Tuesday, March 7th, 2012

Took a half day at work and met Kelly out at 4th Street for a little afternoon fishing. True to form, the wind was 15-20 knots. We decided to give it the old college try anyway, and paddled out with our beer and bait buckets.

Despite the wind, it was gorgeous out.

We spent most of our time like this:

We hit a half-dozen spots before Kelly finally hooked up with a trout just outside Steve's Hole. We anchored up and caught a good half-dozen fish each before calling it a day around 5:30pm.

Sure beat sitting at my desk.

March 3rd, 2012

Sunrise found us at the 4th Street launch. Kelly and I were both eager to fish after having to cancel our time on the water last weekend due to unfavorable wind conditions. When we launched this morning, the wind was around 10 knots with gusts to 15. Not great, but we were still able to throw the topwaters.

I got the skunk off early with a ladyfish, and Kelly followed soon after with a 15 inch redfish, both on topwater.

A short time later, he picked up another little red on topwater, and both of us had several follows and misses to keep things interesting.

We were stuck fishing close to the mangroves to provide some cover from the wind. The tide was working against us today, a slow incoming tide that didn't give us enough water to fish the shallows. When the wind would die down, Kelly and I would drift out into 3-4 feet of water and throw our lures.

I was mostly throwing my spook and Yo-zuri shrimp, but at some point decided to toss out the flat Rap, and on my first cast hooked up with a lunker. The fish ran hard and long, but I got it turned and worked it in slowly. After awhile I saw that it was a big red, and I called Kelly over to take my hero shot. It was 24 inches on the dot:

Though we would fish another couple of hours, that red would be the last we would catch on the day. I started paddling back at 11:00am and ended up back at the launch at 11:30am after a continuous, arduous paddle. The wind was so fierce that at one point I was paddling without moving forward. When I got back to the car I checked my wind app on my phone and it showed a steady 20 knot wind with gusts to 20 knots. Crazy.

February 11th, 2012

Last night the rains were long and soaking, and the day called for a steady wind, so Kelly and I sought shelter in the Cross Bayou Canal once again. At sunrise, I could see the back end of the front moving off:

We launched a little after 7:00am, and as usual, we threw a few casts around the Park Street bridge in the hopes of catching a ladyfish and getting the skunk off early. As I approached the bridge, I could see a fish feeding off the closest piling on the far left of the bridge. I threw my new Yo-zuri shrimp there, gave it a few twitches, and got a hard hit and hookup. The fish took off for another piling ten yards away, and I had only a second to pull back and try to pull it away. I don't know if I turned its head or if it changed course toward me, but I was able to avoid the piling, and was awarded in my efforts a short time later with a respectable snook:

Nothing like catching a snook on your first cast to improve a bummer of a day.

A short time later we arrived at Joe's creek and started fishing upstream. We had a nice wind to our back, which made it easy to work the mangrove shoreline without much steering.

Both Kelly and I were placing some nice casts into the mangroves, but nothing was biting. From time to time Kelly would pick up a ladyfish, but I stuck with the Yo-zuri Shrimp, which the ladyfish turn up their noses to. A hundred or so casts later, I was rewarded for my perseverance with a second snook, this one smaller at around 18". Say hello, friend:

We fished all the way up to a fork in the creek. Kelly paddled up the fork to do some prospecting. Here he is up a creek with a paddle:

We weren't able to catch anything else in Joe's creek, so we paddled back down to the canal and drifted downwind while working the mangroves. There were some nice pockets of water along the way, and I was able to catch a small redfish and a big ladyfish, and Kelly caught a few ladyfish and jumped a snook. I was hoping for a trout to complete my first ever slam, but it wasn't to be.

Maybe next time.

January 28th, 2012

Kelly and I met up at the Rally at 6:30am and drove out to the Cross Bayou Canal. We were launched and paddling off by 7:15am into the cool morning. After two abnormally warm weeks, we were again fishing on the back end of a cold front. It was about 58 degrees at launch. At least the wind cooperated, with calm conditions to start and no more than 5mph at the close of our session.

Our first stop was at the Park Street Bridge, where I picked up a ladyfish and a trout on a Yo-zuri edge lure. Kelly got the skunk off with a ladyfish on the north side of the bridge, then we nodded and paddled upstream.

We picked up a few more ladyfish at the mouth of Joe's creek, then started fishing our way upstream. I had been throwing my Yo-zuri edge the whole time, but after a real rats nest of a wind knot, I switched out to a back-up rod that had one of the new Yo-zuri shrimp tied on -- a birthday gift courtesy of my fishing buddy.

I flipped my first cast over to the mangrove edge and after a twitch, saw the lure disappear into the mouth of snook. A quick fight later, I released a healthy 15 inch snook.

I paddled up ten yards and cast the shrimp back into a pocket in the mangroves, and two twitches later, a snook nailed the lure. This one was a bit bigger, just over 20", and worth of a photo:

After Kelly paddled over to snap the photo, I moved over to the south side of the mangroves and flipped the shrimp over to the mangrove line again. I shit you not, another snook came up and took the lure. Another 15"-er.

