone to catch over time.

Email kevxlr8@mygrande.net Web www.FishBaffinBay.com Absolute Number Three relates closely to Absolute Number www.captainkevblogs.com Two. A dead trout can’t be caught again because you can’t catch a

CONTACT

KEvIN COCHRAN

20 | March 2014

STORY BY Billy Sandifer

I want to address the status of our speckled trout fishery,

Rachel Bray with a nice Black Drum.

currently as well as historically. It would seem appropriate to do so since TPWD is conducting scoping meetings up and down the coast to seek fishermen’s input regarding management options that might result in changes to the regulations concerning this important fishery. Since I am primarily a surf angler I am going to address speckled trout from the perspective of the surf only and leave the bays completely out of the discussion.

Padre Island National Seashore has been renowned for a very long time as having the only winter surf population of speckled trout on the Texas coast. While this fact has been somewhat widely understood for decades only a tiny sector of the general fishing public were sufficiently knowledgeable and dedicated to catch them with any regularity. I referred to these anglers as the “the clan” and they all knew each other and they were extremely tight-lipped and secretive about their activities. I was the first newcomer they’d let into their circle in many years. Mr. Ralph Wade pretty much sponsored me into the group some thirty years ago.

The clan’s bait of choice was the 51M MirrOlure twitchbait and catching winter specks on PINS was a rather complex and detail-oriented endeavor. If shark fishing requires the brawn, then winter trout fishing requires the brains. Seven or eight fish in 23-to-26 inch-class would be the results of an average good outing back in the day, although I have caught over eighty in a single day that averaged three and a half pounds. One season I caught sixteen trout that weighed over eight pounds.

Chasing these trout during winter became my favorite thing to do and I intentionally didn’t try to get many winter trout charters so as to avoid publicizing this fishery. Finally our Caller-Times outdoor writer blackmailed me into doing a couple of articles about it with him and some tried their hand at it, but gave up rather quickly as you really had to know how to catch them to be successful.

Then coinciding with the widespread use of live croakers as summertime bait for trout fishing in area bays, our trout numbers in the winter surf began to drop dramatically. Each year there were less than in previous years and starting in 2010 there were no longer enough trout in the surf to justify fishing for them.

Experienced anglers well-versed in the how-to of winter surf trout tactics during near-perfect TSFMAG.com | 23

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conditions began to yield only one or two bumps during a long day of grinding. It wasn’t long before getting totally skunked became the norm. Even still we retained an excellent June and July topwater bite.

Fishing with croaker in the summer surf was unheard of until the mid-90s but as soon as the efficiency of the method was advertised it showed up in full force. Since then the numbers of summer trout has also dropped notably.

People have the right to fish with croakers or any other bait they may choose but we have to do something to protect the resource from us or I fear the fishery will disappear. It’s already happened in the surf and if we don’t make some type of rules to protect the fishery we will likewise lose it elsewhere.

Although I know they are no longer there I can’t help fishing for surf trout several times each winter. I miss them that much. It’s happened to me; now let’s take steps to insure it doesn’t happen to you.

On another subject - there is still lots of speculation going around concerning the future of the 3,860 acres of land between the Padre Isles housing area and the National Seashore. There are federal guidelines in place about what can and can’t be done with that property and apparently it can not be legally developed. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all ends up. A very disturbing find on this land recently was the skinned and mutilated bodies of over 40 coyotes including pups. A subsequent search resulted in a steel-jawed trap being located on public property near Newport Pass. At this time Friends of Padre is looking into offering a reward for information leading to an arrest for these illegal

675 ultimate bay Really cool shot of two pelicans. Courtesy of David Sikes, Corpus Christi Caller.

24 | March 2014

and dangerous activities. I’m curious about the real motivation for this as South Texas coyote hides are typically not thick enough for the fur market. I know years ago they would be transported to an area where there was a bounty on coyotes but these are high numbers for that type of activity. I just can’t imagine Padre Island or South Texas without coyotes. I know for years my urban dwelling charter customers were always overjoyed at getting to see a real coyote and in many cases it was the highlight of their trip. The coyotes have lived out there for thousands of years and it is us that are encroaching into their homeland; not them encroaching into ours.

In future articles I want to start addressing the most commonly sought and caught fish in the PINS surf individually and the whiting will be my first installment.

Day in and day out the most common fish from an anglers perspective is the whiting. There are three species of whiting and those most commonly encountered in the surf are the Gulf and the Southern Whiting. The Gulf species is silver with a black tip at the top of its tail. The Southern is mottled in color with small teeth; it is fatter and seems the most aggressive. Both are present year round in the surf but winter and spring produces the largest specimens. The Gulf whiting is almost entirely a crustacean feeder while the Southern feeds on fish as well.

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Gulf Whiting, most common species caught on PINS. Courtesy of Jeff Wolda.

The state record Southern whiting was 22” long and weighed 3.62 pounds while the record Gulf is 2.38 pounds and was 19.8” long.

Typically both species are fished on bottom using double drop leaders, sinkers and dead shrimp and or Fishbites. Actually both species are quick to strike small Kastmaster or Mr. Champ spoons and on lighttackle provide fine sport. The lowly whiting is looked down upon by many surf fishermen but not by those seeking a tasty mess of fried fish. I had numerous customers who preferred whiting over any other species for table fare.

These pan fish of the surf can be quite illusive and that’s not surprising as everything out there eats them. When targeting whiting I always have everyone cast as far out as possible but if they don’t get a strike shortly I have them pull the rig in about six feet and continue doing that till they get a strike or their leader is at the water’s edge. It’s simple enough; there’s no way of knowing how far offshore they are until you catch some. When sharks and other predators are thick the whiting often come into the shallow white water quite near to shore to hide from them.

• • • • •

Towers Platforms Sound Systems Power Poles Trolling Motors

• • • • •

Seating Coolers Livewells Color Schemes Electronics

Whiting are the best barometer I know of for predicting what kind of a day you are going to have because if you can’t catch a whiting on shrimp and Fishbites you’re not going to catch anything else either; except maybe hardheads. 2/0 wide gap hooks are my choice for whiting.

Stop and try all holes and rips as well as in deep guts until you have the fish located. When you catch 15 or 20 whiting in a location and the action abruptly stops it’s time to move because you have either “fished them out” or a shark has moved in and spooked everything out.

Now here’s a common sense tip for you. If three of you stop and cast out and all three immediately catch hardheads, don’t waste your time there. Get back in the truck and relocate.

We peel our shrimp because that’s the way the fish like them. If they wanted them boiled we’d do that as well. Can’t you just picture me wearing a chef’s hat boiling shrimp for bait on a Coleman stove at the 40 mile beach? What a hoot!

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

CONTACT

BILLY SANDIFER

killdeer -Charadrius vociferousA slim, long-tailed, small headed and billed plover of medium size, common throughout North America.

Double black breast bands and reddish orange rump are distinctive. Common in fields and on shorelines.

Nests on open ground. Present year-round in Texas.

Known for “broken wing” display that is used to lure predators away from their nest. Insect feeders.

Jimmy Jackson photos Height: 10.5 inches Wingspan: 23.5 inches

26 | March 2014

Retired after 20+ years of guiding anglers in the Padre surf, Billy Sandifer (“Padre of Padre Island” to friends & admirers) is devoted to conserving the natural wonders of N. Padre Island & teaching all who will heed his lessons to enjoy the beauty of the Padre Island National Seashore responsibly.

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www.billysandifer.com

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STORY BY Martin Strarup

Bodie couldn’t sleep at all.

He was going to splash his new boat in the morning and see how it handled the water. Since his friends had surprised him with it, he had been spending a lot of time down south at some new pastureland that Mr. Connor had leased and it left no time for the boat.

He hadn’t been able to concentrate very well on things that needed to be done as all he could think about was that big shiny rig at his house and the desire to put it in the water and see what it would do was almost overwhelming. But tomorrow was the day.

Bodie finally fell asleep and was up at his usual early hour. He made a pot of strong coffee, fried a few strips of bacon and scrambled some eggs with some fiery salsa and warmed up some tortillas. He wrapped the eggs and bacon up in one of the big burrito size tortillas that Monroe’s wife Sarita kept him well supplied with, poured coffee into a big insulated mug and headed out the door.

He still couldn’t get over how big the boat was and as he walked along the side of it to his truck he felt a shock of excitement surge through him. “Dang if I’m not as excited as a school boy on his first date!”

Bodie said to himself.

He hadn’t called Red or Tommy to let them know that he was taking the boat out. In fact as far as they knew he was still down in the valley taking care of business. It wasn’t that he didn’t want their company; he just didn’t want any distractions while learning the new boat.

Bodie backed the long trailer down the ramp, tied a rope off to a cleat on the pier then backed down far enough for the boat to float off of the trailer. After parking his truck and trailer Bodie almost jogged back to the dock. He untied the bow rope, stepped up onto the raised console and turned the key to start the big outboard.

Bodie didn’t hear the motor start and as he tried to start the already running motor he heard the flywheel grind. A man and his wife who were about to get underway in the next slip chuckled and the man said, “Did the same thing myself the first time I started my new 4-stroke.”

Bodie smiled sheepishly at the man, tipped his hat to the lady and

backed out into the Intracoastal Waterway.

“Now, let’s see what you’ll do pretty lady,” Bodie said out loud.

Easing the throttle forward Bodie was amazed that the boat had no bow rise at all on initial acceleration. Increasing speed to around 40 mph he messed with the jack plate height but quickly lowered the motor back to the position that it was in. “Man I’m going to have to learn to run a boat all over again.” Bodie thought.

Bodie, out of habit, almost throttled back to make a hard turn to port into a small cut as he would have done in his old boat. “No, let’s just see what you can do baby,” Bodie said as he almost turned too sharp, not being used to the smooth hydraulic steering.

The 24’ SVT hugged the water and didn’t slide at all as Bodie made the hard turn. In just a few seconds he was running across the shallow sand bar and into open water. “Now let’s see how you handle some deep water,” Bodie thought to himself.

The southeast wind had picked up a little as the sun started making an appearance but there were no whitecaps yet but Bodie changed the trim just a bit to bring the bow up a little and pushed forward on the throttle. “Good Lord!” Bodie said out loud. “Man some kind of outboard on the back of this thing,” Bodie said with a smile.

Bodie toyed with switches and buttons, he messed with the jack plate and the trim, and realized he had forgotten to turn the GPS on, so he touched the power button on it and watched it light up. “I’m going to have to shut down to learn how to use this one,” Bodie thought. A few minutes later Bodie was idling down to ease up to a shoreline that he wanted to wade.

Bodie chuckled as he lowered the Power Pole to anchor the boat and thought how easy it made anchoring in preparation for wading. As he was scanning the shoreline looking for bait his eyes locked on the big GPS and he started fiddling with it. Thirty minutes later Bodie had the GPS ready to go and knew how to operate it, then started messing with the live well.

After pumping water into the live well and then draining it back TSFMAG.com | 29

know his new toys and there isn’t a better way than doing it on his own with no distractions and Lord knows that Tommy’s a HUGE distraction,” Red told Bodie with a laugh.

Tommy didn’t think it was funny but everyone that heard it laughed too but before Tommy’s feelings could get hurt, everyone offered to buy him a beer.

Bodie told them all how the boat handled and about what each button and switch did. He bragged about the power and speed, he raved about the ride and he told them how a light came on inside every compartment when the lid was opened.

“Well I guess it’s better for Bodie to have the first run by himself but I’m going with him next time and you can’t go Red,” Tommy told Red with a sneer.

Bodie just sighed and ordered the chicken and dumplings, and rolling her eyes, Eloisa brought the three of them a fresh beer.

Martin Strarup

Contact

out through the deck scuppers he was amazed at the efficiency of the system. Just then he heard some mullet get blasted by a toothy critter but ignored it as he was looking at how the LED lights came on when you opened any of the numerous deck hatches. While Bodie wasn’t much on music on the boat, the stereo system was just too cool to not have it playing. He quickly found out that it didn’t take much volume to be too loud, what with all the speakers it had.

It was almost lunch time and Bodie hadn’t made one cast but, he somehow didn’t care. Learning all the bells and whistles of his new boat was more fun than he had had in a long time.

He raised the Power Pole and started the outboard. At the first nudge of the throttle the boat seemed to glide effortlessly and on plane.

Shaking his head he decided to see how it handled a back lake that he liked to fish but that had a very shallow opening. The Transport skipped across the grass and sand into the lake like it was riding on air.

Finally Bodie decided he should be getting back so he could clean the boat and grab some supper, and with that he began a big circle and headed back to the ramp.

Later that evening, walking into Haddon’s, everyone was happy to see him. Red ordered Bodie a beer and Tommy said that he would get the next round. Red asked Bodie when he was going to get his new boat out on the water and Bodie confessed to having already done that.

“You already ran your new boat and didn’t take me?” Tommy whined.

“I did Tommy and don’t think that I didn’t think about you and Red, but I thought I should familiarize myself with the boat all by my lonesome,” Bodie admitted to his friend.

“As it should be Bodie,” Red said. “A man has to be able to get to

Martin Strarup is a lifelong saltwater enthusiast and outdoorsman.

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

Email

Trouthunter@swbell.net

TSFMAG.com | 31

STORY BY CHUCK UZZLE

If you happen to be a

faithful reader of my columns over

the years, you probably already know that I am not a big fan of the obvious. I enjoy putting a little different slant on things when the opportunity presents itself. During winter and early spring, Texas coastal anglers get bombarded with article after article dedicated to chasing and landing trophy trout, it’s that time of the year and it’s certainly expected. The seasonal chase for a fish of a lifetime will be front and center for many fishermen. Many miles will be covered on highways and water in search of that one fish, the one that very well may define one’s angling career.

Anytime you take to the water, especially this time of year, it could happen.

In the blink of an eye you could literally hit the lottery and become a household name in the record book of Texas fishing. Your image plastered all over the web and other media outlets for everyone to critique, condone, or just plain covet. This is the perceived dream for “big trout grinders” and “posers” alike, or is it? There are those few who shun the limelight in favor of the personal satisfaction that comes from not only figuring out the pattern but executing the

32 | March 2014

strategy needed to accomplish the task. These anglers reach an almost mythical status quietly among their peers. They are some of the true heavyweights of our sport and for the most part they go largely unnoticed, and they prefer it that way.

Now on the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Joe Angler.

Joe has no agenda other than feeling a tug on the end of his line. No preconceived notions, couldn’t care less about fame or hype. Joe is simply out there looking for a fish to bite, no matter the species.

For the most part, Joe is an overlooked player, especially by the faction of anglers who believe everybody is out for mega trout.

However, the fact remains that Joe makes up the largest slice of the fishing public by a wide margin.

Don’t believe me? Go to your favorite tackle shop and watch the checkout counter, it will amaze you how much terminal tackle, live bait, dead bait, corks and related products are purchased. Not every customer comes to the checkout lane with an armload of Corkys, Super Spooks, and top-end rods. Joe Angler is not only alive and well, he’s the largest consumer in the marketplace.

