Happy New Year 12/31/14.

Fish Catching Travel

Well another year has come and gone for fishcatchingtravel.com.  I took the last few days off, a couple of jobs to do, and the weather is in the process of acting like winter.  The wind started blowing last week, and other than Monday, it has blown and the weather has been pretty marginal around here.  So I have given it a little rest, all in anticipation of the weather straightening up and Shoedog shaking loose from his remodel job and getting a little time to fish.

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It gives me great pleasure to announce that Down South Lures of Austin has come aboard.  As you all know I have been using their plastics, and singing their praises, since I bought my first pack.  They flat out work.  In fact, the one on my spinning rod has been on there 2 trips to the river, no small feat.  It is the perfect combination of tough and supple.  And I firmly believe that the smaller paddle gives out a different vibration, one that they just can not resist.  So next time you are at the store buy a couple of packs, you will not be disappointed.  And if they don’t carry them send them that way.

http://downsouthlures.com/

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Looking back on this year when I posted the picture review brought back lots of great memories.  It is nice to have a pictorial history of the year.  One thing I noticed is last year was that we caught some nice trout, but I did not boat one over 25″ this year.  I plan on working on that in February.

The Numbers

Here are the numbers, and I have to say I can not thank you enough.  We ended 2013 with 103,000 visits to fishcatchingtravel.com.  This year we had 165,000 visits thanks to you! Never in my wildest dreams did I think it the site would grow like it has.  Of course with that comes some hassle, but it is all a part of the show.  Kind of a you wanted it, you got it deal.  But I have loved every minute of it.

Best Fish of the Year:  Aaron Fite and the huge redfish.  Every time I look at that picture I amazed.  Aaron is 6’3″!

Best Trip of the Year:  Costa Rica and my first sailfish.  And walking across the bridge in the rainforest from Costa Rica to Panama.  I still can not get over how cool that was.

Best Baits of the Year:  (This is a shameless plug for my 2 sponsors but this stuff works.)

Freshwater – Strike King Swimming Jig and a Rage Craw Trailer

Saltwater – Down South Lures Watermelon Red Paddle Tail

Best Moment of the Year:  The battle between Shoedog and the Beaver will go down as one of the great moments in fishing.    The whole Canada trip, good friends, good fishing, and good times.

Best Comment of the Year:  “You used to be interesting.”  (I get that one every so often, don’t know whether it hurts my feelings or makes me laugh more.)  I try to be interesting, but no one is interesting all the time.

Best Save of the Year:  Freeing that Blue Heron.  Kind of got me to thinking more about keeping our waterways clean.  It is so important to our children and grandchildren, and our sport.

Best New Addition of the Year:  My newest grand baby Little Wren.  Lets not forget what is really important.

Best Save of the Year:  My buddy Chris having Sea Tow when the airboat broke down in the middle of nowhere on the Lower Laguna Madre.

Best Fishing Day of the Year:  Tough to call.  It would probably be the day we portaged to a small lake off Crow Lake in Canada and caught big smallmouth until our arms ached.

Biggest F’ Up of the Year:  It was a tough decision so I settled on 2.  First, hitting that pipe in the Powderhorn and messing up the boat.  Real smooth move.  And of course when they changed the old tires and rims off Clyde’s boat trailer in Canada and did not tighten the lug nuts so it wallowed out his new chrome rim.  But as with my buddy Clyde, no harm no foul, and nobody died.

Best Thing I Heard This Year:  After hitting the pipe, Shoedog checked with our insurance company and we had $0 deductible.  How lucky can you get.

Best Warm and Fuzzy Moment of the Year:  Hearing from folks who I helped in some way catch a bunch of fish.  It feels good to pass it on, you should try it some time.

Biggest Pull It Out of the Year:  The day Chris and I went to Cedar Bayou and fished most of they day in that area with a few bites.  Then we drifted the Ayers Point area and had one of the best topwater bites of the year.   Nothing like an hour of non stop explosions.

Best Fishing Buddy of the Year:  Hands down it was my lovely wife Nancy.  She indulges my fishing obsession and only fished one day with me this year.  And of course like she always does she caught the biggest sailfish of the trip.  Guess she is good at optimizing her fishing time.  Though it is probably the fact that she can’t stand me in the boat for 10 hours.

Best Fishing Decision of the Year:  Using braid more.  I have been hearing it from you all and I finally listened.  But I still can not use it on spinning rods.

