FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

I got the skiff back from the shop and all is good.  Good compression, new plugs, and the only reason it was not circulating water was the seals and impellor had dried out from non-use.  So I did learn one thing from that, if it going to sit you need to seriously run it on the hose at least monthly.

Since it is hooked up think I will head to Keller Bay tomorrow.  It has been a while, a couple of years, and with the poor trout reports out of POC will actually be doing a little red fishing.  Slow rolling the Knockin Tail spinnerbait should do the trick.  The only way to know is go.

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The Wade Right Fishing Belt and the new Madre Sling.

For all your wading needs.

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Weather

71/94.  Mostly sunny and very warm with a 10% chance of rain.  Wind NNE 8 – 13mph.

Tides

High   4:27 am 0.86.   Low   11:26 am 0.4.   High   5:33 pm 1.02.

Bite Time

Minor   9:19 am to 10:19 am.  (Only applicable time and it was roughly correct.)

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There were 2 reasons it was Keller time.  The way the reports are coming it seemed the redfish were on the bite.  The second reason was it was my last voyage on the Carolina Skiff.  It is time for it to have a new owner and I wanted to make one more run just to be sure things were working.  Both of the reasons for Keller worked out just fine.

The water temp was 84 with a light northeast wind when I put in at 9:15, trying to just time the tide.  The color back in the bay was almost dirty.  If I was guessing it was fairly fresh to boot.  I have lots of history in Keller and had 2 places I wanted to fish, and both had fish.  The first place is shallow, so shallow that a long cast from the bank is necessary.  Basically fishing dirt, which you can do in the skiff.

A real hoss.  Fell for the 3 1/2″ Nuked Glow Knockin Tail.

With the color thought the Purple Demon was a good choice.  It was on a heavy 1/8th jig head on spinnerbait wire with a gold blade, my go to standard and it turned out to be the right choice.  The water was moving just a little and with the light wind it was easy to fish.  It probably took about an hour to catch the first one.  Then there was a definite flurry, a couple of rats, a flounder, and the 2 below.  Both of them knocked a bunch of slack when they ate, the cool classic spinnerbait bite.  There is plenty of mullet and bait in the back bay, it is about mullet run time.  After that flurry wanted to head across the bay to the other place on the schedule.

They were eating the spinnerbait with a 4″ Purple Demon Knockin Tail trailer.

The wind was just right to fish the next bank which is really a main bay high bank.  When the tide falls it can be a good spot and while I only got one bite it was big fish of the day.  It too was off color with the wind blowing on it.  After fishing about half of it with the spinnerbait time to move out and fish the drop and it was not long before the one above jumped on.  What made it interesting was the little jig on 8lb line made it a real battle.  The picture above does not do this girl justice, she was heavy, and it was all I could do to hold her up for the pic.  After that I wanted to fish my trout place and see if they were there, and they so were not there.  I gave it an hour without a bite and with a slack tide time to quit.  As it was starting to get hot, I called the day a success.

It has been a couple of years since I fished Keller.  Redfish are so easy in some respects.  Once you find them, they are usually easy to catch, and rarely is it just one when the bite is on.  Combine that with they like certain places at certain times, and those places rarely change.  Now ordering some up by size is another story, but in the end for me I could give a rat’s rear end how big or small they are, they are just fun to catch.  And it brought back tons of memories of the skiff.

From South Padre to Key West, Lake of the Ozarks, Bull Shoals, the Arkansas River, Pine Island, Boca Grande, Grand Isle La, Falcon, so many places.  And boy have some big fish come over the side.  Tarpon, stripers, blue cats, reds, trout, bass, snook, crappie, white bass, paddle fish, it is hard to remember them all, but I do.  Each one made a great memory, and the skiff got me there and back every single time.  It is on its third motor, who could guess how many trolling motors and locators.  Every dollar was worth it, great boat.  Like breaking up with a girlfriend.

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Now there are reports that warthogs are spreading throughout Texas.  WTH!  The place we stayed when on safari in Africa was big time fenced with electricity and they could not keep them out.  A real nuisance they could not get rid of.  According to this article TPWD has no say so in the importation of exotic wildlife that game operations import to sell for hunts on private land.  I call BS on TPWD having no say so, if they are hurting native wildlife, it seems ridiculous that they have no dog in that hunt.  But hey, we have a spreading CWD problem so might as well just have warthogs running wild and impacting native wildlife.  Ahh…… Texas.

It would seem if a casual observer like me knows the importation of non-native species has and does not always work out for the best then others smarter than me should know it.  It is time to stop all of it, there is no way to monitor or control what happens, so it does not take a rocket scientist to know it is a bad idea.

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Thanks Guys and Gals

And speaking of TPWD here is a condensed version of the holiday weekend results.  Click on the link for the whole story.

In addition to issuing 305 citations and 433 warnings for various boating safety law violations, wardens arrested three individuals for Boating While Intoxicated (BWI) and filed four other charges for Driving While Intoxicated (DWI). Additionally, they arrested 22 people for various other charges.

Texas Game Wardens also conducted multiple search and rescues over the holiday weekend and assisted with three reportable boating accidents on Texas lakes and rivers.

They helped one woman back onto her pontoon boat after she had been trying to pull herself out of the water for nearly an hour. Game wardens performed a search and rescue for a five-year-old boy who was found within 10 minutes.

In addition, game wardens recovered a stolen personal watercraft and vehicle reported stolen in April 2020. Game wardens also seized a rifle connected to a deadly conduct and tampering with evidence case in El Paso County.

So, a busy weekend for the wardens but at least nobody died.  Thanks for keeping us safe out there.  Plenty of folks just can’t act right, or at least get their stuff together.  Why I stay in the house and leave it to the rest of the folks during the holidays.  Our holiday weekends are the most dangerous time to be on the water.

News Release: Sept. 9, 2022: Texas Game Wardens Conclude Busy Labor Day Weekend on the Water – TPWD

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Great start to the week.  It will be a couple of days before I am back on the water but that is exactly where I will be.  With hunting season headed to full speed my favorite time on the water is now.  Can’t wait for our temps to drop and fall to come.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines

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Off Topic Comments

We are sending tons of immigrants by bus to sanctuary cities to try to relieve that problem, or at least make a point.  They better look out, New York just might turn it around and help us by sending their homeless to Austin, which cannot even begin to solve their own homeless problem.  When you have a couple of knuckleheads like Abbott and Adams anything is possible.  The world is going insane

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