On a routine basis most guides, me included, seem to forget that not everyone can just take off on a moment’s notice and go fishing

when all the conditions and factors line up correctly. Most of us take for granted the fact that we have a flexible schedule for the most part and the rest of the world to some degree does not.

The window of opportunity during the winter and early spring months can sometimes be very small and in order to take advantage of that time frame one needs a little flexibility and some luck.

The notion of being able to plan out an exact situation where you are precisely where you want to be when the tides, major feeds, winds, and any other factor is your favor rarely crosses Joe Anglers mind because he may as well be playing the lottery while hoping for all these factors to align on the day he can fish.

So what does Joe do? He goes fishing anyway and makes the very best of his opportunity. This may entail using a variety of techniques, baits, or other gear that some find “beneath them” and possibly even “crude.”

TSFMAG.com | 33

I on the other hand salute the guy who finds a way to get bit, regardless of methods.

While doing fishing seminars I have often said, “I don’t care if I have to throw the phonebook covered in peanut butter and jelly to get a bite. If that’s what it takes to stretch my string, I’m all about it.” I still adhere to that statement and have no problem telling the world about it either.

It’s been said that fishermen fall into one of four distinct categories. First is the one where you just want to catch a fish, any fish, as long it’s a fish. We can all remember how that felt, as a young angler or someone

34 | March 2014

CHuCK uZZLE

CONTACT

new to the sport, it was a thrill to get that connection and it kept you coming back for more.

Second is the one who wants to catch a lot of fish. Perhaps this is you on your first trip with a guide or another angler who is more accomplished than you and was willing to share some time. The opportunity to have one of those really memorable days when it feels like you caught one on every cast, even though you really didn’t.

These are days you will look back on as epic, and highlights in your fishing career.

The third category is largely made of advancing anglers, the ones beginning to focus on big fish, perhaps one for the wall. I know plenty of anglers like this; they often search for years looking for that one defining fish that they feel like will allow them to enter into exclusive company. Texas inshore fishermen worship big speckled trout and one number in particular becomes a career milepost to many—the 30-incher. This is the fabled number that many aspire to reach but, in reality, only a few are fortunate enough to attain.

The last category is an interesting one for sure. You have graduated from just catching a fish to catching numbers of fish and then to catching a big fish. Now you just want to catch fish the way you want to catch them. Take for example the anglers who become hooked on surface plugs. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it at least a hundred times on my boat, “I’d rather catch one on top than ten on soft plastic.” The visual gratification of a fish crashing a floater can be that addicting. Others get hooked on flyfishing or sight-casting in order to get their fix.

To each his own. I’ve always believed no method is more sacred, or even wrong, so long as it is legal.

I guess to sum it all up, and if you’re fair, you pretty much have to concede that as long as a fisherman respects the resource and enjoys their time on the water in an ethical and legal manner, it’s hard to go wrong. A particular style or method may not be your own personal favorite but it’s a choice that we all are fortunate enough to be able to make. The regular guy who goes out and gets lucky on his day off is no different than a guy who can pick and choose the best times using the highest of high-end gear. They both enjoy the sport in their own way and should be respected for doing just that.

Chuck fishes Sabine and Calcasieu Lakes from his home in Orange, TX. His specialties are light tackle and fly fishing for trout, reds, and flounder.

Phone Email Website

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

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STORY BY JOE RICHARD

A sharp circle hook easily hooks into rubbery drum lip, and they’re easily backed out with pliers before releasing the fish. Just don’t set the hook— instead reel fast, and get that rod bent double.

36 | March 2014

Last year i finally

realized black drum are a year-

round fishery in Texas. Not just in February/March, when many anglers target them from shore. Visit Galveston’s Seawolf Park on a Saturday in March, and see if the crowd isn’t slinging big chunks of blue crab, hoping to fight 50-pound drum. For many, it’s the biggest fish they will ever catch, at least from shore, thanks to the drum’s habit of congregating and spawning in deep water within casting distance of dry land. While doing so they have a greedy appetite for blue crab, which they easily crush and swallow.

But a year ‘round fishery? It certainly seems so; Texas’ healthy population of bigger drum have to make a living somewhere, and because they’re protected from harvest, they’re cranking out a great many smaller “puppy” drum that are quite tasty. Drum feed only on shellfish, thus their good taste—at least until they grow bigger and much tougher. Sure, we catch accidental drum at the jetties, in the bays, even Gulf platforms offshore. The odd drum will hit a gold spoon, or even a Rat-L-Trap lure. But if you really target these fish, they can be found. By the daily bag limit of five. Maybe it’s time to target drum, and give trout a break.

Captain Curtiss Cash has been catching black drum during much of the year. He starts out by hammering big drum every spring around Port O’Connor. Medium tackle and blue crabs are the ticket when the big drum bite. You never know, that next fish might surpass the state record of 81 pounds. If you measure one longer than 52 inches you can legally keep it, since it might exceed 81 pounds and be a record. Just be aware that a drum of that size will scarcely be edible, unless you’re marooned on an island and run out of seagull eggs...But if a monster drum hits, you’d better be ready.

It’s nice to catch monster fish in completely sheltered water. Sometimes, Curtiss parks his boat against the shore; it’s the deeper water depth that counts with big drum.

During much of the remainder of the year, Curtiss’ clients sometimes take a break from redfish and trout, and pursue limits of legal 14- to 30inch black drum. He says these drum fight as well on spin gear as redfish for their size, and they’re just as tasty. (Some say better). These smaller drum school deeper than the typical flats scenario for redfish, and may only show a muddy patch of water. If his clients can’t see the fish, he lobs a bait with marker cork into the center of the school, and then everyone gets hooked up. A favorite tool here is the Vudu Shrimp plastic bait; he’s watched black drum rise from the bottom and grab these shrimp. On days when trout and reds are slow, his crew is bowed up over a school of drum, whooping and hollering.

“If you have good, light, 12-pound spin tackle, pitch a plastic shrimp out there about 60 feet,” Curtiss says. If the water is clear and 5-6 feet deep, drum will see the plastic shrimp and rise to the surface, they can see it. They seem to congregate in deeper holes. Scrap fish go after the same bait; you need to pinpoint a drum school and pitch right in there. Vudu shrimp are really good here.”

For several years now Curtiss and another guide have caught limits of tasty puppy drum at the Matagorda jetties, a technique discovered a few years after I guided there. Sure, you can catch redfish and sheepshead

TSFMAG.com | 37

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Two old-timers rest on the Port Aransas jetty during March, while dragging their drum towards the parking lot.

in those rocks, but drum stay deeper, right at the base of the rocks, roaming the sand bottom. At the Sabine jetties, we caught a few puppy drum on gold spoons and Rat-L-Trap lures. There, drum certainly seemed to feed higher in the water column than drum back at the Matagorda jetties.

Targeting oyster reefs is another key for black drum. They’re quite fond of young oysters, crabs and shrimp hiding in an oyster reef, so try these spots when possible. unfortunately, bumping a baited hook through oyster shell is a dicey proposition; it’s easy to snag bottom.

Maybe this is why more drum aren’t caught on the reefs, the tackle toll is too high. Best fish a couple of feet from the reef over mud or sand.

These same reefs are host to pinfish and other bait-stealers during summer, so soaking shrimp gets expensive. Even a half-blue crab can Puppy drum in Galveston Bay. This one was undersized and released, after being caught with live shrimp on a shell pad built around gas platforms.

Happy campers in Port O’Connor. These guys showed up for the March drum run, fishing aboard Capt.

Curtiss Cash’s boat.

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be picked clean of meat during warm weather, when the small critters are prevalent. But not always.

Late last May we fished hard for flounder around commercial docks that had been good the previous year. This time they were mostly gone, fished out. To relieve the boredom, I set out a big spin outfit with half a crab. Maybe a redfish would pick it up; we were in a tournament, after all. The wind was gusting and we were happy to be in protected water. (The jetties were almost submerged in whitecaps). Action finally arrived, in the hulking form of one huge black drum after another.

Three casts in a row I fought them standing up, the boat actually pulled by these fish up against the pilings, the 25-pound line sawed-through.

These fish couldn’t be stopped...Then I spotted a big spool of 40-pound Ande line in the boat, often used as leader. So, I wound 80 feet onto the spin reel and tried again.

A family that catches drum together, stays together. Young Joseph and Ian admire a drum before releasing it. Visible are two big spin outfits that have landed many drum.

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This time I was ready, no more Mr. Nice Guy. I wasn’t leaving the rod in a holder for the next drum to grab the crab and sneak closer to the pilings, where he could make mischief. Soon enough there came a tap-tap and then a ponderous weight. The chemically-sharpened circle hook bit into drum lip and the fight was on. It was “just me and him,” as our fishing mentor Louis Mingle used to say in nearby Port Arthur. The drum and I were confined to only a small patch of water that was piling-free, the water 20 feet deep. I set the drag pretty tight and then jumped around in the boat from seat to seat, kicking the boat away from pilings each time the drum pulled us in there. I palmed the spool for maximum lift, then gave up five or eight feet of

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One of 11 big drum I landed during Memorial Day Weekend. These guys will do anything to wrap their lips around a “cracked” blue crab.

line when the drum made a surge. A difficult five minutes later, a 44-pound drum surfaced and wallowed. A dozen feet of very hard Ande line was ripped and frayed, but somehow held. Drum aren’t the strongest fish in the world, but just try catching one on spin tackle, and not letting him swim more than a dozen feet…it was almost like fighting a ling inside a Gulf platform. Fishing buddy Shmo sat in the back of the boat completely speechless, for once. Anyone hooking that drum and just sitting in the boat, sheepishly reeling, would have had their line cut within seconds by the pilings. Instead I scooped up that beast with the landing net, careful to lift it into the boat with the net handle pointed straight up. Big drum have broken many a landing net, when anglers tried to bail them into the boat.

As always, blue crab was our ticket.

Don’t waste your time targeting big drum without blue crab. I did talk to a snowbird in Port Aransas who in March catches big drum on “sea lice,” which is the nasty-looking mantis shrimp that grows to at least six inches long, but he says other sea critters chewed up the same bait, so it’s not really an exclusive drum bait. Half a blue crab will stay on the hook a long time, and at least in chilly water during February/March, won’t be picked at by 40 | March 2014

Sight-casting black drum in October. Curtiss’ son Fischer caught this keeper from the spotting tower.

small croakers and pinfish.

While the water is still chilly, it’s more efficient to just find a seafood market that carries crabs. Demand live crabs if they have it, and pick out a dozen of the biggest, meanest ones available, if they’re (preferably) alive, and keep them in a cool, damp place before heading to the coast. If April arrives and you’re still after big drum, a couple of baited crab traps set out for a couple of days, in a bayou where storms can’t reach them, can be very useful. By Memorial Day, of course, blue crabs are common. Last year we caught big crabs off the side of our boat, while also hauling in big drum. I landed 11 mongo drum that weekend, and this while often casting jigs for flounder. For two days after the tournament, I fished just up-current of a nearly-exposed oyster reef marked by a pole. It was an incoming tide.

The big drum were so thick at the reef, I could only set out a single spin rod. I fought them for two hours while three other boat crews nearby, crabless, sat and glumly watched. Hooking those big puppies 30 yards out in open water, with 25-pound line, made for some long fights. Hard work: It became a chore to hoist them out of the boat after de-hooking, and a final heave-ho back overboard.

Beautiful big trout being played down for landing.

J AY WAT K I N S

ASk THE PRO

WINTER’S IcY GRIP With the arrival of the New Year I cannot help but look back and marvel at how fast 2013 came and went. It was a tremendous year all around for me. Fishing was good throughout the four seasons and business due to the oil boom in Texas was as strong as ever for just about everyone. Oil people like to hunt and fish and that is certainly a benefit for me and Jay Ray. We anxiously awaited the arrival of a Watkins granddaughter which came on January the 20th. Raylee Jay Watkins joined the family with all from both families present for the occasion. She is a real cutie and stole her daddy’s heart the instant she arrived. Ryan’s a man with a family now, so for me, life is coming full circle. Jay Ray hangs on with his longtime girlfriend, Morgan, but no mention of a date yet so we’re still waiting on this one.

My winter fishing is in full swing. Colder than normal arctic air has caused water temperatures to fall below 50° for just about every week along the Middle and Lower Coasts. Winds have been extreme at times, forcing us to push back or cancel trips. I have fished at least four days when morning water temperatures dipped to the 45° mark, a little too cold in my opinion for trout to stay shallow for very long and this is certainly being reflected in our daily success. Trout feeds have developed during small windows of the day so being in the area holding trout when the time arrives is an absolute. Bait at times has been scarce so I have depended on help from above, mainly in the form of the osprey; I have certainly also asked the Big Guy for patience. Seldom ask for straight-up help though as he has bigger fish to fry. The osprey definitely knows where the baitfish are staging and seldom venture far from a reliable food source. Redfish have dominated the bite, cold does not seem to affect them as much as it does the trout. I am greatly thankful for them even though they are not the primary focus of my attention.

42 | March 2014

I am trying to concentrate my efforts on deeper sections of flats (swags or swales in the bay floor) as well as old oil field channels and shallow spoil banks along deeper channel walls. If any amount of bait at all is present I work the area. Points where two channels or areas of deeper water intersect can be excellent areas to target during midday warming trends. Abundant periods of sun are critical to allowing the trout the opportunity to pull up and warm up. Bottom in all of the above mentioned areas have strong tendencies to be softer than normal. This requires testing of the bottom BEFORE jumping overboard. At age 56 I can still wade the bog but I don’t like to if I can avoid it.

Wading in stealth mode, once signs of trout are evident, is the single-most important aspect of catching trout under the current conditions. My “line-up “and slow movement across a depression in a large flat allows for the most effective method of finding winter trout. Over the past two weeks I have experienced very tough days but on the days when we finally located the trout they seem concentrated and are absolutely feeding during Solunar Major and Minor feeding periods. Never will it be more important to plan your fishing day in conjunction with the day’s solunar feeding periods and an accurate local weather forecast. This magazine has a better than great solunar table that can be easily detached and carried with you. I totally depend on mine each month.

I have noticed that many of the trout we are catching have absolutely nothing in their stomachs. This is a sign of severe cold, cold that slows down their body metabolism and places the fish in an almost dormant state. Longer periods of warming will be required before we see consistent winter feeding patterns. This is ONLY my opinion and based ONLY on my results thus far in 2014. I have caught several really great fish, one over 33 inches that touched the 10 pound mark along with a beautiful 8 pound

o t t l i Bu

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fish. Both came during periods of prolonged warming trends. Problem has been that few of these fish are being encountered. Both were quickly weighed and released to fight another day. Please release all of the trout over 25-inches. I have always believed that they continue to be the carriers of superior genetics.

Both Bass Assassins and the MirrOlure “Paul Brown” Corky are my current go-to lures. Topwaters have been almost totally ineffective for me to date. Darker color patterns are still the ticket in the murky waters of Port Mansfield and clear-bodied baits in my home waters around Rockport. The water here in Mansfield has the look of brown tide but no official word from TP&W yet on exactly what type of algal bloom we are seeing. Whatever it might be, brown tide or otherwise, the effect seems to be most predominant from the southern end of the Land Cut all the way south to near South Padre, according to reports.