Best New Toy of the Year:  Hands down the custom rod that my buddy Chris wrapped for me.  I was afraid to use it at first, now I can’t put it down.  Having that fancy tip on it designed for braid stopped the line from wrapping on the tip, my biggest complaint.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year:  This was not even close – our trip to Falcon this March.  I caught my 3 biggest bass of my life the first time we made the trip several years ago.  If memory serves me correct I only caught 3 small fish the whole trip this year.  Hard to believe how quickly a lake can decline.

Best News of the Year:  Strike King and Down South Lures helping out with a lure sponsorship.  I love their stuff and the results are the proof.  Keeping up with the blog and the fishing is expensive, every little bit helps.  So a big thanks guys.

Best Lure Change of the Year:  After a tough day in Canada Shoedog puts on a crankbait and proceeds to catch a big muskie, one of the biggest pike of the trip, and a beaver.  Boy they loved that crankbait.

Best Whacky Thing of the Year:  Catfish blasting stuff on top.  Aaron found those catfish hitting on top at night on Coleto.  They were feeding on a mayfly hatch and we boated a few.  If it happens this year I am going to get the fly rod out.

Best Reader of the Year:  Though this is the first year for this award, one person wins this hands down – Faye.  I am not sure how long she has been reading me, but it has been a while and I appreciate her loyalty and her reports.  Thanks Faye.  But Rick, Evan, Mac, and the rest of you are appreciated, so keep those comments coming.

Best Decision of the Year:  Deciding to keep it up.  After 3 years it was time to renew my hosting and I thought about it and decided to keep on plugging away.  No matter how I looked at it we must be doing something right so on we go.

Total Fish for the Year:  I was going to go back over all my posts for the year and total up what I had posted for the catch each day.  After doing it for January I gave up.  Way to much work.  But we boated over a 150 fish in January, and it kept on going all year.

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Goals for the 2015: 

1. Catching my first trout over 30″.  I have come close a couple of times and I am taking a positive step towards that in February.  We have hired the best big trout guide on the coast for a couple of days and I intend to suck up as much knowledge as I can.  When you hire a guide listen and learn.
2. Post at least 3 days a week.
3. Try more new stuff on the Gulf.  There are lots of techniques out there that work.  Spoon on a popping cork, drop shot for flounder, double plastics for trout, and anything else I hear or read about.  There are always new techniques out there waiting to be discovered.
4. Catch a really big muskie.  Once you catch one you just want to catch another.
5. To continue to practice and improve at being fair on the water.  A perfect example was the other day when a jon boat cut between me and the fish.  He apologized and my response was not to get mad but to cut him some slack.  None of us are perfect.
6. To get you all more involved.  People love your comments and we can all learn something from each other.  Plus I am not always as interesting as I used to be.
7. To get the Shoedog working on his friend Terry to come down here from Nebraska and fish with us.  There is nothing like watching someone catch their first redfish.  Plus he is a great guy and a good fishing partner.
8. To win the lottery, buy the 6 different boats I need, buy that place up north, down south, out west, and a couple over the big pond.  Since I don’t buy any tickets that one probably won’t happen.
9. To always keep in focus one simple fact – It is in the doing.  Whether it is a 50 trout day, the biggest muskie in the world, or bass until you drop, remembering that is just the result.  It is the love of ripping across the lake at daylight, dropping over the side on the Gulf as the gulls are diving, seeing bucks fighting, that is what it is about.  I have to keep reminding myself that every day out there is a blessing no matter how it comes out.

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I heard from a few readers and wanted to share their comments with you.

Great report!!! A very merry Christmas you had there. Here’s wishing you and yours a safe and prosperous new year and the continued success for Fish Catching Travel!
Thanks for all your efforts,
Rick

Thanks for that Rick.  My Christmas day trip is always a favorite, it never seems to let me down.  I appreciate your continued loyalty and wish you and yours a great new year.

And I wanted to post this comment from Voe.  A new transplant to our area, he is wanting to learn to fish the salt and I was glad to point him the way.

Well, I made it out finally on Wednesday and the weather was perfect, cloudy with a nice light wind.  I launched the kayak and headed down river in the morning and had two undersized sea trout within 5 minutes of launching.  After traveling 30 minutes down river I started throwing plastics to the bank and working them back.  Worked like a charm with over a dozen sea trout caught and released that were all legal size.  3 nice redfish fell victim off another bank and will be dinner tonight the largest being a 5 pounder.