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!

Some New Pics

I was a little hesitant in posting some of these pictures up, and it's not everything we've caught only when we took the time to snap a pic! A lot of these pics are of fishing buddies after a trip out there. Enjoy

Port Isabel Fishing

Living in South Texas is great but I feel like I'm not seeing the action that I've been hearing about all summer. There was a lot of action on the grand slam and even snook, but I guess I didn't go out enough to get what I was looking for.

This summer I landed about 5 reds, 3 flounder, 1 trout, and about 2 snook. Isn't that pathetic?

It's hard to get out there alot of the time for the fact that I don't have the means to get to the areas where they are hitting and then depending on fishing buddies that are usually set in there ways and eventhough somethings not hitting they still want to go, c'mon! I need a 4x4 vehicle and all I have is a small compact car, it'll work but I can't get into spaces like South Bay, plus I don't have a bay boat. I've had to adapt to the conditions set as in, I love wading! Some of the pros about wading is that I can finally get into places that boats can't and I can cover the water more thoroughly.

what's hitting....

I really hope this blog goes well!
South Texas has some of the greatest fishing in Texas even perhaps in the United States, it's a shame that we don't have a place to discuss, brag, or even learn. With an area that has such drastic changes in it's fishing it would also be a great place to keep up with the hot spots at the time!