I remain confident that as winter eventually loosens its icy grip our trout bite will become more predictable. Not every season will yield the best the pasture has to offer. True hunters stay the course and take advantage of the small windows for success. I’m still hunting.

May your fishing always be catching. -Guide Jay Watkins

C O N TA C T

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Jay Watkins has been a full-time fishing guide at Rockport, TX, for more than 20 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 Email Website

361-729-9596 Jay@jaywatkins.com www.jaywatkins.com

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

S H A L L O W W AT E R F I S H I N G

If I can see it;

I’m taking a shot!

Shallow water sight-casting along the Texas coast seems to mean chasing redfish for most anglers. That’s understandable I suppose. Redfish fit the bill quite well.

They feed shallow, give away their location by tailing or pushing big wakes, readily eat lures or flies and they fight bigger than their size. All around awesome targets for the game and certainly one of my personal favorites.

But if you’re limiting your casts to reds and passing on everything else you’re missing out. For me, sight-casting is all about the challenge and being able to watch the fish eat. I don’t care what kind of fish it is, if it’ll eat my fly I’m throwing. I know some will turn their noses up at the thought, but I’ve even sight-casted to and caught some big hardheads. Why not? I release 99% of what I catch anyway. And if there aren’t any better targets around I tend to enjoy amusing myself.

Think of all the different fish you see as you drift across a flat or pole through a marsh. Sheepshead, black drum, jacks, gar and even those unidentified dark spots that you know aren’t reds. If I’m on the bow there’s a cast headed in that direction. Not only is it a challenge to see if you can get them to eat, it’s also really good casting practice for when that big red does show up. How many times have you stood on the bow for an hour waiting for a shot 46 | March 2014

only to blow it because you weren’t warmed up?

I see it all the time with my customers. It’s a slow day (it happens) and the customer isn’t into blind-casting. I’m seeing the occasional sheepshead or drum and pointing them out as possible targets. Nope, not gonna do it. If it isn’t a red or trout they aren’t taking a shot. Then along comes a pig of redfish happily rooting its way down the shoreline. Miss, miss, miss and...spooked.

I can fully understand if you don’t want to cast to a hardhead or piggy perch, but why pass up a sheepshead or drum? They require a perfect cast, spook with the slightest provocation and are picky about what lure/ fly they eat. They also represent themselves quite well once hooked and aren’t too shabby on the dinner table if you’re so inclined.

Alright guys, now that the snobby folks have turned the page it’s down to just us fun people. I figure if you’re still reading I should probably let you in on a few things I’ve learned about casting to so-called trash fish. First off, pretty much everything out there eats a shrimp. Second, most everything eats little crabs.

For the fly fisherman this is good news. Most popular flies used for redfish are designed to imitate a small shrimp or crab. The Redfish Crack fly I detailed a

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few months back can sort of look like either one depending on how it’s tied and how you fish it.

For those of you using conventional gear the best thing I’ve found for catching drum or sheepies is a Buggs jig. They also work like a charm on reds.

Buggs are flathead lead jigs tied like a fly using rabbit fur. When simply resting on the bottom the fur wiggles and waves like something that is alive.

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Sheepshead are perhaps the toughest of the crew to catch on artificials. The good news is they’re pretty common so you’ll get plenty of opportunities.

The bad news is they’re spooky as all get out and you’ll only catch a small fraction of them. I generally find them more agreeable from fall through the dead of winter. In the fall, as the shrimp are moving along the edges of the marsh grass preparing to migrate out, you’ll see a lot of sheepshead right up against the bank. They’ll be slowly working the shoreline poking their nose into the grass hunting the shrimp. I like to wait until the fish backs out of the grass and starts to move down the bank before casting. If you can drop a small shrimpy looking fly right on it’s nose you can often get an immediate bite. A few inches too far away and they’ll never see it, too close and they’ll flee like you shot at them.

During the dead of winter I like to look for sheepshead along the edges of oyster reefs. They can often be found tailing just like reds as they poke around the loose shell looking for a meal.

The hardest part is getting the fly or Bugg in front of their face without hanging up. I’ll usually just wait patiently for the fish to move to the outer edge of the reef or over a clear spot. Drop the fake 48 | March 2014

50 | March 2014

fly. I figured it was a fluke, but tried it again on the next fish. Time after time it worked like a charm and I had a blast. I’ve tried it several times since then without catching a thing.

Like I said, drum are weird.

At times some really large drum can be found way back in the marsh. It’s not unusual to see these 20-40 lb fish tailing like crazy. These fish tend to be a bit more aggressive about eating artificials. Treat them like you would a tailing redfish with the only difference being the lure often has to pass within inches of their nose to get a response. It may take repeated shots, but it’s worth it. A really big drum in shallow water can put up quite a fight.

Next time you’re out there and the redfish have disappeared give these oddballs a try. You might just find you like the challenge.

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a foot or two in front of the fish’s path and let it sit. As he gets close give it the slightest movement to get his attention. Do it right and he’ll pounce, pinning it to the bottom, do it wrong and he’s gone in a puff of mud.

But that’s the fun of it all. I’ve thrown to hundreds of sheepshead with the fly rod and only caught a handful. There’s a reason they’re known as the “Texas Permit” in fly fishing circles.

Black drum are just flat out weird. In general they can be found in the same areas as redfish. The smaller drum under 10 lbs tend to be the pickiest about eating artificials. Treating them like a sheepshead on a reef will sometimes work. The generally accepted fly is small and dark, same with a Bugg. However, last year I found myself in a large shallow pond on Matagorda Island that was loaded with 5 to 10 lb drum. I tried all the traditional methods and flies to no avail. On a whim I put a really small bright pink shrimp on. My first cast was to a drum headed straight at me. I was shooting for a spot about a foot ahead of him, but missed wide left. I knew I was toast so I stripped the fly quickly from behind the fish towards his head while waiting for the inevitable mud puff and fleeing wake. As the fly passed within inches of his gill plate the fish spun and hammered the

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

Telephone Email Website

281-450-2206 scott@tsfmag.com www.captainscottnull.com

Figure 1. Coastwide catch rates of mangrove snapper (solid line) and common snook (dashed line) from TPWD gill net survey data.

By By Erin Buschfort 2013 ULM Summer Intern

FIELD NOTES

Bonefish in the Laguna Madre

& the rise of tropical species on the Texas coast Rising water temperature on the south Texas coast has led to an increase in the amount of tropical fish species that are being caught in the area.

It was once uncommon to see common snook (Centropomus undecimalis) and mangrove snapper (Lutjanus griseus), both tropical species, being pulled out of these waters at the rate we see today. Some fish species are entirely new to the area like the bonefish, recently observed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) staff. Thanks to warming water temperatures it appears we might continue to see these tropical “invaders� on the rise.

Water temperature is a major controlling factor in the distribution of fish species. With the average global temperature slowly rising, we are seeing warmer than average surface water temperatures around the world and along the Texas coast. This temperature increase could potentially affect shallow bodies of water, such as the 52 | March 2014

A mangrove snapper released alive from a TPWD gillnet survey.

Laguna Madre, more severely. The warming trend seen along the Texas coastline is exacerbated by the fact that in the past few years we have been experiencing exceptionally warm winters, with the current winter being an exception. With this temperature rise, we may see some additions to the fauna of the lower coast as even minute temperature changes can have large impacts in the long run. This is why the data that TPWD collects on a regular basis is so important. The value of these fisheries monitoring data is derived from the length of time it has been collected (over 35 years).

Last year was one of the first on record that TPWD captured several juvenile bonefish (Albula vulpes) in its routine bag seine surveys.

Bonefish are primarily a tropical fish that have been seen only rarely on the south Texas coast. Bonefish are a popular sportfish in south Florida and the Caribbean where they are more prevalent.

In the case of mangrove snapper and common snook, TPWD data shows a significant spike in catch rates over the last decade (Figure 1) probably as a result of our unseasonably warm winter temperatures.

While many of these warm-water fishes are simply migrating inshore from offshore reef structures, scientists think that some are moving north from southern areas along the Gulf of Mexico. This migration seems to be occurring because temperature and resources are allowing these fish to expand their range into areas that were once too cold. If we continue to have warm winters, the amount of tropical flora and fauna in our area will most likely continue to rise.

The invasion of tropical fish is not necessarily bad news.

Mangrove snapper and snook are popular sport and table fare that will increasingly add to the diversity of what anglers are catching.

However, the ecological impact that these tropical fish will have on the coast’s popular sportfish, such as spotted seatrout, red drum, black drum, and flounder, has yet to be seen. At the moment, they are showing no signs of outcompeting or altering the ecology of the south Texas coast. In past years, TPWD has seen natural rises, and falls of warm-water species in correlation with water temperature.

Sudden cold weather events are capable of pushing back much of the invading tropical fauna. Mass die-offs are a possibility if water temperatures drop too fast. Such fish-kills have been seen in the past with both mangrove snapper and snook.

TPWD will be keeping a close eye on these tropical species that are moving into our area through regular fishery population monitoring. Although, extremely cold weather events in the future could temporarily set the growth of these populations back, long term temperature rises would continue to support increased catch rates of these tropical species. So keep your fish identification book handy because there is more of a variety of fish swimming in our gulf waters than ever before and you might just catch something unexpected on your next fishing adventure.

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

TSFMAG.com | 53

MIKE JENNINGS

TEXAS NEARSHORE & OFFSHORE

What is it about fishing?

Coming off of a long and cold winter will make each and every one of us think of the warmer days ahead on the water. Not that we don’t have a great winter fishery, but the thought of long cold boat rides just doesn’t say let’s go fishing like a warm summer day.

This is the time of year that I begin to watch the fronts and water temperatures, awaiting the cobia migration. As the water warms we will see the kingfish start to move in shallower and the wahoo follow close behind as they move in off the shelf. Many of us spend the cool days working on a boat and getting it prepared for upcoming trips. This is the time for repairing reels, checking safety equipment and inventorying our supplies as if we are going into battle.

When it comes to our sport we put an exorbitant amount of effort into the smallest of details. We polish wax and clean. Review notes of prior season’s trips, research and study bottom structure, and pay the closest attention to weather conditions. We purchase the latest and greatest reels, rods and gadgets that we 54 | March 2014

are convinced we need to give us the slightest edge on our next outing.

We figure out how to go further, get there faster and beat the chickens to the sunrise so that we are the first person on the fishing spot. Once the fishing bug has hit us we will go to all lengths and spare no expense to accomplish our goal of catching a fish.

Considering what we put into our sport of fishing I have to wonder how many of us ever slow down long enough to ask ourselves why. Why do we do it? Why do we fish? What is it about fishing that captures us and leads us down this lifelong pursuit? The novelist John Buchan once said “The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.”

While that quote may make us think about the allure of fishing it doesn’t answer why. Is it because; maybe fishing is a metaphor for life? We plan, we prepare, we do the best we know how, some days we win and some we don’t, but even then we are just thankful to be there

on the physical and mental health benefits of fishing. While I have no doubt that there is probably some validity to that thought, I seriously doubt that anyone has ever crawled out of bed at 4:30 solely for the purpose of how healthy it would be to go fishing today. For some, their reason may be simple, but that is a bit of a stretch.

I’m not sure that my original question can be answered or summed up in a few paragraphs. It is something that each of us would find a different answer for. None of which are right or wrong, but simply a reflection of what drives a sportsman.

There are lots of reasons that people fish. Some, me for example, do it for a living, but that isn’t why I started or what truly drives my passion. Some fish for food and others purely for pleasure. Most, I believe, find enjoyment because it is something we do by choice.

While there may be some disappointment, there isn’t any pressure to be successful, except that which we place on ourselves.

To me fishing is about opportunity. It’s an opportunity to be and enjoying another day. I asked this very question of a few charter boat captains and got a wide range of responses, and as with most fishermen very few were fit for print, but the one that stuck with me the most was that fishing set him at peace with nature. The part that reached him deepest was the connection with nature on a pure animalistic level.

I’m not completely sure I see the full scope of what he meant but I think that there may be some instinct left from our hunting and gathering ancestors that each and every one of us feels the need to fulfill. There is something to be said for catching one’s food and enjoying the results but I really don’t think that is the actual reason why we fish.

When it comes to our sport one of the

most stated comments that we have all heard is that even a bad day of fishing beats a good day at work. That is obviously an easy statement to make and it relates to the entire experience. It speaks to the time away from the familiar grind of everyday life. The outing is an escape from daily worries and the pressures of the world in general.

I have seen serious studies, probably backed by your tax money,

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outside in the sun and wind. It’s an opportunity to just clear one’s mind and wonder or daydream. It’s the opportunity to spend time with friends and loved ones without the annoyances of cell phones and outside influences. And it’s the opportunity to succeed, if we are skilled enough or just down right lucky enough to catch that which is barely obtainable, or if not, then just simply enjoy that perpetual series of occasions for hope.

Maybe there isn’t even any reason to put this much thought into why we do the things that we enjoy in life. The simple fact that they bring us pleasure is probably justification enough for most of us.

You know, I have heard it said that men fish for their entire lives without ever discovering that it really isn’t the fish that they are after.

How sad would it be if that were actually true?

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

Telephone Email Website

979-864-9439 texassportfishing@gmail.com www.cowboycharters.com

TSFMAG.com | 55

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

F LY F I S H I N G

Flying South One of the biggest appeals of fly fishing for me is that it fuels the need for adventure, and for Texas fly anglers, spring is the perfect time to go out and seek it.

The spring equinox is just around the corner here in Texas.

This year the event will fall on March 20. For many Texas fly anglers, this means sitting around watching the weather in hopes of finding a window to go fish. For others, like me, it means getting out of Dodge to do some fishing in

56 | March 2014

the more stable weather patterns offered by the tropics.

And, it does not hurt that the tropics offer the chance at hooking into something that pulls harder and faster.

For the last twenty or so years I have been packing my bags in March and heading to the Everglades for 2-4 weeks to find a cure for the cabin fever that has set in after hunting season is ended. The problem was that, upon my arrival home in April, I started sitting around watching the weather like everyone else. I would be just hoping and praying that I could get a few trips out between the clouds and winds. Well this year is going to be different in that I will have been in Florida for nearly a month when this issue goes to press. And, I will not return until the more stable patterns of summer have returned.

Do not get me wrong, Texas can have some spectacular fishing in March, April and May however, I find it tedious to sit around waiting for a weather window. I would rather go somewhere else. For me that is Florida where I can fish 95% of the time rather than hoping to be able to fish 40% of the time. For

show is over and they have been unable to throw the hook, the snook, especially larger ones, can turn on the afterburner and head back to the cover from which they came. Add to that the stamina in fight that is so common with redfish and you can have one hell of a battle on your hands. The true challenge with snook is the fact they tend to find their way back into cover so dense that it can sometimes prove difficult for even the most skilled anglers to get a fly to them.

Last but not least we have the bonefish—a bottom feeder with insane eyesight and blazing speed. Bonefish, especially those found in the Florida Keys, can be quite the challenge once they have become older and educated to the ways of clumsy anglers. However, in regions less pressured, they tend to be the fish of choice for beginning anglers. It is not uncommon for an intermediate angler to bring 20 or so smaller fish to hand during a day on the flats, especially in the Bahamas or Belize.

