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.