Fish Catching Travel
After almost a month it was back to fishing in Texas. I was real excited about hitting Coleto this morning and anxious to see how the fish reacted to the rise in water level. So at daylight I was fishing.
My first stop was up lake, where the water was as off colored as I have seen it this late in the year. That is a credit to how much rain we have had. Of course the buzzbait was the bait of choice. It is always a great search bait and you can cover lots of water fast. But that is not quite how it went.
I stopped at the first bank, a shallow one with tons of grass and on my second cast I caught the one below.
A good start.
This one just blasted it on the outside edge of the grass. On my very next cast I missed another one about this size, and then 2 casts later I caught another pretty nice one. Now things are really looking up. And an hour and a half later fishing the upper end I had one more hit, and caught a little one.
From there I fished all the way back to the ramp, hitting main lake areas I usually catch them on, without any luck. I fished buzzbait, frog, and Senko, but just could not get the bites. I fished a couple of big grass mats with the frog, and that was a complete bust. I finally threw a Strike King Swim Jig and put an ok fish in the boat right off the bat. So now I am thinking that may be the ticket, no such luck.
By now I have fished deep, shallow, and somewhere in between as Buck Perry said in his ground breaking book. It was real apparent I have not fished the lake in a while, and thinking back on it, it is kind of a mystery why I did not do any better. My best guess is it is probably time to go to soft plastics. One thing is for sure, the lake will have more grass in it than it has had in a while.
I called it quits around noon not unhappy with the results. I could have re-fished the first place but the plan was to cover water and see what could be learned. One thing learned today is there must be a better way to catch them than I was doing.
*****************
I get the occasional report from folks and one of the regular readers boated a 9+ largemouth last week. Congrats, that is a good one.
I got this nice note from Andrew:
“Great write up! You really did red fishing the justice it deserves. Being from Louisiana I have the burden of dividing my time between redfish and bass. I leaned more towards the latter for years, but recently have found red fishing to be equally challenging, but more rewarding. Next time you’re in Louisiana give Delacroix a try. The water is always clean, the grass is endless, and both red fish and bass are amazingly plentiful. Again, I enjoyed the article, and will defiantly be giving wake baits a try because of it. Thanks!”
I am getting out the map and looking Delacroix up. Give me some clean water and grass and the redfish are coming in the boat. Thanks for the tip. I appreciate the kind words, especially from another redfish fanatic. It is always nice to hear from folks, so send me your comments, I read them all and love to share them with my readers.
Tomorrow it is off to the Gulf. And then maybe Thursday, depending on tomorrow’s results. Friday is July 4th, and I will be leaving it to the rest of the folks for the weekend. So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