Well, I am off to warmer climates to chase some tarpon. Hope to see you there or hear some stories about your adventures elsewhere. Or, if you get stuck at home, I hope you have nothing but the best spring weather and find plenty of tailing fish.

Best of tides and stuff like that…

C O N TA C T

others, it is time to pack their bags for even more appealing destinations such as the Bahamas, Belize or Mexico to name but a few.

But what, other than the nice weather, makes these places so special. Let us see, could it be the tarpon, permit, bonefish and snook?

The bonefish and permit run long and hard and the tarpon and snook pull hard and jump. What more could you ask for?

For me, not unlike its nickname of the “silver king” implies, the tarpon is king. Not only do they grow to gargantuan size, but it is nothing short of awe-inspiring to see a 150 lbs+ fish leaping above the water. To me they are the ultimate challenge in that they require skill to not only hook, but also to land. Sure, lesser skilled anglers have bested plenty of these magnificent creatures over the years with a little “buenos suerte” on their side. But, to consistently bring the silver king to hand requires skill and dedication.

Running a close second in my pecking order would be the permit.

What makes a permit so special to me is the skill required to deliver a meal of feather and fur to these finicky fish and then feed them. Besides that, being from Texas and all, I have a fond place in my heart for fish that tail. And, if you think you get excited seeing a redfish tail waiving above the surface—just wait until you see a giant black sickle slicing through the water and imagine the big eye of a permit scanning the bottom for its next meal. To top it all off, of all the fish that I have hooked on the flats, I have had none that ran further or faster than the permit.

Up next would be the snook, especially those over 30 inches. You see a snook is kind of like a hybrid between a bass and redfish. Like largemouth bass, snook like to hang around obvious structure and once hooked, they jump and thrash like a bass. However, once the

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TSFMAG.com | 57

Cold and almost spooky calm, our day didn’t start with a bang, but it ended well.

MARCOS GARZA

YO U T H F I S H I N G

Come Out

With Your Hands Up It was a brisk Saturday morning. The cool air stung my lungs and made me shiver as I put on my waders.

I loaded up my rod, wading belt, and tackle bag in my truck and headed towards the Mansfield Club. I was meeting one of my dad’s good clients this Saturday morning for half a day of fishing. Mr. Pogue was leaving that afternoon and he invited me to fish with him and Kevin. As soon as I got there they were ready to leave. I hopped onto Mr. Pogue’s 21’ Hayne and we took off for the mouth of the harbor.

The boat ride was a quick trip up north. The sun was starting to come on strong and lit up the bay. We bailed and immediately we felt the arctic chill in the water through our waders. Myself more than the others because my waders were leaking for some odd reason.

The wind was light and came from the southeast.

We walked slow, casting every which way to improve our chances of catching a fish. The day before, Mr. Pogue’s group and my dad had done really well around 58 | March 2014

the area that we were fishing. We were hoping for the same result. In the beginning there wasn’t much action. We walked slow and in line. I was up next to the shoreline and I casted towards it every once in a while to see if there were any bigger fish up shallow. To our surprise, we did not hook up onto anything big and we were in a spot, notorious for big trout in the winter.

After walking about 75 to 100 yards, I turned around and started to fish into the wind. I had seen quite a bit of bait jumping and decided to give it a try. I walked slowly, without any luck. I changed my lure and after a few casts, I finally hooked up. It wasn’t a big fish by any means, it wasn’t even a keeper, but a caught fish is a caught fish. I walked down a little bit longer and failed to find another fish. I turned back and started fishing in the original direction.

While I was fishing in the opposite direction, Mr. Pogue and Kevin kept on going straight ahead. Not long after I had started walking the other way, they started

TSFMAG.com | 59

to catch a few fish here and there. I had almost caught back up to Mr. Pogue when he turns to me and waves his visor at me. This was our signal for “there are fish up here.” I stopped walking slow and I did a half jog the rest of the way to them.

I settled in right between Mr. Pogue and Kevin.

I switched back to using Kelley Wigglers and I was now in the zone. We all casted out, we worked our lures and neither one of us hooked up. It was a slow bite and we were working the lures just off of the bottom. Some of them would hit like a freight train and others would just feel like grass.

We weren’t catching them right after each other either. I would catch one after every four or five casts maybe and that was about it, but we were still catching fish.

To our surprise, we did not hook up onto anything big and we were in a spot, notorious for big trout in the winter.

We caught fish for probably an hour and a half and then the wind died. If you’ve ever fished in Port Mansfield, you know that when it is too calm, the fish are spooked real easily. The fishing got slower and we stood there still casting and trying to catch a few more.

Then Mr. Pogue pulled out his secret weapon.

He got the bottle of “secret stuff” and put it on our lures. Right then the wind picked back up and we had a small frenzy on our hands. We were catching fish left and right. The fish were gradually getting bigger and they were hitting the bait a little harder. We had a few double hook ups, and one triple hook up. We were in the right spot. The fish were hitting as soon as the lure hit the water.

Mr. Pogue hooked up again and said “Come out with your hands up!”

60 | March 2014

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TSFMAG.com | 61

Nice red on a recent late-winter trip.

CADE SIMPSON

k AYA k F i S H i N g C H R O N i C L E S

CATCH mY dRiFT Ahh good ol’ March. March is a good month for me.

With it comes the first signs of spring in the form of warmer days, better tides, spring turkey season, the Houston Fishing Show, and my birthday! Pretty hard to beat that combination.

Of course there is a downside; I cannot count the number of days I’ve had to re-plan a fishing trip and even had to cancel a few. Fortunately, I always manage to get in a few good ones and on a recent trip the weather was perfect, making for a great day on the water and easy paddling.

Until the water comes back into the marshes, which is almost always later in the month, I am forced into the deeper waters of the open bays and larger lakes. This isn’t exactly my forte but it’s still time on the water which is better than time spent just about anywhere else.

Fishing open water can be quite productive. I do like to wade shallower flats but 62 | March 2014

in deeper water I prefer to drift. To accomplish this you should paddle into the wind, skirting the area you wish to drift through. Once you have decided to begin your drift, consider sitting sidesaddle on the kayak. What this means is position the kayak perpendicular to the wind and hang both legs over the downwind side. Your feet being in the water will aide in slowing your drift, when you can touch bottom easily.

As a side note, look for mud streaks or stained water Author’s first visit to to drift through. Now that Floyd’s – good food! your drift has begun, just fan your casts methodically as you move along. Try different lures and retrieves until you find what works.

Bumping soft plastics along is my go-to approach. This particular trip I was throwing a new wedge-tail minnow I got from Betts Tackle.

Don’t give up on an area too quickly either. And if you catch some in one drift, certainly drift it again.

Something else you might consider is sleeping

YOU BELONG ON A HOBIE hobiefishing.com

64 | March 2014

Who might you recommend for a guide? Thx. J.” J., My initial thought is Christmas and Drum Bay. There are really good kayak launch points on these bays and they have plenty of shoreline and open water to work. Pick up the Hook-N-Line kayak fishing map for this area and it will show you the ropes. As far as a guide, contact Rick Spillman at rickskayakadventures. com; he is a master of the entire coast. Good luck on the water.

I will try to make it to the Houston Fishing Show several days this year, the show is in the George R. Brown Convention Center, March 5-9. If you see me browsing the aisles please stop me and say hello.

Until next month, keep ‘em upright!

C ontact

in. It doesn’t seem all that natural for me to sleep in on a fishing day but when the temps are cooler the bite sometimes doesn’t get going until midday or in the afternoon when the fish warm up. As a matter of fact Cliff and I didn’t launch our kayaks until 10am this particular trip. We were able The sidesaddle technique Cliff to fish well into the afternoon without is demonstrating is a great way being exhausted. to cover long stretches of water.

After we wrapped up a nice day on the water and being that we were in the Galveston area, we drove over to the new Floyd’s Restaurant in the HarborWalk Community at Hitchcock and grabbed a bite to eat. I had never been there and was very impressed.

Nice atmosphere and great food.

As always, I appreciate the emails I get from readers. Thank you for your questions and comments. This month I got a good question from Mr. J. Gaut, and he writes: “I just moved to Houston and bought a 14’ Hobie Angler. I have done a lot of guided fly fishing trips out of the Seadrift area but don’t want to go that far in the yak. Want to stay closer to Galveston area. What area would you recommend for reds on spinning or fly.

Telephone Email

936-776-7028 Cademan11@sbcglobal.net

Find me on Facebook to follow along in my outdoor adventures

TSFMAG.com | 65

Oz with a casted bait blacktip.

E X T R E M E K AYA K F I S H I N G & S H A R K S F R O M T H E S A N D

ERIC OZOLINS

“March” of the Blacktips The arrival of spring during years of prolonged winter is beyond welcome. Never was this truer than the winter season that is currently winding down. We battled numerous grueling arctic blasts that chilled the Texas coast for over two solid months. The brutal conditions have relentlessly shutdown the beach action since around Thanksgiving. Having several winter shark charters booked this past season, I know when I need to make the appropriate call and cancel a trip – and that I had to do a few consecutive times. When the water temperatures plunge into the mid and low 50s in south Texas for over a couple months, little activity is to be found period. My only real action on the water was helping transport a sportfishing vessel across the gulf, through the Okeechobee waterway, and out to the east coast of Florida. With this journey I yet again announce how much I truly envy south Florida’s year-round tropical conditions. However, winter is finally over and now we move forward!

As the water temps climb back toward the mid 60s we are going to see an explosion of prey and predator making their way back into the shallows. The 66 | March 2014

month of March is dominated by the arrival of the large female blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus). These are by far the most abundant species of shark in our coastal waters. These sharks top out at between 6-7 feet and pound for pound are some of the hardest fighting fish in the shark family. More often than not when hooked, these sharks will put on an impressive aerial display.

A big misconception is that it is only the very closely related spinner shark species (Carcharhinus brevipinnaa) that will leap and spin in the air. Truth is the majority of the time it is the blacktips you see free-jumping along inshore waters. They will jump upwards of ten feet out of the water twisting on a single axis – hence the confusion

Dwade Hickey with the 8th blacktip of the trip.

with the spinner shark. There are theories on why these sharks jump, but having them rocket out of the water just feet from your kayak on a grease-calm day can be startling.

Blacktip sharks are singlehandedly the species that got me hooked on shark fishing. As a kid, I would see the smaller 3-4 foot class sharks get landed. Upon closer inspection, you noticed the fine details of nature’s supreme aquatic predator. Even small specimens will protrude their jaws from their mouth and look like a menacing carbon copy of their giant cousins. From the perspective of a 10 year old, you simply admire the biological perfection while associating them with the creatures of Hollywood horror.

For beginning shark anglers, blacktips will provide experience to learn from and build upon. Shark fishing is an art and only by trial and error can you learn and improve your techniques. Blacktips are a top candidate for testing out your personal angling enhancements or modification, whether it be bait presentation or the type of bait itself. This species will often school together and their numbers during spring months can lead to an abundance of action.

The arrival of the blacktips in March coincides with its reproductive schedule. Usually, these prowling sharks come inshore to stock up on quick and easy meals before the pregnant females begin dropping their pups within a few short weeks. It is not uncommon to be driving down the Padre Island National Seashore in the morning hours and observe a blacktip in less than two feet of water. If you have never experienced this it is quite a sight, a dorsal fin exposed above a shadow, while cruising the break. In fact, anglers standing on the first sandbar fishing bird activity often have to be careful of encounters with this scouring shark. While they typically are more afraid of you, nonetheless, never let your guard down. The shear number of blacktips in an inshore area will certainly make you think twice about your spring-break beach swim!

Fishing for blacktips is nothing short of fun regardless of experience level. Many smaller specimens are landed as the result of a novice’s by-catch, in which their razor sharp teeth did not sever the light monofilament used for other species, whereas the larger of the species can provide some hardcore action on light-medium tackle.

These sharks are often so abundant you almost wish they’d leave your baits alone. When running monster-baits for tiger sharks, I

often have the baits get mauled by smaller blacktips, which is rather frustrating. However, if you ever want to get your money’s worth, cast out a whole whiting on a large spinning rig and wait for the chaos!

Blacktips will pick up just about any bait that is available. Most ideally whiting and skipjack are top choices but these sharks will not turn down much of anything that is fresh. I’ve even caught blacktips and other sharks on hardhead catfish!

Through all my years of shark-tagging research, the blacktips count for the majority of the sampling study. While many individuals swim down and get whacked in Mexico, I’ve had some strange anomalies. I remember landing a young mature blacktip that had been originally tagged by another angler. Due to a deteriorating tag which had been placed a couple years earlier, I replaced it with a fresh one and sent it back on it’s way. Pretty cool that I recaptured a shark that someone else previously caught, huh?

Well that’s not the end of it. Nearly one year later within one mile of the original catch site, I caught the same shark - AGAIN. To put that in perspective, this shark had picked up a bait and been caught (and released) three separate times. Talk about karma for that lucky guy - very cool! Once again the predictability about the habits and migration of this species often makes it an easy one to target.

Kip Kaaialii with a monster March blacktip.

I am already receiving a lot of bookings for March, April and May. I am really expecting a phenomenal spring season seeing how we dodged another autumn red tide. From now until summer my charter adventures will likely encounter bull, lemon, hammerhead, possibly tiger, and A LOT of blacktip sharks.

These are ideal for family trips, especially those in which parents are eager to safely get their kids hooked up on a shark. Quite often it is the trips which are mainly for the kids that are the most rewarding and enjoyable to take part in. There are educational aspects of each trip which also pique the interest of not only the young, but adults too.

Each of my upcoming outings, with or without clients, should deliver a load of fun and countless surprises for me to write about.

Let the games begin, my sharp-toothed friends!

C ontact

Oz with a pair of bluefish baits that produced blacktips.

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 runs Kayak Wars; one of the largest kayak fishing tournaments in the world.

Email Websites

oz@oceanepics.com extremecoast.com | oceanepics.com | kayakwars.com TSFMAG.com | 67

TPWD photo.

STEPHANIE BOYD

F I S H Y FA C T S

Squid “With its untold depths, couldn’t the sea keep alive such huge specimens of life from another age, this sea that never changes while the land masses undergo almost continuous alteration? Couldn’t the heart of the ocean hide the lastremaining varieties of these titanic species, for whom years are centuries and centuries millennia?” ~Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea For thousands of years, stories have existed of giant, many armed sea creatures. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus had to navigate his boat around the many-headed sea monster, Scylla.

Jules Verne later wrote in his classic novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, of a monstrous creature whose massive arms “could entangle a ship of fivehundred tons and hurry it into the abyss of the ocean.” In the first century B.C., Pliny the Elder – Roman author, 68 | March 2014

TPWD photo.

naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire – first wrote of an enormous squid in his Natural History. The animal he described had 30-foot-long arms, weighed 700 pounds,

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and had a head “as big as a cask.” In 1978, sharp, curved hooks cut up the rubber coating on the hull of the USS Stein. The size suggested the largest squid known at the time. These stories are all likely based on sightings of the giant squid, Architeuthis dux, a real but elusive creature and one of the world’s largest known invertebrates.

