September 1-3, 2012

My daughter and I made a trip to Port O'Connor for the long weekend.  The trip down was an adventure and took longer than normal, so we decided to stay an extra night and fish on Sunday and Monday morning too.  On the trip down to POC, we had a blown tire on the trailer and made it to a Walmart using our spare tire, but decided not to chance not having a spare so it took a little while to get another tire and mount the spare back on the trailer.  Oh well, just part of the adventure.  

I usually fish the waters in Galveston and have only been to POC two other times with limited success on both trips.  Well, this trip was like the other two - limited fishing success.  The winds were stiff each day which reduced some of the fishing options especially since I don't know the bays around POC at all and didn't want to lose a lower unit in some shallow spot.  We primarily fished the big jetties and mostly the back side in the bay near Bird Island.  We saw a few bull reds landed but none for us.  We caught sharks, whiting, a few small gafftops and of course, the elusive hardhead catfish (moved to get away from them).  We did have a few UFOs that peeled line and either slipped the hook or broke the line.  One of the unidentified fish was in the intercoastal waterway in a large barge slip in about 20 feet of water and was likely a black drum or sheepshead based on the surrounding structure.  The fish hit my daughter's line hard and went for a fast run into some pilings and the short steel leader was not enough to keep the fish from cutting the line.

Even though the fishing was slow, we still had a great time being out on the water.  I do not take for granted that my time fishing with my daughter could be limited, so any time we spend on the water is always a bonus.  I hope she fishes with me until I'm 90, but you never know.

A few of the sharks (sharpnose and bonnetheads) were very active and some of the largest we have ever caught, so I released them on the side of the boat.  We did catch one shark small enough for a photo op.

We netted one struggling bull red (about 20 pounds) that had been caught in about 30 feet of water by someone that failed to "vent" the fish.  The distended air bladder prevented the fish from going back down, so it was floating on its side.  We vented the fish and it revived rather quickily and swam away hopefully to live another day and help make lots of little redfish.