Fish Catching Travel
Hard to believe we are already to the 12th of December. The month is ripping by and our weather sure has settled down into the perfect zone. Love those 70 degree days and 50 degree nights, not to cold when you hit the water first thing in the morning.
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I am so happy to announce that Strike King is back with a small sponsorship again this year. Long before I ever thought about doing a blog, or even imagined I would end up in Texas, I was using their baits. Remember the old Spence Scout, the Buzz King, or the Bill Dance Dancing Shad? And their’s was the first frog I ever threw. As the years have gone on they have developed the most comprehensive line of baits in the world, and they continue to refine and improve their baits. And who can even compare with the line up of fishermen on their pro staff. So yea, sure I will promote the heck out of them, but they have earned it. From the Redfish Magic (My favorite lure of all time.), to the Swimming Jig, the 1.5 and 2.5 to the Rage Shrimp, I love and use them all the time. And as you know if you read my stuff, I will not blow smoke just to promote something, if it works, it works, simple enough. And Strike King makes baits that work. Thanks to Terry, Aaron. and Strike King.
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I have had a thing or two I wanted to share with you that have been laying around while I was gone. Aaron, a reader from Austin, was going to be down a couple of days staying at relatives on Coleto over the holiday. Of course that was when I was gone but he wanted to know where he might catch a trout. Looks like he got that done.
“Doug, it looks like the trip to CR has all you can handle! I wanted to circle back to you after my trip over Thanksgiving. I ended up landing about 50 fish in half a day on the water. Every bit as good as you promised! Seemed that the larger fish were running 18-19”. It was a cold morning (high 30’s) and the fish never seemed to move into the shallows on the shoreline but they were ready to bite out in the deeper water. Aside from the good fishing, it’s also a really beautiful place.
Thanks again for the tip on such a nice place that’s so suitable for kayak fishing. I hope to give it another try during Christmas. I also hit Coleto before dark one evening. They were stacked up on the private lake side. Landed 6 up to 19” in a quick hour of fishing.
Aaron”
Glad you enjoyed it, nothing like winter trout fishing. And when Coleto is on, it is on, and it looks like you added a few bass to your trout fishing success. Thanks for the report and let me know when you are down in this area again, maybe we can make it to the lake.
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My buddy Faye and her husband Steve were down for a couple of days a few weeks ago and she sent me this report.
“Good morning,
We’re enjoying following your adventures down south.
We headed to POC on Sat, 11-22. We fished Sunday just up from the barge dock on the island (Army Hole) and had a great day! Thanks for the info!! We quit counting but it was surely 50-60 undersided reds and trout. Sunday night blew in a cold front and we decided to head back to DFW early Monday morning.
Well……. we worked Tuesday and headed back to POC on Wednesday morning. (yes, we’re a little nutty) We headed to the back side of Matagorda Island on Thanksgiving morning about 9:30 am. It was a beautiful morning but tide and the bite were slow. We hit several spots and would catch one here and there. At about 2 we pulled up on a drain area off Saluria where a boat house sits and the tide was finally moving. It drains off a mud flat into Saluria. Well, we caught 40-50 keeper sized sheepshead. LOL, Steve just finally quit and spent his time taking my fish off. We don’t keep them because it seems a shame to kill such a unique fish for so little meat and they are hard to clean.
We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner of pan fried steak, coleslaw, baked potato, Marie Calendar’s Peach cobbler and Blue Bell ice cream. It tasted almost as good as our Thanksgiving striper dinner on Beaver Lake about 10 years ago.
Friday we headed out about 9am and got almost to the island again when I looked around realizing that something didn’t look right. We had left all our poles in the storage locker at the room. At least it was a smooth boat ride. The tide was about nonexistent, no wind and the fish weren’t happy. We fished all day and many many locations. One small here and there. At about 1:45, we headed in to Big Bayou to the last grassy area on the left. We anchored back from the point in the eddy area. The tide was now moving and we tore the slot sized reds up!! We had to let the smaller trout eat a lot of our shrimp to get them but they were feeding on that drain from the open flats area. We caught 3 keeper sized trout and 5 slot reds, 24-1/2″ to 27-3/4″ ( we actually thought we had limited out on reds but realized when we were taking them out of the cooler that we are big dummies who can’t count LOL ). Sorry but it’s a dead fish photo. We try to keep our phones put away any chance we can. We had to quit about 5pm so we could get the boat cleaned & stored, fish cleaned & packaged and pack up our room. We headed home Saturday morning at about 6am and missed all the traffic. It was one of our most fun trips of all time!!!
That is one nice trout.
We were using 1/6″ oz jig heads with live shrimp. We would pitch it out and let the tide carry it. We would lightly lift up as well as extremely slow reel it back.
Going for a car ride to be the guest of honor at a fish fry in DFW.
Thank you for taking the time with your blog. We have learned a lot and it’s fun to put it in to practice!
Steve and Faye”
First let me say something about perseverance, drive home to DFW, work a day, and then drive back. That is a serious case of the “want to.” And it goes right to the heart of the matter, time on the water. The old saying the more I fish the luckier I get is so true. Way to pull it out and catch a nice sack. And way to use the tide to your advantage. The tide, and what it means, is probably the thing I struggle with the most. It just takes time and experience, and looks like you are getting it down.
