Just Joined the Club

South Bay weekend started out great. My brother, a friend, and I spent the Friday night camping out by the bay and it was worth the roughing it. I hadn’t been out fishing for a couple of months since I’m really trying to finish up my biology degree and I actually told a couple of people that fishing was “the last thing on my mind”…harsh words I know.
Well…I had to ask for the day off and my boss kind heartedly felt sorry for me and let me go, so we were off! We left home around 3pm and were going to fish into the night so after loosing an hour chasing bait, we decided to use lure. Something that many people don’t know is that my while my brother is a pure lure fisherman…I just can’t help myself and am I sucker for bait, I guess because you can just hangout and wait (lazy I know). But I decided to work lure out there with the Big Boys, and it was well worth it! What we do is walk into South Bay and wade into the middle of the channel fish it up until the dinner bell ends and hump that 45 minute walk out just dreaming of walking on solid ground. While were out there we all just spread out and fish the area, I’m talking 360º fishing and we hook on to one it will literally go all around you.
The story that I have is my initiation in to the Monster Snook Club, I was out there working one of the saltwater assassins that I could have sworn should have hooked everything out there, but nothing and it was when I changed to my Billy Bay gold shrimp when everything changed. You know then things happen when you know no one will believe, so it’s like screw it, that’s what happen when I casted the Billy Bay out. As soon as it touched the water and gave it a pop, a nice 22” speck slammed it and it was straight to my stringer. After about 10 minutes of working the lure, a nice fat snook took my by storm. My brother was fishing about 100 yards to my right and saw my rod just bend and all I could hear out in the water was my drag just peeling that line. I thought it was a red because it started swimming sideways but then it saw what it was when it leaped out of the water “tarpon style” twice and then my brother rushed over with the net, it was a nice hook up near the throat and my first NICE SNOOK. After that I good, caught a decent trout to top it off, and was done for the trip.
While my brother and friend stayed out there nailing reds and trout, I was happy with my catch of the weekend. One for my record books.

A True Fisherman

There are some people that have it and some that don’t! It’s funny that at times when I walk past some music that is playing I can’t for the life of me make out some of the instruments that are being used or even the bass line that walking up and down the neck the of the bass guitar, but many people can. I think that sometimes it’s a lot like fishing! When I used to work at a fishing/boating store so customers would come in and ask me how they could fish, and as simple as that question is, it’s one of the hardest to answer; ok, what do you want to fish for, how do you want to catch it (i.e. bait, artificial, etc.), where are you going, when are you going, and the questions went on and on!

When I said that some people have it and some don’t, it’s interesting that some people are naturally talented towards things like music and take it on like a fish to water, but I think fishing on the other hand is something that doesn’t come natural to anyone. Yes, I will admit that some have beginners luck, but anyone can catch a fish but show me someone that shows consistency in catching and I’ll show you a fisherman. After college when I came home and was finally stretching out my sea legs and training myself to fisherman lifestyle I will admit that I was rusty. I would constantly ask my brother, “What the hell am I doing wrong!” and he would just answer, “It’s just that you’ve been away for a while, you need to spend some time out here…that’s all” and it drove me nuts. I couldn’t get a bite to save my life, but little by little, step by step, hour by hour, I was getting back what I had lost when I left for college years prior. The reason I tell you this is because I strongly believe that a lot and most of it comes through experience. While fishing is a sport more than a sport it’s a science. You need to study! I’ve never met a good fisherman that didn’t know his knots, which are so essential to the game; they are what links you to the fish on the other end! Another thing, a fisherman needs to be able to read his surroundings, the waters, the tides, and also open a book once in a while. You need to study about the fish that you’re going to be targeting, and actually have an interest in learning. Once when I was working, a customer came in and asked me about leaders and immediately asked him what he was targeting and told him I have just the perfect thing. I quickly got the supplies to quickly make a leader, and he freaked out telling me that “I don’t want to deal with all that tying crap, I’ll just buy the pre-made ones”. I didn’t get offending when he refused my teaching him how, but the thing that offended me was the fact that he called himself a fishermen…and that is one thing that we take very personally. To be a fisherman takes years of hard work out there on the water; reading, studying, with nothing but trail and error with that to learn from after doing your homework the night before. Overall, all I’m trying to say is that what comes easy to many people like music, fishing doesn’t come easy to anyone and people that see fishermen out there making it look like a walk in the park is only after years and years of perfecting the sport that they love. Remember you can give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day but teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.

Drum Fishing

Hey guys! This weekend we went drum fishing at the ship channel, and we caught some drum! It was a very windy day and the tide was moving out, yet we wanted to wet our line so we ventured out. What we used was crab and it was awesome.