The giant squid’s smaller cousins, though less famous, are better known and no less fascinating. Squid are actually mollusks, though they don’t really resemble their relatives the gastropods (snails and slugs), bivalves (clams, oysters, and scallops), scaphopoda (tusk shells), and polyplacophorans (chitons). They are further delineated into the class Cephalopoda, meaning “head foot,” the super order Decapodiformes, meaning “ten-footed,” and the order Teuthida.

Squid emerged on the ecological timeline about 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian, a particularly prolific period. So many different animal groups appeared at this stage that scientists have dubbed it the “Cambrian explosion.” The earliest squid were most likely slowmoving creatures that lived in shallow waters. They shared a common ancestor with the primitive externally-shelled nautilus, but their paths diverged some 438 million years ago, before the first primitive fish began swimming the oceans and before plants grew upright on land. In those days, thousands of species of cephalopods existed. Today, only four remain: squid, cuttlefish, octopuses, and nautiluses.

Squid are swift, agile, and fairly intelligent creatures with brains closer in proportion to those of mammals than those of fish or reptiles.

They have excellent vision. Though they are mostly colorblind, they see a much higher level of ultraviolet light than many other animals.

This helps the squid to see reflected light and movement at depth.

The eyes, on either side of the head, each contain a hard lens. Squid eyes are similar in structure to human eyes, but the image a squid sees is focused by changing the position of the lens, as in a camera or telescope, rather than changing the shape of the lens, as in the human eye. Small pits located beneath the eyes register smell; they have an awesome sense of smell and almost everything they eat leaves a scent trail. Compared to fish, squid do not seem to hear particularly well. Most cephalopods lack a gas-filled chamber, such as the swim bladder, that fish use to hear. That anatomical fact suggests they can’t detect the pressure wave component of sound. However, some fish use another organ, the statocyst, to register sound. The statocyst is a balance sensory receptor, a sac-like structure containing a mineralized mass (statolith) and sensitive hairs. The statolith shifts as the animal moves, and any movement large enough to throw the creature off balance causes the statolith to brush against the sensitive hairs, which send a message to the brain to correct the animal’s balance. Many invertebrates also have a statocyst and use it for hearing, so squids might also be tapping into this for their own audial benefit.

Squids have three hearts. A large systemic heart pumps blood throughout the body, and on either side of the main heart, two smaller branchial hearts feed the gills. Most squid have a long, tube-shaped body enclosed in a soft and muscular cavity called the mantle, which sits behind the usually small head. The mouth is equipped with a sharp, horny beak composed chiefly of chitin (a tough, protective, semitransparent substance). The mouth contains the radula (the rough tongue common to all mollusks except bivalves). The head end bears eight arms and two tentacles; sometimes, on some species, these can regenerate if severed. As water flows through the mantle cavity, it passes over the gills which absorb oxygen. Beneath the head is a tube called the funnel. Wastes are excreted through the funnel, as is the

TSFMAG.com | 69

squid’s defensive ink. Though it could be used as such, squid ink is more sophisticated than a simple smokescreen. It’s composed mostly of melanin and mucous (pigment and snot), but includes, among other things, tyrosinase, an enzyme for controlling the production of melanin. It’s a useful sort of enzyme, keeps the moray eels at bay.

Many of the squid’s predators have advanced chemosensory systems, and tyrosinase can irritate, numb, or even deactivate these systems.

Although the nautilus has an external shell, the trend in cephalopods is to internalize and reduce the shell. The shell in cuttlefish is internal and is called the cuttlebone. Squid have a reduced, feather-shaped internal shell called a pen. Octopuses lack a shell altogether. Other than that, the main distinction between a squid and an octopus is that the suckers of squid are armed with hooks or sucker rings (or a combination of the two) while octopuses have simple suckers without secondary armature (though I think no one considers them unarmed).

Squid come in a wide variety of sizes and appearances, and in several ways to be measured. There’s total length, relaxed and post mortem; total length, outstretched and alive; standard length, the length of the animal minus its two long tentacles; estimated length, the one that got away; weight; and the length relative to a London double-decker bus. Fun fact (while we’re on the topic of size): deep water squid have one of the longest known penis lengths relative to body size of all animals, second in the kingdom only to certain sessile barnacles.

With their soft bodies, squid are appealing prey. They rely on their speed, agility, system of camouflage, and aforementioned ink for defense; some will also fight back with their hooked or razor-edged suckers. Sperm whales will attest to this. A squid’s funnel acts like a jet engine, making them powerful swimmers. It draws water into its mantle cavity by expanding its muscles. The mantle stretches like a rubber band, then contracts and forcibly pushes the water out through the funnel. By changing the position of this funnel, a squid can propel itself in almost any direction. When escaping from a predator, a squid can propel itself as quickly as 25 body lengths a second. But sometimes jetting through the currents is not enough to make a successful getaway. Sometimes, a squid needs to get out of the water altogether. So sometimes, they fly. Of course, flying (and swimming) are last resorts. The first choice is camo. To blend in with their surroundings, squid have thousands of pigment cells on their body called chromatophores, which are attached to tiny muscles.

Chromatophores expand or contract to change the color or pattern of the squid’s skin to match its background (these same cells also help squid attract mates and communicate with other squid). Squid even can change the texture of their skin to simulate their surroundings by raising little flaps and bumps. Some squids produce light. In dark waters, this diverts attention by disguising their contours. But after all that, if they’re still spotted by a predator, it’s time to fleeeeee!

Several animals like to feast on squid, including sperm whales, tuna, Squid pen; the internal skeleton of a squid. TPWD photo.

70 | March 2014

marlin, shark, seals, moray eels, sea stars, other squid, several species of birds, and yours truly. Because several types of fish have such a predilection for squid, they make excellent bait. Squid use the same skills for hunting as for predator evasion. They are carnivorous and their favorite foods include small fish, crabs, shrimp, and other squid. Most squid feed by rapidly lashing and ensnaring prey with suckered feeding tentacles. The squid then pulls the food to its mouth with its arms. It uses its sharp, parrot-like beak to tear off pieces, then the sharp radula on its tongue grinds up the food and pushes it down the squid’s throat.

Sounds completely feasible, right? Nothing dangerous about some brunch, right? Wrong. Take the giant squid, for example. The giant squid, surpassing lengths of fifty feet, could take down some pretty large prey. However, its superlative size appears at odds with its internal anatomy. All food must reach the gut through the esophagus, which is an admirable three feet in length, or longer, in adult specimens, but its maximum relaxed diameter is less than half an inch, and it passes directly through the brain! We worry about choking if we swallow a big bite. The giant squid has to worry about brain injury.

Many species of cephalopods live fast and die young, their entire life cycle taking just one year. Being so short lived, squid today are versatile creatures. They can make their homes in a variety of marine environments, and are found in all of the world’s oceans, from the warm water of the tropics to the near freezing water at the poles.

They are found from the wave swept intertidal region to the dark, cold abyss. If you were to clear cut an oak forest, the first plants to grow back would not be more oak trees. First would be the pioneer plants: lichen, moss, algae, some grasses, etc. Then, once the stage is set, in come the weeds. In life history terms, cephalopods are the weeds of the seas. Fun fact: a group of squids is called a shoal. I am “forever disappointed that a group of squids isn’t called a squad.”

Squids have an uncomplicated life cycle. They reproduce sexually.

In most species, the male has a modified arm that he uses to transfer sperm into the female, fertilizing the eggs. The female lays the eggs, usually hiding them under rocks or in holes. After four to eight weeks, baby squid hatch. They look just like miniature squid, they feed on plankton, and they grow into adult squid. No muss; no fuss. About 300 species of squid exist, that we know of. Two other orders of decapodiform cephalopods are also called squid, although they are taxonomically distinct from Teuthida and differ recognizably in their anatomical features. They are the bobtail squid of order Sepiolida and the ram’s horn squid of the monotypic order Spirulida. We have the ram’s horn in the Gulf, though most people will never see a live one.

The internal shell can be distinguished from spiraling gastropod shells by its chambers. Gastropods live in their shells, so the shells won’t be chambered. The ram’s horn squid spends most of its life in a head down position. The gas-filled internal shell keeps the posterior end up. These squids also have a light-emitting organ between the two posterior fins (hence its other name, tail light squid).

Texas shrimp boats start to haul in the year’s first finger squid in March, an occasion that will go unnoticed by most at the dinner table. Atlantic brief squid, dubbed finger squid, are typically sold for bait (when fishermen bother to bring them off their boats). But some seafood dealers say the scrawny cephalopods are worth cookin’ up. They reach five inches,

but are usually small enough to not require cleaning before being tossed in a stew. I guess the guts add extra flavor?

The two other species we have are the longfin inshore squid and the arrow squid. Ironically, the longfin inshore squid lives in pelagic waters. This squid is more slender and firm than the brief squid and reaches about twenty inches. Neuroscientists in training learn the basics of neurosurgery by practicing on the longfin inshore squid.

Their thick axon, thicker than any human nerves, is easier to start with.

The arrow squid also lives in pelagic waters and is also more slender and firm than the brief squid, but not as slender as the longfin squid.

It reaches about sixteen inches. Both have more chromatophores than the brief squid.

Presently the only commercial fishery for squids in the Gulf of Mexico is a very small-scale fishery in Mexico, in the state of Yucatan.

At night, fishermen in small boats use torches and small tethered live fishes to attract arrow squid within range of dip nets. Additionally, three species – the longfin, arrow, and brief squids – are taken in bottom trawls as a bycatch of the Gulf shrimp fishery. While most are discarded along with the rest of the bycatch, a small amount is sold at a low price for bait or human consumption.

Where I learned about squid, and you can too!

“Captain Nemo pointed to this prodigious heap of shellfish, and I saw that these mines were genuinely inexhaustible, since nature’s creative powers are greater than man’s destructive instincts.” ~Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Smithsonian Surprising Science: Fourteen Fun Facts About Squid, Octopuses and Other Cephalopods blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/03/fourteen-fun-facts-about-squidoctopuses-and-other-cephalopods/

(Oh, if only Verne could see us now.)

Squid Fishery in Texas: Biological, Economic, and Market Considerations

By Raymond Hixon, Roger Hanlon, Samuel Gillespie, and Wade Griffin Texas Marine Species: Marine Mollusks of Texas txmarspecies.tamug.edu/mollusklist.cfm The Cephalopod Page www.thecephalopodpage.org/ The Octopus News Magazine Online: Cephalopod Science Articles www.tonmo.com/community/categories/cephalopod-science-articles.99/ Scientific American: Fact or Fiction: Can a Squid Fly out of Water? www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-squid-fly&sc=WR_20100804 BBC Earth News: Super Squid Sex Organ Discovered news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8792000/8792008.stm BBC Earth News: The Cephalopods Can Hear You news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8095000/8095977.stm How Squid Work science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/marine-life/squid.htm inside Discovery: Top 10 Startling Giant Squid Facts blogs.discovery.com/show-news/2013/01/top-10-startling-giant-squid-facts.html

Dallas Observer: It’s Finger Squid Season in Texas

By Hanna Raskin

Oyster Lake Shoreline protection – breakwaters being placed inside Oyster Lake.

Te x t a n d p h o t o s c o n t r i b u t e d b y C C A Te x a s s t a f f

T S F Ma g C onser v at i on N ews CCA Texas Takes Active Role in Stabilizing & Restoring Eroding Marshes and Shorelines Over time, Texas’ coastal marsh and estuarine shorelines are subjected to erosion from wave and wake action, created by wind and tidal current and also by boat and barge traffic along the ICW and other highly-traveled channels.

CCA Texas’s Habitat Today for Fish Tomorrow (HTFT) program has partnered with Texas Ducks Unlimited (TXDU) and the Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF) on three projects designed to prevent further erosion and restore lost marsh habitat.

Sargent Area Breakwater - The first breakwater project to be completed with TXDU is located just north of Sargent along the inland shores of the ICW. CCA Texas contributed $200,000 to this project which will protect up to three miles of marsh shoreline. The original design for the ICW provided channel width of 125 feet, but over time it has eroded to a width of over 700 feet, threatening adjacent brackish marshes, and thus reducing the overall productivity of the area’s ecosystem through the loss of emergent and submergent vegetation. This inland marsh is a critical component of the marine ecosystem and it is important to protect it for the future. This project will be 72 | March 2014

completed in phases, targeting the most threatened areas first. Phase-I and Phase-II construction was completed in June of 2013. CCA dollars were used as matching funds and helped create an additional 1,300 linear feet of breakwater, thus bringing the total linear footage of Phase I and II to 4,750 feet.

JD Murphree Wildlife Management Area Breakwater – The JD Murphree Wildlife Management

A phase of completed breakwater along ICW, north of Sargent.

Area Breakwater project construction began the last week of January 2014. This project was originally funded by CCA Texas in 2010, part of an ongoing effort to protect the fresh and saltwater marshes along the ICW in the Upper Coast region of Jefferson County. CCA Texas contributed $50,000 to this project which was leverage by TXDU as matching funds to generate over $325,000 through North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) grants. This support will allow 2,500 linear feet of breakwater to be constructed and should be complete in February 2014.

ICW in Jefferson County - Breakwater where natural backfill is well underway.

Oyster Lake marsh Restoration and protection - Galveston Bay Foundation submitted a $200,000 request to HTFT for the Oyster Lake Shoreline Protection and Marsh Restoration Project. This project will eventually protect up to 5,200 linear feet of shoreline from future erosion and habitat conversion. It is estimated that since 1944, up to 650 feet of shoreline has been lost on the West Bay side and up to 150 feet of shoreline has been lost from the Oyster Lake side. Since 1995, this erosion appears to be worsening steadily and West Galveston Bay is very close to breaching into Oyster Lake. This project will install hard structure breakwaters (reef balls) that will reduce wave and wind energy affecting the shorelines and where elevations are

Oyster Lake Shoreline protection – section of reef ball breakwater placed in West Galveston Bay.

suitable, emergent marsh will be replanted using cultivated plants.

This process will help restore and improve marsh functions, including habitat and feeding grounds for fish and wading birds. CCA funds were leveraged as matching dollars for federal grants that will be needed to complete the project. Phase I of the project was completed in September 2013 and Phase II, the final construction, should be completed by the end of 2014.

Healthy habitat is vital to healthy ecosystems. CCA Texas continues to work with Texas Parks Wildlife Department and other groups to ensure the Texas coast is healthy. Many challenges lie ahead as populations continue to grow and expand along the Texas coast and the waterways and bays are used by more and more people every day. As stewards of the resource, we must keep a watchful eye on our coastal habitats and take the appropriate steps to stop and prevent habitat from degrading.

“Habitat is critical to healthy marine systems, and unfortunately we have lost a staggering amount of productive habitat all up and down the Texas coast. CCA Texas is committed to the restoration of these habitats,” said Robby Byers, executive director of CCA Texas. “We have a strong working partnership with TPWD, Galveston Bay Foundation, Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries, Texas Ducks Unlimited and other groups and we look forward to working with them in the effort to conserve and restore the great marine resources of Texas.”

