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9/21/02
 A fast trip
down to West Matagorda Bay was productive this week. We saw a lot of bait
and there were trout around the reef working it hard. The salt & pepper
superminnow worked well as did the roach color in a major minnow.
Got our limit and went looking for the redfish along the shoreline. Picked
up three reds and released a couple of undersized ones on a
strawberry/mf/bb/white tail shad. The fishermen coming by the shop lately
have been reporting good trips out of Pt. O'Connor and also down south at Pt.
Mansfield so if the weather will cooperate we are going to hit Pt. Mansfield
next month.
7/5/02
Back to Louisiana for a trip with Pt. Pleasant Hunting & Fishing
for a trip to Sabine Lake. This trip included two
local anglers and
businessmen from El Campo, Jack Bueltel of Bueltel Chevrolet and Keith Rioux of
Rioux Hardware. Our host and guide was Kent Carlson who I met the previous
year at the fishing show in Houston. Kent lives close by the lodge and his
wife even cooked a great dinner for us and the other three parties going fishing
the next day. His lodge can hold over thirty and the accommodations are
really first class. After breakfast we checked the weather forecast and
waited for daylight to head back to the boat ramp at the border causeway.
Note: they are currently constructing a new ramp on the Louisiana side of
the causeway to launch a boat if you are fishing Louisiana waters and limits.
We went to the shoreline and drifted with the other boats while noticing the big
influx of fresh water from all of the downpours we had a few days earlier.
We caught a few trout along the banks and the fishing was tough for all four
boats when we decided to go and try the wells outside the jetties since the
conditions were calm. We and two boats went out thru the jetties and
headed for the wells which are numerous and not very far from the jetties.
We tried two wells before we hit the trout on the bottom of the third well which
is about twenty feet deep. We were throwing a light green glow shrimp tail
on a 1/4 oz. gamakatsu leadhead. We chunked it up next to the well and let
it sink to the bottom and the trout would pick it up and you would have to
quickly set the hook. We worked about seven wells and found three of them
where the trout were stacked up on one side of the well. We came in at
1:30 because of some dark clouds and made it in right in front of the downpour.
We ended up with 58 trout and the other two boats came in with compatible
numbers. The one boat that stayed in the bay had 27 trout but had three
that went over 5 lbs. We showered and cleaned fish, had lunch at the lodge
and made it back to El Campo by 6:00. This trip was a great value at
450.00 for lodging , meals, fishing, and fish cleaning and I would recommend
anyone to go fish there.
6/2/02
We loaded up the truck and headed to Louisiana this weekend to
go and fish Lake Calcasieu on Monday. We went out with fishing guide Erik Rue
who owns Calcasieu Charters in Big Lake. You can find his link on our links
page. We stayed at a first
class lodge Sunday and went over to an area called Long Point. It had
around twenty boats drifting the scattered shell when we arrived but we found
room to set up a drift and caught some really fat trout over the two drifts we
made. The average was around 20" and we caught one that was probably an
eight pound trout but we released her without having to get her in the
boat. After a couple of hours we headed south and drifted an area around
the intercoastal which produced some reds and trout. We weren't
looking for any redfish so we released all that we caught and we ended up with
23 trout when we came in at 1:00. We threw several colors of the major
minnow which did well (roach, avocado/cht. electric blue/cht and nite glo/cht).
The fish there are heavy and seem to be in good shape but we heard and saw that
the fishing pressure was really increasing in Lake Calcasieu. I would
recommend going on a trip during the week and to ask Erik to put you down on a
day when the wind is not blowing really hard.
5/30/02
Went fishing in Pt. O'Connor today with my friends Dr. Gary
Johnson and Jeff Socha. Dr. J had hired Pt.
O'Connor guide Kelly Parks
(Kelly Parks Guide Service: 361-578-0012) to take us out on a quick trip since
he had to be back for a high school graduation early that evening. We went
out at daybreak to an area around The Cedars and wade fished until 10:00. We all
had strung up nine trout each and then decided to head south to San Antonio Bay
to fish a couple of reefs for redfish. We each waded a different reef and
picked up our solo trout and three reds. I caught two over- sized before
catching any in the slot, and there seemed to be several schools around each
reef. The winds have slowed down and the fishing is turning on.
We got back to the marina and saw several good catches that came from different
areas of the bay and also the surf. I've fished with Kelly about twenty
times now and have had a blast every time. He has a knack for
finding the fish and is always booked up with repeat business, which is
something you should always look for when hiring a guide. When I get the
pictures from Dr. J I will post them in the photo section.
4/30/02
Fished the Sabine area today with
Captain Skip James of Orange, Texas. We went out in pretty windy conditions
looking for some flounder in the protected areas. Came in at 11:00
with a dozen flounder and three redfish.
We picked up a couple of flounder at
each stop using a fluttertail grub in glo or chartreuse. We tried to cross
the bay to fish the badland area but it was really rough and we decided to skip
the wet ride and just concentrate on the areas near by. We all had a great
time and Skip taught us each something about flounder fishing. This was
the first fishing trip where we strictly targeted flounder and we had plenty of
action. It was as much fun as my last trout fishing trip so I'll try it
again next spring.
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