Shells

I forgot to metion on the trip with Greg and Crystal we stopped on a small island to show them all the shells. These shells cover the dirt so much that you can dig down about a foot or so and still not hit dirt.They also found this enormous shell she is holding in the picture.

No Reds

Tuesday I had a trip with Greg and Crystal. They were the winners of a trip I donated for a Breast Cancer Research raffle. The weather was great except for the rain. The water wascalm and clear. Crystal got a little queasy on the large waves, so we went fishing in the bay. We immediately got into a bunch of Mangrove snapper and small Grouper. We then went offshore to some nearshore rigs, but could not get any bites except for two large Gafftop. After a break due to rain, we then anchored up at a point on the ship channel. We did not get any reds, but had a great time pulling in a bunch of 5 to 6 lb. gafftop.
I kept in touch with Brad and other guides all day and they were not catching any reds either.

TOUGH FISHING

On Friday, we went outside the jetties, it was too rough and windy to stay on a rig and catch fish, too rough to fish the jetties, so we came in, loaded the boat and went to Copano Bay. We caught lot of small Redfish and some small trout. One of my guys did catch a "Texas Slam", which is a trout, redfish, and flounder of legal size. Of special interest is that he caught these all on artificial lures, Berkley Gulp.

Saturday only Jerry went with me today, Chuck was not feeling well. It was tough fishing again. We caught some small reds. The jetties were pretty rough, we couldn't fish offshore so we headed into the bays. We caught one 5 lb. Black Drum and 10 Mangrove Snapper before calling it a today. It was a little stormy, windy, and rainy but we still had a good day.

These guys are from Hobbs, New Mexico and have been fishing with me all this week. They come here twice a year for fishing, fishing, fishing. I estimate that they took back approximately 400 lb.'s of fish filets. We had a great time and I really enjoy these guys and can't wait until they come back.

Even My Bad Days are Good!!!!!!

We started out this morning and the tilt and trim on my boat wouldn't work. We pulled it out of the water, fixed it, and then went fishing again. There were no fish at the jetties today so we went offshore and caught 1 Ling and then we had trouble with the bilge pump. We came back again, repaired that, and got back in the water at 3:30. We went out again and caught 3 big Ling, a 37 in. and 40 in. Red, 22 in. Black Drum, 2 Spanish Mackerel, and a 20 lb. King. The weather today was beautiful, wind was out of the east. Water temperature was 75 degrees. The fish seem to be migrating from north to south. We had several other fish break off including one that broke 60 lb. line before we could get the rod out of the rod holder.

Tomorrow we are going back out again with my same New Mexico clients.

FISH EVERYWHERE

My guys from New Mexico and I started today at the Jetties and caught a quick limit of Reds, then we ran offshore. The weather is beautiful, the water is blue. Today's temperature was around 88 with very little wind. We caught four Ling, two Snapper, two large sharks, six Spanish Mackerel in the 5-6 lb. range (which is massive for these fish), Grouper, and we released 20 small sharks in the 3 ft range.

Capt Brad on his morning trip caught 3 Reds, 2 TriggerFish, 2 Ling, Strawberry Grouper, and some Mangrove Snapper. On the afternoon trip they caught a 25 lb. Kingfish, 9 Redfish, one 39" Red, 1 Gag Grouper, several Mangrove Snapper, and 2 Lings.

TWO 40" REDFISH

My charter Monday with two great guys from New Mexico we caught two 40" bull reds plus four keeper reds, grouper, several nice Spanish Mackerel, Mangrove Snapper, and a Snowy Grouper. The Snowy Grouper was verified by the Parks and Wildlife since nobody knew what it was.

My son Capt. Brad also had a charter today and they brought in 9 reds, one was oversized.

Reds at the jetties

Lots of REDS at the jetties. The water is looking great rightnow it is clear with lots of debri washing up. There is a few large trout taken near the rocks.I watched a large school of TARPON swimming around Sat and Sun. Brad brought in 18 reds Sat afternoon .When you are on the school it is very fast action,when you are not it is tough .There is lots of Spanish Mackeral ,with Mangrove Snapper,Trigger fish ,Red Snapper ,and a few Pompano.I have not seen any King Mackeral nearshore since the storm.
The offshore bite has slowed since the storm.It will pick back up as time goes on.The best bait after the storm is ribbonfish dropped with a large egg sinker. Also YES we can still keep RED SNAPPER in state waters,just not in Federal waters.