The next cast did not catch a snook, nor did the one after that. However, on my third cast I dropped the lure by a partially submerged log and another 15" snook took off with it. Six casts, four snook--nothing short of epic.

Unfortunately, my next 100 or so casts netted nothing but ladyfish. Though the bite had died down considerably, Kelly managed to take a snook in the 15" range on topwater. We did see a few juvenile tarpon rolling again, but no takers.

We gave up on the creek at that point and paddled off to the bayou. It was quiet back there again, not a whole lot of movement, only few mullet jumping, but I had a good feeling. I went the far northeast corner and on my third cast, a big snook in the 30" range took the Yo-zuri shrimp and jumped clear of the water. When it hit the water it made a long run toward a submerged log, but I turned it and had it near the kayak when it made a second run and began pulling me toward the mangroves. I desperately tried to one-hand paddle the kayak back but the snook was too strong and got me up against the mangroves. I tried one last-ditch attempt to horse it out, and the line broke at the line-to-line knot at the leader.

F^@%!

Tough to lose a big snook, even worse to lose a $15 snook-slaying lure.

We took a good 20 minutes to bend the rod on some big ladyfish, then paddled back toward the launch. We stopped at the mouth of the creek to throw a couple, and Kelly had a big hit and a his drag started signing. I thought for sure he'd hooked up with his second snook, but instead, a super FAT trout came to hand. Not a bad way to close the day.

January 14, 2012

The sun is rising later now, so Kelly and I slept an extra half hour and met at the Rally at 6:30am. After fueling up, we drove out to the Cross Bayou Canal launch. It was in the low 50’s with some wind, but once we paddled up into the canal, the wind was tolerable.

Kelly and I tried our luck at the Park Street bridge, which netted a couple of ladyfish each.

It was good to get the skunk off early in the day. We paddled up to Joe’s Creek next and threw our lures at the juncture there. We immediately started catching ladyfish again, and after another half-dozen each, paddled up into the creek.

The creek was fairly active, with mullet jumping, ladyfish feeding actively (and tailing at times) and the occasional snook popping the surface. We fished about a half-mile of the creek and caught all kinds of ladyfish big and small, including one so large that it snapped Kelly’s pole.

Try as we might, we couldn’t get to the snook. The ones that were feeding were all the way back under the mangroves, and the cold snap that had come in the day before had the rest on lockjaw.

I did see three different spots where small tarpon were rolling, but none would come to hand.

As the sun came up we tried our big snook hole further upstream, but there was nothing doing there. There was a good windbreak where I had caught the snook the previous week, but nothing was biting and there was a ton of trash floating in the water. We spent maybe 30 minutes there and then fished our way back to the launch.

We must have caught twenty or so ladyfish each over the course of the morning, fishing with mirrodines, rapalas and gold spoons. After awhile, I put on an old, beat-up Gotcha and caught a few more. At one point we decided to try for a ladyfish double-header and it was at that point that the bite turned off on us. Pretty funny.

Considering that we didn’t catch anything but ladyfish, it was a fun day on the water. Pound for pound ladyfish give a great fight, you just have to be sure to keep them out of your yak and get a good, long pair of pliers.

January 1st, 2012

For some time, my barber, Don, has been urging me to fish the Cross Bayou Canal for snook. He's had a lot of success there, fishing mostly with a "Flat Rap" and has the pictures to prove it -- photo after photo of big ass snook.

With my bi-weekly fishing trip arriving and Kelly out of town, I decided to take my dad out with me in search of the elusive snook. I tried to keep my expectations down, but with stories from Don of regularly catching over a dozen snook per trip, I was feeling pretty positive that this was going to be a good day. Add to that a decent tide, a nice warm day, and an impending front, and the stars seemed aligned for success.

Dad and I launched at around 7:00am, just after sunrise.

The launch is decent, not much room to work with, but deep water from the start. We paddled up through the mangroves until we got into the actual canal, then pointed our yaks north for our destination. We stopped in a few spots along the way, fishing both the Park Street and Park Boulevard bridges without success. I was throwing a topwater, and I had hooked my dad up with a Yo-zuri crystal minnow and a jighead/shad tail combo.

The water was very clear, but there was a surprising amount of trash caught up in the mangroves and floating in the water. Since there didn't seem to be many people out there, it was hard to tell where it was coming from.

After about a thirty minute paddle, we came up on the bayou we wanted to fish. Dad and I started fishing the shoreline, both of us throwing Yo-zuri's and working them back to the yak. At some point Dad got a snag and drifted off the shoreline while I continued on.

About two dozen casts in, I was beginning to get a little frustrated, and starting to second guess my lure, my technique, and so on, but pushed on. Dad, in the meantime, had drifted out into the middle of the bayou and was lighting up the ladyfish. He was on some big breeders, and they were screaming drag, jumping and pulling for the deep. His first three casts netted three fish to the yak.

Shortly after, I got my first hit and was happy to see the fish come to the surface and tail-walk across the water. I saw the telltale black line along the side of the fish and knew I had my first snook. Boatside, it was only about 15", but I was psyched to get the skunk off and my first snook of the year after not catching a single one in 2011.