Saltwater Leaders

Everytime I go out fishing, when I'm doing the dreaded "pickup, cleanup, and go" there is some sense of frustration in the back of my head the whole time going over what I did right and wrong and what I need to improve on and lastly what I still have to learn. I love the water and would spend every second on it, but every time I go out I come to the conclusion that I still and will always have more to learn. Many people "have" or more like come off as having it down solid and they tell you what they do, that they're way is the best way, and everyone else is doing it wrong, honestly that is nothing but ignorance. Some things work better for other people and other people focus on different things, that's what make fisherman and diverse and all the different fish in the ocean. Down here in the lower Laguna Madre there are some many different types of fisherman: there are offshore fishermen, inshore fishermen, fly fishermen, freshwater fishermen; and from there you have jetty walkers, waders, boaters, and the list goes on and on.
Although the fishing is so different and I like to do it all one thing is most fishermen can agree with is the use of the leader. A leader is a thicker piece of monofilament line or wire (varying in length depending of what you're going for) that will protect the main line so that it will lessen the chances of a "pop" when fighting a fish.

Some more pics...

We do a lot of fishing but much of the time my brother and I either don't take some pictures or don't get to post them online. Here are some of the recent pictures that we have taken this summer.

Great weekend

This was a great fishing weekend. First off, I apologize for having posted anything in a while, the reason is that because of school I haven't been able to go, and also the couple of fishing trips that I've gone on lately have been nothing to brag about. This weekend was great because a good friend came down for the weekend and we were able to take him out and do some good fishing before the weekenders came out and took up alot of the good spots. We went out friday afternoon to the South Padre Island jetties, mainly for the comfort and easy access to it and since we're officially in fall we wanted to target some nice flatties along the jetties on the surf side, so off we went. There weren't a great amount of people there, compared to the mounds that surround the area on saturdays and sundays, and we fished into the sunset and into the dark, and all during the afternoon alot of people were catching little black tips around 2 1/2 feet long, which isn't great because that size isn't great eating and also they're so tiny and I prefer when they get a little larger and stronger for the fight! Well around dusk I was fishing into the shallows where the mullet were thriving in the pocket that's made by the shore and the start of the jetties, with a ridiculously long leader attached to a popping cork while live mullet. Then the popping cork started moving slowly out along the rocks and I waited for a good hook set and then when I set the hook it took off, so I played with it and it turned out to be a 34" red and later in the same area I caught another red at 26". One thing that I noticed was that both of the reds had long slash marks at their tails, looking like something large took a nip at them and I remembered that there was sharks in the area. My friend later into the night in the darkness nowhere near the coleman lantern caught two nice trout one 24" and the other 19". One thing that kept us active all night were the constant hook ups with the skipjacks that were out there that night, annoying but did keep us busy. Overall, it was a good afternoon fishing trip, Lord willing we have alot more like that in the future!

Jetty Walking Weekend

This weekend was interesting! My brother and I wanted to take advantage of the fishing before the end of the year, so we went Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On the Saturday morning we headed out and were very optimistic, I was a clear day with an incoming tide. When we got to the Island Jetties there were a lot of people that were catching bull reds, skipjack, spanish mackerel, and other things like a flounder here and there, so we were very excited! Throughout the day we were using both cut bait and lure and get some good runs. We landed some spanish and I lost about three red runs because of the crappy line I was using (which was more frustrating than anything else). The schools of reds were coming in and seriously they were big schools, but I didn't get to sight cast into it because....
There were some older men that came up next to us and fish but sometimes there is the thing of being too close to the people next to you, it's more of a fisherman's etiquette. Well, when I saw the school coming in I was getting ready to cast and one of the old guys just ran infront of me and casted, (oh my gosh, you don't do that) of course he hooked one and it was a nice fat red. At the end of the day, all we had were about 7 spanish and a tan.

On the second day, we only got out for a couple of hours in the morning. The thing was that the skipjacks was circling around thick, and yes they are much fun to fight, but they aren't really game fish. The people around were pulling then out left and right, but not the thing that I'm into.

On Sunday, we were determined to make up for the day previous. There were a lot of people out there, eventhough the winds were strong and the sun was out strong. It took a while to get some bait but when we did it was game time. We started out at the mid-point of the jetties for a couple of hours and there was nothing, not even a nipple so we decided to move out farther to the tip, and there was also nothing! We couldn't believe it, the two days prior the fish were everywhere and from one day to the next nothing! That just shows how fishing can be so unpredictable, one day they can be in thick and the next day nothing! I'm still glad we went out, it was relaxing and I good reason to get out of the house for the weekend. I'll never give up. By the way, I set a goal to one day limit out on everything: red, trout, snook, flounder. One day it will happen!