June 6, 2009

Date: Saturday, June 6, 2009

Location: Port O'Connor, TX

Air Temp: 90

Water Temp: 85

Depth: 16-30 feet

Bait: live shrimp and various artificials

I made a last minute one-day trip (7+ hours of round trip driving) with my buddy Allan to POC. We left the house at 4:00 AM to get on the water around 8:30 AM and we got home around 11:00 PM that night. It was a loooooong day. I'll stay the night next time and get in an extra day of fishing.

It was a beautify day on the water, but the fish had lockjaw. I had seen some reports of kingfish near the jetties which is the main reason we made the trip to POC instead of more familiar fishing grounds in Galveston. Kingfish are usually offshore and out of reach for my small boat, and I've always wanted to learn how to catch them. The birds were working hard over huge schools of Spanish mackerel and probably kingfish, but we couldn't entice them to bite. We tossed every lure we had in the tackle box and even tried live shrimp when the schools would surround the boat and they were too busy chasing bait fish to take our lures. We drifted through the same school at least 7 or 8 times with no takers. We finally stopped chasing the schools of fish and tried a spot on the Gulf side of the south jetty and landed 3 Spanish mackerel up to about 26 inches, 1 kingfish around 30 inches and released an undersized sheepie. We lost two nice fish near the rocks under a popping cork and lost something huge on a big reel that was almost spooled. It made for some excitement on a slow day.

It was still a great day to be on the water even if the fishing was a little slow. It was only my second trip to POC, but I look forward to more to learn that part of the coast.