We had a great time on our annual family vacation in Galveston. The island is recovering very well from Hurricane Ike, and I'm glad we were able to do our part for tourism again this year. The weather was perfect - hot with mostly calm seas. As usual, we spent several days on the beach and also made 3 boat fishing trips to the jetties during the week. At night, I had great fun fishing the lights in the canal right off the boat dock at the house. I caught and released about 25 trout ranging from 14 to 22 inches with most being in the 15-18 inch range and two flounder. I used live bait I caught in my cast net (piggy perch and shad) and experimented with several artificials and had good luck with these:
My mom had a nice 15-20 minute battle with a bull redfish that was about 25 pounds. Since we were doing all catch and release, I left my net at home and didn't want to harm the fish with the gaff. I had the leader and almost landed the fish with my Boga grip (a fish landing tool) when he finally spit the hook. Another hi-light of the jetty fishing was when my mom hooked a tarpon that made a fast run about 75 yards from the boat and did the classic acrobatics to spit the hook. I would estimate the tarpon was about 50-75 pounds.
The whole family enjoyed catching sand trout, croakers and of course, catfish in the canal almost every evening. They also had fun catching plenty of small sharks and a nice 23 inch redfish at the jetty.
