March 31st, 2012

Kelly and I paddled out at 6:30am this morning, which was about an hour before dawn. Though the wind had been forecast at 5mph all week, as we launched it was a steady 10 with gusts to 15mph. I don't think we've had a day of wind below 10mph for the last three months.

Our disappointment was quickly forgotten as we paddled out to one of the spoil islands. Each time that our paddle hit the water, a trail of bioluminescent plankton would light up the water in a blue glow.

The sky started to lighten up right as we were ready to start casting:

The fishing for the day was average. The wind kept us restricted to a small area of water, but we made the best of it. Kelly and I caught a few small trout on topwater and later I added a keeper trout on a DOA shad tail. The best fish of the day I caught on my first cast with a big honkin' She Dog Topwater. The trout was a good 22" in length and super fat.

I picked up another trout or two and a handful of ladyfish to round out the day. Kelly tried his hand at chucking bait, but couldn't get anything but catfish.

It was really fishy out there today, but the conditions prevented us from taking advantage. I have to dial up mother nature for a glassy day on the flats.

Saturday, March 17th, 2012

This morning I launched solo from the improvised ramp off Bishop's Harbor. Since Kelly was out of commission this weekend, I opted to do some scouting in a new spot. Don, my barber, had suggested trying out Bishop's Harbor, so on a whim I figured I'd give it a shot. With the tide flowing low to high, our usual spots would not have been great today anyway.

I paddled out at first light.

Bishop's Harbor is lined with mangroves, and from the start I had to choose whether to follow the shoreline on the north or south side. I chose the south. A few hundred yards up, I saw another boat on the north side, and they seemed to be having some luck pulling in some fish.

I decided to drift and throw the Spook to try my luck. First cast I had a big trout take three hits on my lure, but with no hook-up. The next cast I got a hit and hooked up right away, thinking I had caught the trout, but when I got the fish in close, saw that it was a 15" snook. I was pretty happy to have a snook to get the skunk off, and was optimistic that the day was going to be a good one.

That was the only fish I caught.

To be fair, I did a lot of paddling and scoping out different areas, instead of settling in to really fish an area. It sure was fishy out there: lots of varying depths of water, some good sea grass concentrations, clean water, good current and plenty of mullet jumping. It was fairly busy with boats out there, and they all seemed to be fishing the north side of the mangroves. Most boats I watched caught a least one fish.

I paddled on, all the way out of the harbor and into the bay. I could see the Skyway in the distance.

No catching for me in the bay either, but lots of pinfish and other bait out there, which is a good sign for the future.

Overall, it was a good, relaxing trip, a beautiful day to be on the water, and I definitely like Bishop's Harbor as a good low tide spot.

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.