After sitting around a little I decided to put the skiff tire thing off until the weekend and head to the Lavaca.  The first trip of the year I hope it is as good as I think it is.  So without further ado off I go.

Weather

81/72.   Cloudy, becoming partly cloudy with 20% chance of thunderstorms.  Wind S 10 – 20mph.  (20+ howling right up the river.)

Tides

High  2:49am 1.1   Low   10:59am  0.8  High  8:32pm 1.2  Low  11:01pm  1.0

Solunar Periods

Major 11:09 am to 1:09 pm.  Minor  5:21 pm to  6:21 pm.

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First off, todaywas not any fun, and I mean it.  The wind was an easy 20+ right up the river and there was no place to hide.  It was tough to deal with.  When I got there about 11:00 there were a bunch of trailers at the ramp, when I pulled out at 4:00 there was one beside me.  It really affected the mechanics of fishing, but at least the fishing was pretty good considering.

First off the river has some color, more on the windy shallow banks, and the water temp at the bridge was 76, and it was 70 down river near the mouth of the lake.  (Note: I did fish one bank above the bridge without success.)  With the wind blowing like that it was just getting close to the bank and casting ahead of the boat, and trying to work it back, still hitting the bottom, before you blew by.  I tossed several plastics and the fish below are indicative of what that produced.

A dozen or so like this in the first couple of places.

Small reds were the norm and it was probably 3 or 4, and more small trout.  It was apparent, wind driven water color, small reds, nice clean water, better trout.  After determining they were biting time to change tactics.  Part of the plan today was to throw a popping cork with a plastic shrimp of some sort.  With 3 new popping corks in the boat I was ready to go, except for no plastic shrimp.  Really stupid to forget them considering I have 10 bags or more of them in the tackle room.  So I used a jerk shad which was basically clear with red flake, which I hoped would imitate a shrimp color.  It seemed to work best about 2 foot under the popping cork, and that was about as much slack as you could cast with any accuracy.  And guess what, they liked it.

Nice solid keepers, they were eating the popping cork.

And from that point on the trout got to keeper size.  But what a hassle, tossing it way in front of the boat, flying at it, big bow in the line, and occasionally watching it go down with no way to catch up.  But the better ones liked it and I boated an easy limit, I can only guess how it would have gone had I brought the correct shrimp plastics.  I was simply hopping from side to side on the river, as I got blown up river like a freight train, looking for clear water on a certain type of bank, transitions from deep, over 9 0r 10 feet, to really flat.   The best trout were on the medium depth banks in about 2 – 3 foot of water. Reminded me of fishing channel swings for bass.  But even though they were biting it just was to much hassle to be really fun.  But it was a great example of putting on your big boy pants and figuring it out.

The final straw was when a really nice over sized red smoked the popping cork and headed down river as the wind blew me up.  I got the boat turned and moving when the line broke at the knot.   That red would have made it in the boat without the wind.  So with what I was interested in knowing accomplished, it was time to call it a day.  Now I will be hoping for the first really cold day with calm winds during the week.  It will be a killing.  The fish are definitely in the river and they are willing to bite.

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Fishing is picking up both fresh and salt.  And this weekend deer hunting opens and there will be the fewest folks on the water other than Christmas Day.  I will definitely have at some serious fishing this week, nothing like limited pressure for both catching and the overall experience.  Just a quick thank you to all of you who participate with your comments and reports, makes this a much better blog.  So comment when the spirit moves you.  Keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines