Fish Catching Travel
My buddy Chris wanted to hit Cedar Bayou so we headed out from Seadrift at daylight. One thing I like about fishing with Chris, he is always willing to try some place new, it gets me out of my soft and fuzzy spots. The wind was already blowing and it was moderately rough as we rode across San Antonio Bay. From Seadrift to Cedar is a long haul, and since neither of us had been there before we did not have a clue what to expect.
We cut across Mesquite Bay and entered the mouth of Cedar and headed to the back. We stopped at the sign telling you no motorized vehicles and went to wading. My first bite was a lady fish who bit me off, and then I started getting lots of bites, and finally I figured out what they were.
My first Cedar Bayou fish. Where’s your momma?
I headed down the bank and Chris waded to the surf. I kept getting bites and finally caught a couple more flounder by just dragging it along. So I walked all the way back to the boat to get a plastic I have wanted to fish for a while called a Flouder Pounder, which looks like it should work. Well it didn’t. I don’t think I had a bite though I kept trying to catch one for another hour. Then I saw Chris headed to the boat, so back I went.
I noticed he was pulling off his waders and emptying the water out of them. Here is your tip of the day – Some of the channel is a little deeper than you might expect. Chris stepped off one of the deeper cuts and down he went. And while I am sure that sucked, his wade wasn’t all bad.
Now that is what I am talking about.
Besides these two, Chris caught a jack, and rat red. He was throwing a topwater and he told me they ate it, including one real hooter that smashed it, did the cool jump in the air thing, but managed not to hook up. The opening of this pass is a thing of beauty and all involved should be proud. Give those fish a full life cycle year and the fishing there should get better and better. From there it was off to the Second Chain of Islands to drift some of the reefs.
There were several boats there but nothing seemed to be happening. Chris stayed with the topwater, but only had a couple of half-hearted hits. I alternated between paddle tail and straight tail plastics, and did not have a touch. So after a long couple of drifts we decided it was time for a change. So we headed down the island, since I had been thinking about Cottonwood Bayou we headed there. We caught them there a couple of November’s ago and I was anxious to return.
Along the stretch from Cottonword to Ayres Point there were pelicans working, not a big concentration, but pretty well strung out all along that stretch. I was hoping to fish the bayou channel but the water was off colored with the wind blowing straight in so we decided to make a drift back to Ayres Point. The wind was perfect and we set up about 150 yards off the shoreline in approximately 2 feet of water. Chris was throwing a Pink Skitterwalk and I threw the Down South plastic in watermelon red. And while it was working some, it quickly took a backseat to topwater. Chris got a got a couple of major, water sucking, huge blow ups, and from then on it was topwater.
The better ones were blowing up on the Rapala Skitterwalk.
I finally got in the game and started catching them on the Down South plastic but I finally put it up, the topwater bite was in full swing. They wanted the plastics hopped off the bottom and then falling on a slack line. They really like that Down South bait, and so do I. As we drifted along they kept biting, and the topwater bite really took off. They were flat biting. There definitely was a small pattern, the mouth of any bayou or small lake on the up wind side. We would get a bite or two, then nothing, then catch 5. We tried other stuff, and this was what we got.
Chris actually did catch a couple of small ones.
As we drifted that couple of mile stretch if we got to far out, not much, to far in, not much. But staying in that 2 foot grass with the potholes was the bomb. So at this point it is topwater mania and Chris was pretty much working them over. He was throwing the bigger pink Skitterwalk so I started throwing the smaller trout colored one. They where knocking it out of the water, then hitting it again, some close to the boat. When they went to full on eating it they were sucking it under, and if they missed they were back for it again.
But it was just a minute before he was back on the good ones.
We did have something happen that neither of us have seen before. Chris got 2 backlashes that popped his Skitterwalk off and sent it flying. Both times when we retrieved it the leader was gone. Which made it interesting as the leader was also gone from the braid end. Think about that a minute.
All of a sudden Chris goes how many trout do we have? I did the count and it was 10 on the nose. It never crossed my mind we had a limit. That could have been ugly. This 5 trout thing is going to take a little getting used to.
To finish off a great afternoon bite we were slowly drifting towards a pretty nice slick. And once we got close it was one of those topwater things that just don’t happen often enough. It was rare not to get a hit, or 3 on every cast. It took 2 hours to make that drift, and there was very little time one of us was not getting a bite. When I said I was ready to go Chris said I was a better man than him to leave with the bite going nuts. The last 15 minutes it was hits on every cast. It was flat out awesome.
If you read my stuff you know last time I said we would see if we could possibly improve the size of the trout we are catching. We did, but it wasn’t a me thing, it was a Chris thing. Some of the trout that blew up on his topwater were the real thing.
A great day, a five fish limit is fine by me. Give it a couple years, it should really help.
We just kept after it today, and when it happened we were in the right place throwing the right bait. We had our moments today, but with some persistence filets ended up on the menu. And to get to fish Cedar Bayou was cool. Remember when going in to any new area be careful. The channel in Cedar is not that well marked, as in nothing, so caution is the word.
Not much else to say about the fishing. It has been a while since either of us had one of those awesome topwater days, and today was just that. We should have a few more days left before the water starts to really cool, but the change is coming. With some of the Austin boys coming next weekend maybe we can lay the smack down on them.
The woods and water will be alive with hunters this weekend, so please everyone, have a safe opener. Shoedog will be in the deer blind and I will be in the duck blind. Hopefully the smell of venison and bacon wrapped duck breast will be wafting through the house. I like my hunting, but this is my favorite week of the year, with everyone in the woods the water feels almost deserted and I will be out there. And with the cool front coming our best fishing of the year is right around the corner. And who knows, maybe I can duplicate today, there are not many days where they are eating a topwater with the ferocity they were today.
Be safe this weekend, and if you kill something send me some pictures, we would love to see them. So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