For more information about Habitat Today for Fish Tomorrow, be sure to visit ww.ccatexas.org and click on the Conservation tab. You will find information about different projects, videos and much more.

PORT MANSFIELD CUT & BEACH CLEANUP – MARCH 15 We are busy preparing for the 2014 Port Mansfield Cut and Beach Cleanup that will be held on Saturday March 15. I want to thank all past volunteers and sponsors for their help and reach out once again to make this year’s project another success. To those who have already confirmed participation, we thank you mightily and, to any who want to jump onboard—now is the time!

We welcome all volunteers as we are in need of all the hardworking hands we can find. Past support from Port Mansfield homeowners in the form of meals and lodging for volunteers, and assisting with boat transportation of volunteers to the worksite have been greatly appreciated. Please join this worthy endeavor.

Donations in the form of checks payable to Port Mansfield Cut and Beach Clean Up can be sent to Bassler Energy Services - P.O. Box 33, Deanville, Texas 77852. We can also be reached at 979-535-4593.

We have some very special recognition coming this year; YOUR project has been chosen by Field & Stream Magazine as one of their official Hero for the Day events. Field & Stream will be sending a video crew and producer to film the event and interview workers, organizers and sponsors. Their involvement will bring national attention to what folks like YOU do every year and many every day, without recognition. ~ Miller Bassler

74 | March 2014

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DICKIE COLBURN

DICKIE COLBURN’S Sabine Scene

Sabine

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

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

78 | March 2014

I pulled the hood on my Frogg Togg Toad Skinz a little tighter leaving just enough opening to see the batter and catcher. It was 48° with an intermittent bone-chilling mist that slowly soaked nine players, more concerned with getting back to the dugout than making a play.

That this day was deemed fit to practice outside spoke volumes as to what diehard trout fishermen have had to contend with. We have only been totally locked down due to ice a couple of times but virtually every trip First-ever redfish on a very cold day. has begun with frost on the boat!

Prior to the onset of the coldest winter we have experienced in years, the trout bite on Sabine was already markedly different than the year before. Very un-winter-like, the numbers have been crazy good, but the size wasn’t there. I have never seen so many aggressive trout in the 14 to 17 inch class.

The smaller fish are a mystery but there is a valid reason for the scarcity of bragging size trout.

A significant number of the usually more productive flats have been all but unfishable most days due to wind, so those fish have gone untouched.

Areas like Coffee Ground Cove, however, typically yield some of our largest trout this time of year, but the fishing pressure there is unprecedented. It has been so crowded that those preferring to wade have just written it off!

When the lion’s share of fishermen are idling through a flotilla and competing for the same bite it scatters the bait making it tough on a trophy trout looking to ambush one big easy meal every couple of days.

Hopefully, by the time you read this most of the lake will be accessible on a more frequent basis and locating big trout will not be an SRO event.

In fact, with the water clarity as user-friendly as it is right now, I would bet my last Corky Fat Boy or Maniac Mullet that we will see more big trout

An armload of a reason to smile on a cold fishing day.

taken this month alone than we have seen in the past two. There is no substitute for right place-right time but, it also helps to have the most effective lure on your line as well!

Maybe it is due to the amped-up presence of smaller trout but we have caught far more trout thus far on smaller lures like the Crazy Croaker, Soft-Dine, and Catch 2000 than their larger brothers. Even the shorter tails like the Sea Shad and Flats Minnow have been more productive than five-inch tails like the Assassin Shad, TTF Flats Minnow XL and Split Tail Mullet. I do not, however, look for that trend to continue.

Regardless of weather conditions March may well be the best month of the year for frequenting mud flats that border the Intracoastal several times throughout the day. More specifically, start your search along that 10 to 15 yard stretch of real estate that drops into the deeper channel. It is not unusual to catch several big trout in a single spot without ever hitting the troll motor.

There is no magic lure for exploiting this bite as I have been burned by visiting anglers chunking everything from a MirrOlure 51M or 52M to Rat-L-Traps. When I am not throwing a suspending mullet imitation, however, I often start my search with a four inch Usual Suspect Swim Bait or an Assassin Die Dapper rigged on an 1/8 ounce head. When fishing tails, you will have to compensate for strength of tide with the weight of the jig.

These same lures, along with She Dogs and Skitter Walks, will also work on the trout patrolling the major flats dotting the Louisiana side.

The absolute worst mistake you can make, outside of not fishing, is to try and cover too much of this water too quickly. Even when wading we hold tight and wait for the fish to feed over small patches of isolated shell.

I occasionally catch a little grief for relying on the cork as much as I do throughout the year, but I am convinced of the fact that it keeps the bait in the strike zone, making it worth its weight in gold. We don’t just drag Gulp or a VuDu shrimp around underneath it and hope for the best. A five inch tail rigged on a light head or even an unweighted 3/0 hook will dupe winter trout when nothing else will.

We will eventually thaw out as will the big trout and it will be gameon. Dress warm, pack extra dry clothes and some high energy snacks; and believe that every cast will be the one that makes a memory!

TSFMAG.com | 79

MICKEY EASTMAN

MICKEY On Galveston

Galveston

Mickey Eastman is a full-time fishing guide out of Baytown, TX. Mickey has over 30 years guiding experience on the Galveston area bays and is the founder of Gulf Coast Troutmasters, the largest speckled trout tournament series of all time.

Telephone 281-383-2032

80 | March 2014

I don’t know about everyone else but I’ve had enough winter and more than ready for spring to arrive. Winter fishing is fine when you get a few days of stable weather between fronts, but one front after another with all the misting rain and downright nasty wintry mix of weather is starting to get old. Unless you are able to get there between fronts on the few decent days we’ve had inbetween, it has been brutal.

Considering the conditions, we’ve had some beautiful trout caught in the Galveston Bay Complex this winter—and quite a few here lately.

Traditional wintertime big-fish baits like original Corkys and Fat Boys, your Tidal Surge Maniac Mullets, and various soft plastic baits in darker colors have been Capt. Chance Angel the best for big fish here of late. with 8.8 lb winter speck.

The good old MirrOlure 51M and

52M series have been pulling some good fish off the flats with a mud-shell mix bottom.

The bigger trout are definitely holding near shell along dropoffs where a gut or ledge is present. Oyster shell is best but clamshell dumps or knuckle shell are holding good fish also. Rivers and bayous are holding fish over ledges and bars during warming trends and freshwater inflow has not been a problem as spring approaches.

Some years, when we see a lot of runoff as spring approaches, we can only dream of fishing these patterns, but so far so good.

If you’ve got a pattern that is producing, stick with it and pray these water conditions hold up.

The redfish have been thick in marsh area lakes and bayou mouth flats. Stay shallow for redfish right now. The catfish

trotliners have been getting stripped clean and torn-up by redfish in the top end of Trinity Bay. This time of year is traditionally awesome for blue cats in the upper reaches of Trinity Bay, there just seems to be as many or more redfish as catfish this year.

The Tri-Bay area has been red-hot for trout along deeper dropoffs and guts with a mud-shell mix bottom on dark soft plastic baits on light jigheads.

West Bay has been producing solid to big trout near north and south Deer Island and Confederate Reef for waders throwing Corkys, Maniacs, and MirrOlures.

The top end of East Bay has also been yielding some nice trout for waders working shallow mud-shell mix bottom on high tides days with an outgoing tide near drains.

Dickinson Bayou has been producing specks and redfish all winter, including Moses Lake.

Clear Lake channel has also been holding some solid fish all winter.

Upper bays like Tabbs Bay, San Jacinto Bay, and Burnett Bay have been really good here of late with several trout being caught in the 28 to 30 inch class on Corkys and Maniacs over shallow towheads and mud-shell mix dropoffs. These shallower back bay water temps are ranging about 5 to 7° warmer than the surrounding main bays. That’s why they’re holding the bait and the better fish right now.

If the weather continues to be colder than normal these patterns will not change unless we have a major rain event. Good fishing and always remember to check that weather forecast, no matter how pretty it is when you leave the dock.

TSFMAG.com | 81

BINK GRIMES

THE VIEW FROM Matagorda

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@sbcglobal.net Website www.binkgrimesoutdoors.com

82 | March 2014

March will get us back in the swing of fishing most every day. When the sun comes out the phone starts ringing. I don’t blame you - we all need a little Vitamin D. We will be at the Houston Fishing Show March 5-9 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Come check us out at the Sunrise Lodge booth #414.

Tommy Alexander will be there from start to finish signing autographs, ordering pizza and taking pictures with his Guides Cup Champion trophy. Charlie Paradoski will be happy to give you all his best GPS coordinates and favorite Bass Assassin colors. Mark Talasek will give you all the performance numbers of his Yamaha SHO that helps him throw the highest rooster tails in Matagorda Bay. Seriously, all of us will be happy to discuss how and why we do things and the rods, reels and baits we use. Come by and see us – we have a pretty good time.

Times they are a changing. Blame

it on the threat of sharks, blame it on a mine field of stingrays, blame it on flesh-eating bacteria, or just blame it on laziness. Whatever the case, what once was the mainstay of Texas saltwater fishing – wading – is slowly being replaced by a new era of anglers who would rather stay in the boat than get wet.

We still wade, just not as much. Here are a few adjustments I have used to put more fish in the boat: My favorite method of fishing from the boat

for trout is drifting. Pick a piece of scattered shell, start upwind, then gingerly work the area, fan-casting in every direction. When we hit a fish, I mark it. When we hit another fish, I stab the Power Pole down and work the area more soundly.

Rarely when the Power Pole goes down do we draw a blank. When the action slows, I lift the Pole and continuing drifting until we mark another school.

This is precision drifting at its best. Sure, we caught plenty of fish this way when all we had was an old-fashioned anchor, but now our back and shoulder muscles are not as sore.

A GPS/Fish-finder device with water temperature and mapping

capabilities is a reliable friend when traversing the estuaries. The sonar shows bottom undulations and what we Texans call “towheads,” or protruding clumps of shell.

Often, trout are found tight to towheads, since shrimp, mullet and shad use the oyster clumps as refuge.

A good unit indicates the tides for the day and how strong the water flows will be throughout the exchange. My Garmin 541s also gives me the major and minor feeding times according to rise and set of the moon. The Garmin 740s is a seven-inch version with touchscreen capabilities.

Some days every fish is ready to dine on the buffet, but other days they appear finicky, and the smallest hint of superfluous information can punctuate a bite.

For the first five years I owned a boat, I never knew if the live well worked or not. Now, with so many new anglers on the brine and the novice aptitude they bring, live bait is sometimes the only option.

When fishing with live shrimp, MidCoast Product’s line of popping corks is a personal favorite. Combining a clicking frequency of beads with natural surface chugging, the Nexus4 and Nexus5 corks attract and excite speckled trout to bite. The castability of these corks allows anglers to cover more water, and the more water covered definitely increases the number of fish caught.

I’ll be using Waterloo’s new Phantom spinning rods for customers this year. It’s a great buy for anyone at $100, whether baitcaster or spinner. As for a baitcasting rod, nothing feels better to me than a 6’ 2” HP Lite with worms, Corkys and topwaters.

Make plans now for spring and get a little color back on that pale skin.

TSFMAG.com | 83

CAPT. SHELLIE GRAY

MID-COAST BAYS With the Grays

Port O'Connor Seadrift

Captain Gary and Captain Shellie Gray fish year-round for trout and redfish in the Port O’Connor/ Seadrift area. Gary started his Bay Rat Guide Service 20 years ago.

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

Gary and Shellie also team up to fish many tournaments.

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

84 | March 2014

It is not surprising that fishing here on the MidCoast has had its ups and downs lately due to winter having been harsher than normal and hanging on so long. February often gives us excellent fishing during warming periods but the patterns remain largely the same as January. Normally, come March, we begin to see some transition toward areas the fish will use well into spring.

I’m hoping we will start to see some warmer weather and, thankfully, this will have a lot of anglers eager to get out and re-hone their fishing skills. But we all know that while Old Man Winter may have loosened his grip, he probably will not let go completely. So while we should start seeing some warmer weather we still have to be prepared for a few more cold fronts that are sure to be pushing through our area.

As a guide I am asked a lot of questions but the most common is “What should we bring on our trip.”

I always give my clients a word of

caution during this time of year, while the weather may feel good at home it will be much different when you get out on the water. Winds coming off the water are always cooler than the winds on land and unfortunately, there are no trees or buildings to provide wind blocks out there.

Dressing in layers is necessary in order to be comfortable and able to concentrate on fishing

instead of worrying how cold you are. Even with no rain in the forecast, bring a rain suit as it makes a great windbreaker. And, don’t forget to cover your head. More body heat escapes through our heads than any other part.

So how does all this weather fluctuation affect the fishing? Rapid swings in the thermometer from cold to hot and then cold again in just a few days is always a challenge. I don’t think I need to tell most of you that when it is cold fish tend to migrate to our warmer muddy-bottomed back lakes and just the opposite when our waters warm. When temperatures are on the rise fish will start to migrate out of our back lakes and head to the outside sandy shorelines that line our area bays.

Challenging as the ups and downs of temperature will be, wind will be yet another factor I have to consider. Calmer, warmer days will lead me toward sandy shorelines with sloughs leading to back lakes. Look for speckled trout to be more scattered this time of year but luckily they will be heavier due to their added pre-spawn pounds.

Cooler, windier days will push those same fish back up into the warmer back lakes. Because many of our back lakes are muddy, long drifts is one of the better options, especially if you do not like or cannot wade sticky mud.

Artificial baits such as Berkley’s Gulp Saltwater 5” Jerk Shads are a good go-to bait for both trout and reds. They are impregnated with Gulp’s Scent Dispersion and the scent released by this soft plastic is powerful and far reaching. When “Texas-rigged” they have a great erratic darting motion that imitates a struggling baitfish. My best producer is the natural sardine color. Bait stealers, like pinfish, have been known to jump on these baits quickly due to the natural smell, but they hold up well and the chaos attracts attention, which brings in the trout or red from a distance.

March is the perfect time to break out your favorite topwater and it’s the ideal fish-finding lure. Topwaters imitate big baitfish which is what large female trout love to feed on during these cooler months.

Let the fish dictate which retrieve they prefer. When getting more blowups than hookups, try speeding up or slowing your retrieve, and add pauses. While topwaters provide no scent they are highly visible and audible to all fish and will yield great rewards.

Gary and I will again have a booth at the Houston Fishing Show, March 5-9 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. We don’t get away from Seadrift often so we look forward to meeting new friends and chatting it up with old acquaintances and clients. Come see us in Booth 528 and say “Hi!”

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TSFMAG.com | 85

DAVID ROWSEY

HOOKED UP WITH Rowsey

Thus far 2014 has been the best year in Baffin since the brown tide kicked off in the spring of 2011. We are experiencing our first real winter in three years and the trout seem to be responding to it predictably well.

Revisiting haunts that have not held fish in recent Upper years now finds them “coming home” like they have Laguna/ been on an extended vacation.

