Thursday, November 29th

Got a late launch on the Cross Bayou today at 10:00am. Normally I fish the shoreline along the way upriver, but today I just paddled hard to the spot in the canal where Joe's Creek lets in.

It was one of our warmer days, and the sun was high enough to only be casting shadows on one side of the mangroves. I went straight to work on that side, casting my Yozuri shrimp as close to the mangroves as possible. In due time, I was rewarded with two small snook to the yak, and another two jumped.

With the skunk off, I paddled up to the fairgrounds, jumping another snook just past the cajun restaurant. The fairgrounds were unusually quiet -- no mullet in sight. I fished the whole north and east shore with just a ladyfish to show for it.

On the paddle back I stopped to throw the flat Rap a few times and caught another small snook at the mouth of Joe's Creek. For now, that seems to be the only spot producing any regular catches. I'm happy to see all the small snook, but am wondering where the bigger ones are. It's possible with our consistently cool weather that they haven't had a cold enough snap to jolt them out of their homes and send them upriver.

I stopped one more time on the way back and caught a dozen or so ladyfish on light drag just to hear the reel sing a bit.

Friday, November 16th

Launched at 62nd Avenue along Park Street for my first voyage of the season into the Cross Bayou Canal. 

Straight off the bat, I spooked a nice redfish that was mudding along in about 8 inches of water. Paddled on to the first mangrove line I like to fish and started throwing the Yo-zuri shrimp. No hits after a half-dozen casts, so I switched over to the Flat Rap. First cast with the Flat Rap I brought to hand a small snook, somewhere in the 12" range. Next cast to the same spot I hooked up with another small snook, but this one got the best of me and tossed the lure after a nice jump.

I paddled up to the Park Street bridge and fished the pilings for a bit -- too long, really, as nothing was biting. That's been a productive spot for me in the past, but it was dead today.

Continued up to where Joe's Creek lets in and fished the mouth of the creek for a good thirty minutes with nothing doing. Saw something busting bait, but it didn't like my offerings. From there I started fishing the north shore of the creek and caught another little snook on the Flat Rap, then followed that fish up with two back-to-back mangrove snapper out of the same spot.

Jumped two more snook up the shoreline, then the bite went dead. I switched over to the south shoreline and also switched over to the Yo-zuri shrimp. I went on to catch six more snook with that lure, including one I caught on a long cast back to the other shoreline.  All of of the snook were in the 12-15" range, with one around 20" (pictured below).

Despite their small size, those junior snook were hitting and fighting twice their size. They were a lot of fun to catch, and it was heartening to know that this young population of snook are thriving. Can't wait till they put on a few pounds...

On my paddle back out I jumped one more snook and caught a couple of hard-hitting ladyfish before wrapping it up for the day. Four hours on the water and eight snook -- that's a ratio I like.

June 3, 2012

I launched this afternoon from the east end of the bridge to Bay Pines into Long Bayou. It was hot and windy with a falling tide.

I started fishing the oyster bars around the bridge, alternating between a weedless shad tail and a flat rap. It looked really fishy, but I didn't get a single bite, so I paddled around to the mangroves below the Cross Bayou Canal and worked them over with the same combo of lures. Eventually I hooked up with a ladyfish, but the water was otherwise quiet back there.

I continued along the mangroves and up into the entrance of the Cross Bayou Canal, finally seeing some action as a gamefish was busting bait flowing out of the canal. I made a few good casts, but there was nothing doing.

I ventured 50 yards up the canal, casting at the mangroves, but it was dead, so I drifted back out and returned to the bridge to fish the now exposed oyster beds. I saw a big red tailing and made a few casts at it with my shad tail, but to no avail. I was wishing for a popping cork and a few dozen shrimp at that point. I finally hooked up with a trout a short time later on a shad tail.


I ended the day by paddling up into the canal toward John's Pass. I stopped at the narrow bird preserve there and threw my topwater over and over and over. I had three blow ups there, but nothing big enough to connect. At that point, a thunderstorm was bearing down on me, so I paddled back to the launch and called it a day.

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.