I kept hearing splashing and commotion as I was fishing the shoreline, but each time I turned around, it was just my dad hooking in to another ladyfish. Soon after, I would get a blazing hit that would tear some line off my reel, and I was sure I had another snook on, but it was one of dad's ladyfish that had ventured closer to shore. Fifty yards down the shore, I would get another hit, and this time it was the real deal--my second snook of the day, a cookie cutter version of the first.

By 10:30, I had fished a good 2/3 of the shoreline and was getting antsy to try another spot that Don had suggested, so I convinced my dad to paddle on, but not before he had boated his 20th ladyfish (not counting those that self-released). Interestingly, though the water was quiet and full of nothing but trash when we paddled in, it had now come alive with hundreds of mullet.

Our paddle out also showed signes of life, with more mullet and a dozen or so sheepshead spotted. Toward the Park Boulevard bridge, I saw something big -- either a tarpon or huge snook -- busting bait out of the water. Naturally, whatever it was didn't want our offerings.

We fished the last hour in a side creek off the bayou with limited success. Dad caught another ladyfish and spooked a big snook. I caught another small snook after a perfectly placed cast got underneath the mangroves. It was a red jighead/gulp combo, which I think got hit more out of a reaction than anything. I lost that snook at boatside, but it was the same size as the others.

On our way out, I threw my Yo-zuri in a deep hole and finally got a big snook on the line, but it threw the lure on its first jump. My next cast netted another ladyfish, and so we called it a day.


Great day on the water, fun to get my dad out with me and to see him light up some fish. Here's hoping to a mild winter and a good year of fishing.

December 14th, 2011

Kelly and I hit the Rally for coffee and a donut before heading down the road to the 4^th Street launch. We were paddling away a short time later, just at first light—about 6:30am.

Both Kelly and I had been anticipating this trip for two weeks. After such a huge day our last time out, we were eager to see if the gator trout and reds would still be at the Backyard. Add to the mix that the moon and tide were just right, the wind was down, and that a high pressure front was coming through later that afternoon, and you can imagine our anticipation. The recipe was right.

The water was calm but not glassy, and surprisingly quiet. No mullet jumping, no signs of bait, and the birds were still roosting in the mangroves. Just south of Steve’s Hole we saw some mullet moving along the shoreline and threw a couple of topwaters, but after a few casts and not a hit, we paddled on to the Courtyard.

At the Courtyard, Kelly went around behind a mangrove island and anchored up, and I drifted in toward the same spot and threw my super spook. Right around the same hole where I caught a trout and red last time, I got a couple of follows and short strikes, but no real commitments and no hook-ups.

As I drifted around the backside of the island, I heard Kelly let out shout and saw his rod bent over. A short time later he brought a nice trout to hand. Moments later, a fish crushed my topwater lure, and I brought in a 19” trout. Then, just as I released my fish, I hear Kelly’s drag going off and I can see that he’s got a heavy fish on, so I paddle over to see him pull in a fat 24” redfish. Not only was he happy to catch the red, but he caught both fish on a gold spoon.

Side note: Both Kelly and I spend a lot of time reading fishing reports, blogs, and anything else about catching fish in our area. From time to time we’ll read a report where some guy has caught a crap load of redfish throwing a gold spoon. So naturally, Kelly and I both had bought gold spoons, but neither of us had ever caught a thing using them. This morning, Kelly had committed to throwing a gold spoon, so catching a trout and a red back-to-back was pretty significant and interesting to both him and me.

We might have stayed in the Courtyard longer, but after getting the skunk off, we were pretty anxious to head over to the Backyard, so we paddled off. A few minutes later we drifted in and set up exactly where we had been just two weeks before.

Ten casts later, we were scratching our heads. Not a bite. No action. Kelly was alternating between a spook and his spoon, and I was alternating casting a spook and a 1/8^th chartreuse jighead with a DOA shad tail.

We kept at it, and I don’t know who hooked up first, but we spent the next hour catching fish at a pretty steady clip. I caught five trout, the shortest at 18” and the biggest at 22”. My biggest trout came on the jighead/shad tail combo. I also got into a school of small reds, catching three. Kelly also brought in 5 more trout, all in the same size range, and another rat red. We also both had notable big misses. I had a big fish hit my topwater like a bomb going off, but missed the hookset, and Kelly had a fish on that took off like a rocket and was screaming drag, only to have his loop knot fail. Unfortunately, he lost his bone colored spook as a result. That thing had caught a lot of fish.

The tide changed over and the wind died shortly after, and with it, so did the bite. We kept fishing pretty hard, but didn’t bring another fish to hand. I did scout out a nearby area that looks great for redfish, and both Kelly and I spooked a bunch of reds, but they weren’t really biting.

I didn’t take any photos of my fish, but I did take some video of most of them. Upon looking back at the footage, I noted that several of the fish were lacking in the girth of the fish from two weeks ago. I’m taking this as a good sign that they have dropped their eggs. November and December are closed to trout harvesting for this reason—they are spawning, and to take a fish with roe is like taking 100 fish. There is talk of opening up the trout season to harvesting year ‘round, and for the sake of the fishery (and common sense) I hope the measure is dropped.