Fish Catching Travel
Making chicken salad out of ……. you know.
My friend Aaron, who is working in the Houston area right now, has wanted to fish Lake Texana for a while, so we made a date for this morning and met at the Mustang Wilderness ramp at daylight. If you read about my last and only Lake Texana fishing trip you know I struck out. If I had not caught a big blue cat on my second cast, I wouldn’t have even had a bite.
So with that thought in my head we started out throwing jigs around wood and hyacinth, with absolutely no luck. I mean nada. The day was turning out beautiful and Aaron finally could not take it. He said he hated to waste the day, so at 9:30 we decided to take out and hit the Gulf. We both brought some saltwater stuff, maybe that was a sign, who knows. So we came up with a plan, let’s fish Palacios.
Now other than a short drive through there one day, the only thing I knew about Palacios was where it was, sorta of. I really can’t even say I had a clue where to fish, or even where a ramp was, and since Aaron knew even less it was a wonderful plan. We drove into town and there was a public boat ramp on the bay, so in the water we went.
When we left Texana the wind was not blowing, but of course it was blowing pretty cood right on the ramp from across the bay. And with the skiff, and not the bay boat, we knew we would get a little wet, and we did. So we headed straight across the bay to what I now know is Coon Island, which was out of the wind and we started on Oliver Point. We ended up fishing the whole side all the way back to Pilkington Bayou. And the fishing turned out to be pretty good.
My first Texas Pompano.
I started with a Hackberry Hustler, and Aaron threw a topwater and plastic some, as we headed down the bank. I missed a light tap, and then a few casts later I felt one, set the hook and foul hooked a pompano. Other than one jumping in the boat a couple of years ago that is the extent of my pompano experience. But I heard they were good to eat, and they are.
We kept heading down the bank and hit a area of rip rap, and of course the Redfish Magic caught the first red. Before we quit at 3:30 we easily put 12 – 14 in the boat. They all came on the spinnerbait.
Aaron with the first of many reds he caught today.
I continued throw plastics and Aaron alternated with a topwater, but spinnerbait was the ticket. We simply stayed a long cast off the bank and used the trolling motor to go down the bank. We caught one here and there until we headed up the little creek in the back of Coon Island Bay. The important thing was the tide was up and getting higher, and the reds were definitely moving. Aaron had never really fished spinnerbait for reds in the middle of the day successfully but it really does not have anything to do with the time, it is simply a matter of the tides. When the water is up and moving, and there is grass and shell, you have the perfect combination, and that whole shoreline has stretches of it.
Once we were in that small creek we probably put 6 or so in the boat, some were big, some small. He caught a 15 spotter among others, and whether big or small, they were trying to jerk the rod out of our hands, it was an awesome bite. As we kept heading down the bank on the main bay, we would catch them off small oyster patches you could see by the bank. There are also a couple of docks on that bank, and we caught a couple of fish off each one.
Another red on the Redfish Magic. Take a look how far up the drain we were, about as far as that spinnerbait is down that reds throat.
As we got further down towards Pilkington there are some reefs in about 3 foot of water which had a few trout on them. And while I caught 3 or 4 on plastics, they were all small. But we put in a half hearted effort on the trout as the reds were biting to good. One of the reefs had a popping cork on it, Aaron casted over it and it had a nice trout on it. In fact the only good trout other than that one of the day came off one of the docks on a Redfish Magic. It was just one of those interesting trips.
The best of the few trout we managed. Throwing the craoker color Redfish Magic had been the ticket the last couple of trips.
By about 3:00 we had worked that whole shoreline till we got to Pilkington Bayou. The tide had quit running, and we never caught a redfish in there. We did catch a couple close to the Bayou, but none inside it. We took a little ride way back in the creek to just have a look, and then called it a day.
The last good red I caught. We caught 4 or 5 this size.
So what started off as a bad bass fishing day turned into a really good day on the Gulf. We joked all day that we were lost, or at least had no clue about the area, and managed to have a pretty good day. Sometimes it is time to make a move, and we are lucky enough in south Texas to have somewhere else to go. And one thing about the Gulf, there always seems to be a way to catch fish, you just have to figure it out.
We are looking forward to making a return trip, and a little map study sure won’t hurt things. The view from the I phone is just not the same as having a good map and doing a little preparation before you go. But sometimes it is just nice to go somewhere new and just play it by ear. This time it worked.
The weather is supposed to go in the dumpster tomorrow. What an interesting spring, it seems we have had a lot of cold fronts, and if it does make it down to the high 40’s tomorrow it will be a little something new for this guy. I thought it was supposed to be hotter than the devil here in May. But guess what? No matter what I will be heading to the lake for a quick trip in the morning. So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