Baffin Quoting Augustus McCrae in the classic western movie Lonesome Dove, “There is nothing finer than riding a good horse across new country.” That line pretty much sums up how I feel every time I pull David Rowsey has 20 years up on some old (but new) ground and find mullet experience in the Laguna/Baffin flipping and big trout eating in trout-green water. region; trophy trout with artificial March is a magical month in Baffin Bay and the lures is his specialty. David has a Laguna Madre. Historically it is the month of the great passion for conservation fattest trout of the year. If you are lucky enough and encourages catch and release of trophy fish. to connect up with one of these big girls you will most likely be doing it in some of the heaviest Telephone southeast winds of the calendar year. Saying that, 361-960-0340 don’t let the winds bother you too much. Baffin is Website www.DavidRowsey.com essentially landlocked, being so far from the passes Email connecting the bays to the gulf. The vast majority david.rowsey@yahoo.com of water movement in this area is wind-driven. A

86 | March 2014

good breeze generally gets the fish into a feeding mode and puts a stain on the crystal-clear water which makes the trout much less spooky. Personally, I’m more scared of slick calm days than days approaching 25-30 mph southeast wind.

As cold as 2014 has been I expect the best trout to still be relating to muddy flats with accessible deep water nearby. This pattern has proven very effective to date and should continue on through March.

As the cool days begin to heat up, look for good numbers of trout to also be moving towards sandy and shallow areas in pursuit of mullet that are trying to get as close to the sun as possible. This is especially important in the afternoon, just before the sun sets. If you are a grinder who has the gumption to fish from sunup to sundown, the payoff could be huge.

Day in and day out the 5” Bass Assassin (rat tail) reigns supreme in locating the fish. When the water becomes windblown and a bit off-color, this bait becomes the go-to lure for me and the one I recommend to clients. Choosing colors varies due to water clarity; however, my mainstays are: Morning Glory, Plum, Sweet Pea, Mama’s 14K, Red Shad,

and Hammer Time. We are rigging the straight tails on 1/16 ounce jigheads, and the swim tails (sea shad) on 1/8s to get the most action out of them. Not to be forgotten is the MirrOlure Fat Boy (Corky).

The Fat Boy has just been lethal on the big girls this year, and will continue to get an abundance of play time as long as the mullet are

flipping around acting scared.

In the age of modern technology, go fast boats and social media, every time a picture of a solid fish is posted online you can expect more boats to hit the area within 24 hours. We are all after the same thing but a little respect and courtesy would go a long way. I guess it is the same in every bay system, but the departure of sporting etiquette, in our area, just baffles me over the past five years.

For the record, there is no one group that is any more guilty than the other, i.e., some guides are as bad, if not worse, than the weekender trying to make a run at a big trout. Following are a few basic guidelines that I think would apply anywhere we fish on the coast: – Don’t run your big motor through wade fishermen. Use your trolling motor if you must be that close to another group.

– Use established boating routes when on plane from one point to the other.

– Do not wade in boating lanes if you do not want to be run over.

– Stay at least 300 yards off of the King Ranch shoreline when running the big motor.

– Unless invited, do not wade up on or troll-motor to another group of fishermen.

– Last but not least—Don’t be the guy that fishes the “bent pole” pattern. – If you see guys catching fish, try not to potlick the area One of two big trout caught on a recent cold day by 15 year-old Colton the first thing on the next day. It makes you look really bad, and Blackwell. I’m not sure who was more proud; Colton, his dad, Johnny, in some cases, very unprofessional. or me. It was fun to watch a determined young man get it done!

Remember the buffalo. -Capt. David Rowsey

It’s in our blood.

Born more than 60 years ago in Foley, AL, saltwater has always been in our veins.

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TSFMAG.com | 87

CAPT. TRICIA

TRICIA’S Mansfield Report No doubt every saltwater angler in Texas is glad to see winter winding down and, hopefully, soon to be behind us. The mere thought of warm days arriving and hanging up my waders fills me with glee and anticipation for spring fishing. Yes, it is going to be warmer, but let’s not forget Port the probability of a few lateMansfield season fronts and those pesky southeast March winds that are sure to be a prominent part of the fishing picture this month.

Capt. Tricia’s Skinny Water And, as much as we are looking Adventures operates out of forward to wading wet, that is Port Mansfield, specializing in probably going to be a while in wadefishing with artificial lures. the future, even down here in the good old Mother Lagoon.

We finally had a cold winter, Telephone 956-642-7298 no doubt about that, and Email finding water temperatures shell@granderiver.net running in the mid-50s was Website www.SkinnyWaterAdventures.com the ticket for steady action the past several months. One good aspect of winter is the extremely low tides, and I

88 | March 2014

hope everybody took notice of bottom changes and contours we do not often get to see. Marking these on your GPS can prove handy for finding fish when the tides bulge up in spring.

I am happy to report many of our grass beds are returning, I got to see it firsthand with the low tides.

Hopefully the turbidity we have experienced since Hurricane Dolly will be lessened in many areas with the grass returning. Not saying I don’t like a little dirty water, but what we have had to deal with lately has been pretty ugly, especially when one was used to so many miles of heavy grass and potholed bottoms of the past.

Although we had a great winter catching-wise, I still feel that our trout numbers are down. With that, hopefully anglers that are coming to visit will respect this fact

and practice C&R accordingly. We believe the five trout limit has improved our fishery down here. If it ever makes it further up through the middle coast I am confident it will improve that fishery as well.

But you have to give it time. Maybe in a few years, God willing, we’ll see less bay-hopping and the pressure it brings down here. Yes, the Lower Laguna is legendary for bigger trout, but if we don’t leave any…well, you know…

Late winter in years past, we could catch them way skinny, but the best action this year was typically found knee to mid-thigh deep. I’m thinking the prolonged cold water temperatures played a role.

The region I am describing, easily visible during low winter tides, is exactly where the dark scattered grass begins. Not the heavy grass line we target in warmer months, but the larger sandy zone with smaller, more distinct grass patches. Some very nice fish were using this zone on the east side, especially during the frequent hard norther recoveries. Soft plastics have been our mainstay baits but during warming afternoons topwaters and broken-back Corkys also did very well.

In March we can expect higher water levels and even higher southeast wind. Use your eyes this month

instead of methodically fishing your same old spots. One of the most important skills we can acquire is reading what Mother Nature lays in front of us. Try it, you will find yourself a much more successful angler.

As March progresses we should see more frequent feeding for longer periods as mature trout are beginning to develop eggs. Be ready because earliest spawning can begin toward the end of the month, weather permitting. Couple the weight of eggs and the winter bulk they are still carrying to show some real heavyweights the next two months. Another exciting possibility is sight-casting in the clear shallows to my beloved redfish. And don’t think large trout can’t be there as well. Quite often they are!

Tricia’s Tips – Stock up on all your tackle needs; the Houston Fishing Show is a good place.

– Watch your water depth with reduced clarity. Pushing the boat is not fun.

– Stop burning the shallows and walk in. Win-win for everybody.

– Give waders and drifters a wide birth, at least 200 yards.

– If drifting the flats, use the ICW when you can to set up your next drift. This applies especially on the east side from Benny’s Shack down to Duncan House.

TSFMAG.com | 89

CAPT. ERNEST CISNEROS

SOUTH PADRE Fishing Scene

A rr oyo C olorado t o Port I sabel

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

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

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

I wish my optimism for our spring season was as high as last month. My outlook has nothing to do with the state of our fisheries, I believe we have lots of good fish. It is water quality that troubles me.

Over the past weeks I’ve been noticing a streak of tea-colored water that runs from a couple miles south of the Mansfield East Cut, along both sides of the ICW, all the way to the old causeway at Port Isabel. Another source of concern is open bay dredge spoil disposal from the ICW maintenance project north of Port Isabel.

Our grassbeds took a real beating during the great freshwater floods of 2010 and they’re just now showing signs of recovery. Between the tea color of the water and the murkiness the dredge has created, I fear the grass could be dealt another setback. I am hoping that when the bigger tides of March roll into the bays we will see improved water quality all across the Lower Laguna.

Redfish catches have been rather spotty when the water temp dips below the 50° mark. During colder periods our flats have become almost void of life; so much for finding schools of reds in the shallows. On the upside, our shallow flats warm up very quickly.

As soon as the water temp nudges above 50° they’ll

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ease back up and stage in the potholes again, but they’re not always anxious to eat until they warm up. Late afternoons have been the best times. Just drag a plum-chartreuse Kelley Wiggler slowly through The author with Lower Laguna beauty; 30 inches and 8 lbs on a Kelley Wiggler plum/chart ball tail shad.

each pothole and hope. That’s what we’re doing. If you hit it right, meaning 55° or warmer water, like we had one afternoon last week, you’ll have much better luck. We caught fifty-two reds and I lucked out with a 30-inch trout!

As far as trout catches go, I would have to honestly say our numbers and size of trout are below average so far this winter. I believe we have the fish, so I’m blaming the cold for pushing them into water that is too deep for wade fishing.

Right before the most recent series of cold fronts we were catching great numbers of trout in many areas but the fronts so close together and the plunge in water temperatures have changed their hiding places and eating habits. The good news is that we have seen a glimpse of many undisputable trophy trout in shallow water during warmer periods that would excite any trout enthusiast.

Mark, Dale and Capt. Ruben Garza braved the bitter cold and got into some red hot action.

Muddy bottoms seem to be where most of our trout catches are coming from, and again, a slow retrieve using Paul Brown Corky Devils or slow-sinking Fat Boys are at least enticing some strikes, even if halfheartedly. Kelley Wiggler’s in natural colors have also helped us catch good numbers, when the conditions are favorable.

Spoil banks, channels, flats near deeper water and even the flats east of the ICW have had some good numbers of trout for a while now.

It’s exciting to anticipate that our big trout will move into the shallow flats to spawn soon, and this annual event definitely increases your chance of getting your hands on a true wall-hanger fish.

In March we will begin to see our southerly winds returning with force and hopefully help clear our bays with clean-clear gulf water. Once our bays start to clear up I look for our fishing to greatly improve this spring.

March also brings about an event that I always look forward to every year, and that’s the Houston Fishing Show at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The dates this year are March 5 thru 9.

For the past several years I have benefited greatly through my association with Fishing Tackle Unlimited and I want to thank Joe and Danny Meyer for their contribution to my success in the guiding business during that time. But time moves on.

I am proud to announce that I have just recently joined with CastAway Graphite Rods and Fish-N-Hunt Pro Gear and I will be representing them at the Show. These are two great companies that have earned a solid reputation for the quality of their products and customer service in the Texas fishing industry. So come by the booth to see their products or to simply say, “Hello.” Good fishing to you!

TSFMAG.com | 91

FISHING REPORTS

Lake Calcasieu Louisiana Jeff and mary poe - big Lake guide Service - 337.598.3268 Overall, March is a good month. Being able to pick your days is a real advantage. Escaping the wind can be challenging on Calcasieu. Paul Brown’s Lures, MirrOdines and Catch 2000’s are our most productive baits for big trout, but as water temperatures warm, topwaters aren’t out of the question. Due to predominant south winds, the south end of Calcasieu will be protected, and most of the nicer trout will be caught in that part of the lake this time of year. Wading flats and shallow reefs produces solid trout year after year down there. The weirs will also be holding a lot of redfish at this time. If big trout aren’t your thing, try your favorite winter time spots. LNG, Prien Lake, Black Lake, and the Calcasieu Ship Channel are great winter spots. All of these places are deep, with the exception of Black Lake, so eighth and quarter ounce jigheads work better than really light ones. Dropoffs and deep reefs are key areas to try.

Do not worry about water clarity so much. Focus more on location and be persistent, and you’ll catch more fish.

Trinity bay - East bay - galveston bay | James plaag Silver king Adventures - silverkingadventures.com - 409.935.7242 Bitter cold weather has made fishing difficult or impossible on many days this winter, but when the weather moderates, the catching has been good in Galveston Bays, James reports. “We are wading, catching lots of reds, and some solid trout. The key has been to focus on the

92 | March 2014

ORECASTS F from Big Lake to Boca Chica

AND

warmer days between the fronts, when the wind shifts around to the south and southeast. Best bite has been on Paul Brown’s Original FatBoys and other sinking twitch baits. I’ve done best on pearl/black and strawberry/white tail. We are also catching plenty of rat tailed Bass Assassins in colors like slammin’ chicken. Rigging them on an H&H Flutter jighead works best, because you can work them through the shallows easily without snagging on whatever’s on the bottom. The wading will continue to be a priority as we head into March. Fishing should become more consistent and productive once we get out of this pattern of the really strong fronts slamming us over and over again. We have a lot of fish, and when we can get at ‘em, it will be outstanding.”

Jimmy West - bolivar guide Service - 409.996.3054 Jim reports excellent fishing in the backs of all of the bays around his home in Bolivar lately. “We haven’t had a lot of rain, and there’s not much freshwater coming into the bays, so all the areas of Upper Galveston, Trinity and East Bays are salty and productive. Best fishing for big trout is on the pre-front days, when onshore winds blow water back into the bays and it’s warming up. This seems to be the year of the six to seven pound trout around here. Lots of wadefishermen are catching fish in that class while pre-front winds are blowing. As we get into March, that option will still be productive, and we’ll also have plenty of fish around the mouths of the drains when tides are falling, and in the bayous too. You can almost always find a way to catch plenty of

trout and reds this time of year if you stay mobile. We’ll be throwing big lures like Paul Brown’s Original Lures and 5M MirrOlures, also topwaters at times. Tide movement is critical, so I adjust my fishing times to take advantage of the moving water.”

West galveston - bastrop - Christmas - Chocolate bays Randall groves - groves guide Service 979.849.7019 - 979.864.9323 With all the cold weather lately, Randall has been finding his fish in deep, open-water areas. “We are catching okay when the winds allow us to work the deeper water, but overall the fishing has been a little tough with these low water temperatures. I expect things to make a strong upturn once we get to March and April. We normally see the glass minnows arrive in March, followed by the mullet and then the shrimp and ribbon fish. When these migrations are occurring, fishing typically gets much easier. We try to figure out what time of day the migrating species are most active, because the trout and reds will be feeding during those time periods. Many years, the afternoon bite is better this time of year. Liar birds often lead us to the fish. Our fish move shallower with the warming weather, and we start catching them over a sandy bottom, using lures like twitch baits and topwaters.

Norton Sand Eels also work great on a regular basis, especially when the glass minnows are running.” matagorda | Charlie paradoski bay guide Service - 713.725.2401 Charlie describes March as an “interesting” month. “We’ve had a really cold winter, one like we used to get regularly. Normally, March fishing is good in Matagorda following a colder than normal winter. Our fish seem to stay put where they were in January and February to some extent. Once it does start to warm up, we have numerous options.

