Location: Galveston North Jetty and Ship Channel
Air Temp: 65-75
Water Temp: 75
Wind: 15-20 mph on Saturday afternoon
Wind: 5-15 mph on Sunday
Seas: Very choppy
Bait: live crab and live shrimp
My doubles racquetball partner for the last 6 years, Tom, was able to join me for his first saltwater trip this past weekend. We left Austin around 6:00 AM and arrived on the island around 9:30 AM on Saturday morning. I knew the tournament would be taking place at the Yacht Basin, so I was in no hurry but I sure didn't want to wait until 2:30 PM to get on the water. There was only a predicted 10% chance of rain for Saturday, but we watched a huge cloud approaching and decided to wait it out and give the tournament guys a chance to get out of the storm before adding to the congestion at the ramp. The rain storm finally passed and we made it to the North Jetty at about 2:45 PM. We dropped the live blue crabs in 35 feet of water with an incoming tide and a current of about 1.0 kts near the north jetty boat cut. It was "fish on" in about 10 minutes with steady action for about 3 hours. We released 9 black drum ranging from 18 to 36 pounds.
Sunday morning started out with clear skies and much calmer winds, so we headed out to the north jetty to be greeted with 3-4 foot waves in the ship channel with calmer conditions once we got close to the jetty. The fishing was slow with only one 20 pound drum during the hour we stayed at the jetty. We decided to head back in the Yacht Basin and picked up some live shrimp to see if the the sand trout were still around.
We went into one of the large empty barge slips in the channel and started catching sand trout right away along with one redfish just under 20". We kept 24 sand trout from about 12"-16" and tossed back about 15 more. It was fun tossing a shrimp Carolina rigged into about 20 feet and catching one fish after another. Sometimes the sand trout would bite as soon as the bait hit the water during the fall and other times a few jigs would create the strike.
As usual, enjoyed some great food at Casey's!