And funny thing you mentioned Beaver Lake. That was my closest lake while I was practicing law in Fayetteville. An ok bass lake, it is one of the great lakes for white and striped bass, and the next report is from the Shoedog on Norfork Lake, one of the lakes that are part of the White River chain along with Beaver. So thanks for the report. You guys have had a couple of pretty successful trips lately and I appreciate you sharing them with us.
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The Shoedog made a trip to Arkansas to fish with our old buddy Clyde and they managed to get the job done on day 2. Probably the one thing I miss most about fishing those highland lakes in the winter is the deep jigging in the fall and early winter. When you find them they are stacked up.
“I was planning on heading home from a trip to visit family and friends for Thanksgiving, but the weather was nice so I headed back east from Fayetteville to Mountain Home Arkansas where I spent many days fishing with redfishlaw in the 1970’s to 1990’s.
The plan was to follow up what Clyde and I had done the previous weekend and try to catch some more bass and walleye on jerk baits and spinner baits. We started out night fishing in the Cranfield arm on Friday night and caught only 3 fish- one on a jerk bait, one on a jig/pig and one on a single spin- and what did you catch, Clyde?
Saturday morning we headed back up to the Red Bank area where we had caught some walleye, bass and crappie the weekend before. It was tough- we fished from 7:30 until 2pm and only caught a few samll bass and maybe one walleye. We couldn’t find them at all- not near as many fish on the locator.
So- Sunday morn we thought we would try a different spot- go to Buzzards Roost- a place dear to my heart. it was here in 1976(?) that I caught my first big bass- one 6 pounder on a cold, cold February day. I was fishing with a friend of redfishlaw’s- Dick Lane- a good feller- and we were fishing green grubs on the chunk rock bank just out on the left from the boat dock at Buzzards Roost. There was ice in our guides and I couldn’t feel my hands! I caught the big bass and on the next pass on the same bank I had another on but I lost it cause I could hardly reel it was so darn cold!
Anyway- we thought we would try to find some bass and maybe try to jig/spoon up some white bass, stripers or hybrids. We had tried some jigging in the Cranfield area the weekend before and never had any luck, but people were jigging there and in the Hwy. 101 bridge area as well, so we thought it was worth a try.
So- before we had even gotten past the docks, Clyde is throwing a swim bait and catches a nice striper! Maybe we should have stayed right there, but-we started out bass fishing and had NO luck for several hours- finally caught one or two after 11am and kept at it until almost 1pm. Then we said- let’s do something different- so we went out into 40-40 feet and started marking fish- a lot at 35 feet and big schools of bait.
Nothing like a striper to start off a good bite.
A nice hybrid. Look at the striper above and this wiper (Striper/White Bass cross) as many call them. Can you tell the difference?
After a minute we got into an area of consistent 48-52 feet of water and Clyde caught a nice bass- and it was on! For the next hour and a half or so we caught fish- and I mean we caught fish! At least four doubles and a lot of good, solid fish. Mostly black bass, but several whites and a nice Hybrid, too. The bass were FAT! They were having a shad fest- fattening up for the coming winter in cold water.
Clyde with a nice Kentucky, or as we call them, a Spot.
The Shoedog gets in on the act.
We had a great time. It was a blast- I hadn’t seen old Clyde so excited in years! Good fishing with the best of old friends- what a way to spend the last of a holiday weekend. I have been lucky to fish the Twin Lakes of Arkansas and the White River area 3 times in less than a year and I couldn’t be more appreciative to Clyde and his lovely wife Maria and their family- especially that Saints fan Jarvis- WHO DAT?- ( The Bears are out to get you this week!).
Headed for a fish fry at the Burchard house. Those folks can eat a lot of fish!
I am busy with construction here at home while redfishlaw is fishing and has been to Costa Rica- hope to get back out there soon! Good fishing to all!”
Nice report and good job of pulling it out. All I can say is I can not wait to get back there and fish this spring. Love those Bull Shoals smallmouth and maybe we can add a couple of stripers night fishing. So thanks for letting us know how your trip went. And it just seems weird now to think of you catching fish 20 foot deeper than Coleto’s deepest point. Time to start thinking about our Baffin trip coming soon.
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I had one other report that I was sworn to secrecy about where, and as I have told you all in the past, if you want me to keep your secret I will. I just enjoy the reports and we can all take something from each one. These guys were fishing a small river I was not familiar with, and they absolutely killed them. Trout, reds, and flounder were all in the same place, deeper water. That pattern may hold for a while so get it while the getting is good. This pattern has been consistent all over the coast this fall, and it is as good as it has been for several years.
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I also heard from Jim regarding my vacation stories.
“Thanks soooooo much for sharing your trip information.”
Thanks Jim for continuing to read my stuff. I pondered whether to put up pictures not associated with the fishing but in this case the trip was just to interesting. I figured you all would like the wildlife and rain forest. So thanks for bearing with me.
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That almost catches me up. Saturday morning it will be trout fishing with Aaron and his buddy Ed. Hopefully the fishing will remain as good as it has and we can show his buddy Ed what a redfish is all about. So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