Fishing out of the boat around the shell humps and in areas with scattered shell out in the middle will be good. We’ll usually see some days where we can catch them on topwaters out of the boat. Of course, March is a great month to wade and try to catch the trout of a lifetime. Areas in the coves in East Bay, and other shallow parts of the bay along the north shoreline all produce some big trout during the warming days at the end of the winter and into the early part of spring. Though recent trends have people favoring Lake Calcasieu and Baffin for big trout, we’ve got some really big ones here too. And March is one of the best months of all in which to catch them.” palacios | Capt. Aaron Wollam www.palaciosguideservice.com - 979.240.8204 Water temperatures holding in the low fifties and upper forties have our fish stuck in a deep water pattern. We have been catching good eatingsized trout in the Tres Palacios, Carancahua, and Colorado Rivers. Three inch Gulp! shrimp in white/chartreuse tail rigged on three eighths ounce chartreuse jigheads have by far been the best colors. Slowly jigging the lures close to the bottom has accounted for the most bites. Our redfish bites have come best in canals and drains leading from area lakes. Salt and pepper with chartreuse paddletail baits rigged on quarter ounce jigheads have worked best for catching the reds. Because our area bays are so shallow overall, when the water falls out behind the strong north winds, all the fish got to the rivers or deep canals. Hopefully, we will get some warmer weather and more onshore winds in the near future, to bring some water back in the bays. When we do, our fish will start to move to the flats and let us start hunting some of the big trout we usually catch this time of year.

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Port O’Connor | Lynn Smith Back Bay Guide Service - 361.983.4434 Lynn is looking forward to the start of the dredging project to reopen Cedar Bayou and Vinson Slough.

“Once they get Cedar Bayou opened again, I expect the fishing in the Mesquite, Carlos Ayers area to really improve. The influx of water from the Gulf will help keep the tides moving and make the fishing better and more consistent. I expect to start working regularly in that area this coming month. Normally, during March, we find plenty of quality trout in the shallow areas around there, over soft mud and scattered shell. We will target them with twitch baits like Paul Brown’s Original Lures and Fat Boys, and floating plugs like Super Spook Juniors. Of course, if the bite gets tough, we’ll throw soft plastics if we feel it’s necessary to get bites.

I like the shallow water pattern best during warming afternoons, when the sun is out. Most of the time, I won’t leave the dock really early; I’ll work later hours and allow the flats to heat up. Can’t wait to get back to the fishing after a long deer season.”

Rockport | Blake Muirhead Gator Trout Guide Service - 361.790.5203 or 361.441.3894 Blake describes the trout fishing this winter as “better than average” in the Rockport area. “I usually fish for redfish primarily during duck season, but I wasn’t seeing as many as in most years when running the back lakes in the air boat, so I would up trout fishing more, and it was really pretty good. I’m catching good numbers of trout between about 22 and 24 inches on most days, with a few bigger ones. The best areas have been around reefs in fairly shallow water, with a mix of mud and scattered shell nearby. Once we get into March, I’ll still be fishing that pattern, but I’ll also start working sandy, grassy shorelines in all of the area bays. Small topwaters like Super Spook Juniors in blue/chrome and black/chrome work well. Starting in the second half of February, we usually have some of our best topwater action of the year, and it

94 | March 2014

lasts well into the spring. Of course, if the bite is tougher, Sand Eels in pumpkinseed and purple/chartreuse work better. And if the going gets really tough, the chartreuse Gulp! split tail is even better.”

Upper Laguna Madre - Baffin Bay - Land Cut Robert Zapata – rz1528@grandecom.net - 361.563.1160 I’m reading some encouraging notes from my fishing logs recorded in the last few years during the month of March. Both the air and water temperatures will be on the rise, but I’ll still be wearing my waders and ForEverlast Ray Guards. The trout and reds are coming up out of the deeper holes and staying in shallower water. It’s really important to look for bait and follow it, because this is what the trout and reds are doing.

Look for mullet or shad just below the water’s surface, swirling on the surface or jumping. Also, look for slicks and fish upwind from the slicks.

Sea gulls hovering over a small area and diving brown pelicans are good signs. My logs indicate the fish are in three feet of water or less, especially after three days of warm weather. A variety of baits will work, like live shrimp or your favorite smelly artificial lure under an Assassin Kwik Cork. Bass Assassin Die Dappers in colors like plum/chartreuse, sand trout and chartreuse dog on a sixteenth ounce Spring Lock jighead bounced off the bottom will be very effective.

Corpus Christi | Joe Mendez – www.sightcast1.com - 361.937.5961 Fishing in Baffin Bay and surrounding areas of the Laguna Madre has been excellent lately, Joe says. “I was out with some friends the other day, and we were working a shallow area of the Laguna in the vicinity of the Land Cut. Water was off-color that day, and fishing was just average.

But my buddies had caught a bunch of trout and reds there recently, including some big trout. That’s been the norm. Lots of big trout are being caught lately. Water quality is good throughout most of the area.

We will be targeting the trout and reds in shallow water most of the month of March, working flats around the Land Cut, others closer to and

inside Baffin, and also some north of Baffin, including some around the JFK. Because the water is so clear, sight-casting opportunities should present themselves on a regular basis. March is a great month to find both trout and redfish cruising the shallows, so it should be really good.

Since the winter has been colder than normal, we might have a late onset of the spring winds. That should help too.” padre island National Seashore billy Sandifer - padre island Safaris - 361.937.8446 March marks the beginning of our summer fish species returning to PINS as shoals of jack crevalle arrive and feed shallow, providing some wonderful sight-casting opportunities. Shark numbers will also increase dramatically with blacktipped, sandbar and scalloped hammerheads traditionally present in good numbers. The really great thing about these early-season sharks is that they are accessible on casted as well as kayaked baits. The blacktipped sharks are heavy and near fullterm pregnant, usually the biggest and meanest of the year. Bottom fishermen will find good-sized whiting available in good numbers with lesser numbers of sheepshead, black drum and redfish. Pompano are also still possible in reasonable numbers. Target these species with peeled fresh-dead shrimp and Fishbites. Typical conditions are windy and rough but the quality of the fishing will be controlled more by the amount of sargassum present and the color of the water. So far the water has remained murky to muddy all winter and it has really hurt all catches. Tides will be high in general so it is a good idea to avoid traveling on daily high tides. port mansfield | Ruben garza Snookdudecharters.com – 832.385.1431 getaway Adventures Lodge – 956.944.4000 Fishing in Port Mansfield this past month has been productive. The only slow days have been when a front was passing and the day or

two after, depending how cold it got. For a good while now we’ve been finding more of an afternoon bite but it has begun switching to decent early-morning action followed by a better mid-afternoon feed.

This is the type of pattern I expect for the month of March. On colder mornings we have been fishing deeper, then as the day progresses we transition to shallower as the presence of bait dictates. Kelley Wiggler’s Ball Tail Shad, Lagunaflauge and Mansfield Margarita, on an eighth ounce jighead, are ideal. You can occasionally get one on topwater but for the most part it has been subsurface action. Corkys are producing some solid fish especially the new Corky Dime. As of now a handful of 9lb trout have but caught. With the fronts constantly moving in I predict bigger trout will be caught. It’s just now starting to get good down here. Tight lines and calm seas.

Lower Laguna madre - South padre - port isabel Janie and Fred petty – www.fishingwithpettys.com – 956.943.2747 The water quality on the west side of the Lower Laguna Madre, at the time of this writing, is sadly, terrible. Even when stopping in shallow areas, visibility is down to about two to three inches, but when it’s windy, the brown tide and silt combine to make it even harder to see your lure.

Because of these restrictions, we’ve switched from lures to bait. We’re still catching reds; limits and one or two oversize have made up our daily catch, with the addition of an occasional trout or black drum. Freddy says, “Every once in a while we latch onto a huge trout, but when they swallow the bait, the battle is on and it’s hard to keep a hook in the soft stomach tissue, so we’re still waiting for that trophy speck to put on the website this year! The coming month is still an option for the trout of a lifetime.” We’re hoping recent efforts to thwart open bay dredge disposal will continue to build intensity after the dredging season is over. We’ve seen a tremendous surge in interest, and want to keep the pressure on the Corps of Engineers to end this destructive practice.

TSFMAG.com | 95

Brianna Baffin Bay - first trout!

Charlie de Carlos Port Aransas - black drum

Melissa Fritts Nick’s Lake - 21” flounder

Marcus Gaspar & dad South Padre - 24” first redfish!

96 | March 2014

Mark Canchola South Padre - 30” black drum

Rick Denton redfish, CPR!

Charles Brown Galveston - 27.5” 5lb trout

Paige Chilcoat West Bay - 28” 6.5lb personal best trout, CPR!

Joseph Baffin Bay - first trout!

Christine Fowler Goose Island - 42” red CPR!

Jeff Bible 28.25” personal best trout!

James Baker Matagorda - 26.5” 8.25lb red

Lauren Burns Baffin Bay - 26.5” personal best trout!

Isabelle Farmer Kemah - 22” reds

Joshua Buster Moats POC - personal best red!

Weston Maze Aransas bay - 34.5” 12lb red

Reese Pyle 40” redfish, CPR!

Eli Tiller Copano Bay - 14.5” flounder

JonCarlos Maldonado Lavaca Bay - slot red

Chase & Allie Siegeler first trouts!

Kelly Tabor Humble Channel - 24.5” first speck!

Mark Kalish POC - 41” 38lb bull red

Brenten Richner Galveston - 24” & 22” trout

Luke Tiller Copano Bay - lizardfish

Alan Parker Houston Ship Channel - 30lb ling

Coleman Weiss, Jacob & Luke Henderson, Bryson Ko Big Shell Beach - first team shark!

Please do not write on the back of photos.

Email photos with a description of your Catch of the Month to: Photos@tsfmag.com

Luis & Jerry Garcia San Luis Pass

Gina York Laguna Madre - 25” trout

Mail photos to: TSFMag P.O. Box 429, Seadrift, TX 77983 TSFMAG.com | 97

PAM JOHNSON

GULF COAST Kitchen

Trout and Oysters with creamy spinach sauce Preheat oven to 375.

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

Email them to pam@tsfmag.com or send by fax: 361-785-2844

In large frying pan, melt butter and add onions, bell pepper, green onions and garlic.

Sauté until vegetables are translucent. Add spinach, chardonnay and heavy whipping cream. Simmer until mixture begins to thicken.

Remove from heat and set aside.

Place oyster in shells* to bake. Cover each with spinach sauce and top with bread crumbs.

Bake in oven for about 10 minutes or until tops begin to brown.

Melt 1/2 stick butter in frying pan and add olive oil.

In a gallon ziplock bag, place bread crumbs, rosemary, feta cheese and parmesan cheese. Shake to mix. Spread the mixture on a plate and press both sides of fillets into mixture to coat evenly.

Place fillets in medium-heated fry pan with olive oil and butter and brown, approximately 3 minutes per side. Place fillet on plate and top with reserved spinach sauce.

Serve with oysters and a salad. Yield 4-6 servings. *Note – This recipe requires approximately 24-30 clean oyster shell halves for baking oysters. Spreading a bed of rock salt on a baking sheet helps hold oyster shells level while baking.

6 medium trout fillets 1 pint fresh oysters 1/2 stick creamery butter 2 Tbsp olive oil Coating & Topping: 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs 1 Tbsp minced fresh rosemary 1/4 cup feta cheese 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

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Seahorses Use Their Heads to Their Advantage Seahorses and pipefish may be beautiful and graceful creatures, but they’re not the speediest of fish. In fact, they swim more slowly than most marine animals, yet they manage to catch some of the fastest prey in the sea nearly every time. Their secret weapon? Seahorses use their unusually shaped heads.

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The dwarf seahorse, Hippocampus zosterae, has a head perfectly shaped to sneak up on fast moving copepods. Credit: Brad Gemmell Seahorses feed on copepods, nearly microscopic crustaceans that can bolt from predators as fast as 500 body lengths a second – or the equivalent of a 6-foot human swimming 2,000 mph underwater. These tiny crustaceans rely on detecting water movements to alert them of approaching predators. Within just two to three milliseconds of feeling nearby disturbances in the water, they dart away. But that’s where seahorses have an advantage.

A group of researchers from the University of Texas and Texas Tech learned about the seahorse’s strategy by using laser-based imaging and a high-speed, digital camera to create 3-D holographic images of dwarf seahorses while they hunted. The researchers discovered the shape of the seahorse’s head creates a “no wake zone” which enables the seahorse to sneak up on copepods.

The seahorse’s unusually shaped head has evolved so it barely moves the water in front of its mouth. The copepods therefore cannot detect water movements even as the seahorse moves right up beside them.

Once within a millimeter of their prey, the seahorse swiftly jerks its head up and sucks in the copepod in less than a millisecond – before the copepod senses any danger. This “pivot” feeding is used by various species of seahorses, pipefish and sea dragons who share this special adaption for stealthy hunting. Now that’s using their heads!

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TSFMAG.com | 101

CHRIS MAPP

b O AT m A i N T E N A N C E T i p S Part of getting your fishing season underway should include making sure your boat trailer will provide a safe, legal, and trouble-free trip to the boat ramp.

Folks who neglect their trailers often say, “I only go from the boat stall to the ramp,” or “My boat is in a sling, we never Chris Mapp, owner Coastal Bend Marine. use the trailer.” Even if the trailer is only Yamaha, Evinrude, Suzuki, used occasionally, nobody wants a wheel Mercury, Honda, BlueWave, to come off on the road or hear an axle SilverWave, Haynie, El Pescador snap turning a corner.

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Annual boat Trailer maintenance Schedule: • Remove hubs, clean and inspect bearings, repack with marine grease (or replace), install new seals. When bearings are replaced, the outer races must also be replaced. For badly rusted hubs, replacing with new galvanized hubs that includes wheel studs, bearings and seals may be cheaper in the long run.

• Inspect spindles for corrosion, cracks and grooving on bearing and seal surfaces.

• Bearing Buddy wheel bearing covers are a must. Bearing Buddy is the only setup with positive spring pressure forcing grease to the bearings while keeping water out. The built-in grease level indicator tells you when you need grease and when the hub is full. Bearing covers without indicators make seal damage from over-greasing possible. Installing a rubber “bra” over the Bearing Buddy protects from road grime and saltwater.

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102 | March 2014

LET’S TALK BOAT TRAILERS

• Boat trailers that are parked most of the time are the worst for bearing corrosion.

• Test all lights, clean all ground connections on tail lights.

• Trailer ball coupler should be inspected for fit on the ball, coupler should be tight and level on trailer tongue.

• Safety chains should be free from heavy corrosion and should always be crossed when towing. A hitch pin through the coupler latch is a must.

• Trailers with leaf springs; inspect for corrosion (thick rust flakes) on spring leafs, mounting hardware, and also where the axle is welded to the spindle.

Axles mainly rust and fail from inside out. Inspecting these areas can tell you what is happening inside. Axles rarely last longer than five years in saltwater.

• Inspect winch strap for wear where hook attaches. Use a safety chain as back-up to the winch strap.

• Trailer jack should be tested for smooth operation and safety pin inspected for fit. (Never trust a jack.)

• Corrosion X HD (green) is great for protecting lug nuts, mounting/ connecting hardware, trailer jacks, tail lights, and side-light mounting studs.

A new aluminum trailer with torsion axles and LED lighting is definitely the way to go today. Coastline Trailers in Seadrift, Specialty Aluminum Trailers in Victoria and McClain Trailers in Houston are all great builders.

Never let anyone ride in the boat while trailering. Never trust the boat trailer ahead on the highway. Grease is your best friend. Maintenance is easy and saves you money.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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