Air Temp: 70-98
Water Temp: 87
Depth: 15-32 feet
Water Clarity: clear
Winds: calm to 15 mph
Seas: calm to choppy
Bait: live perch, live shrimp and cut ladyfish
I had the opportunity to fish with my best fishing buddy one
last time before she started college this week, so I jumped at the
opportunity. My daughter started
saltwater fishing with me in 2006, and she has really learned a lot over the
last 8+ years. The best part about going
fishing with her is the chance to spend time together on the water without any
of the usual distractions. She is also
great about waking me up at 5:00 AM to let me know the fish are waiting for
us. I am excited for her as she moves into this next chapter in her life, and her school is lucky to have such a great
young lady on their campus. I look
forward to seeing her cheer at games and I hope we can still squeeze in a few
fishing trips each year.
We left the Austin area early on Saturday morning headed for
Port O’Connor instead of our usual Galveston destination. I am glad to see Galveston doing so well
since hurricane Ike messed things up a few years ago, but the prices for just
about everything have also rebounded. My
usual hotel room for this time of year runs about $120, and it was over $200,
and the boat launch fee increased from $10 to $20. Plus, this time of year is really crowded in
Galveston, so we made the trip to POC.
Even though there was a fishing tournament taking place, we still didn’t
feel crowded on the water or off the water driving around the small town.
We were on the water on Saturday around 10:30 AM and live
bait was hard to come by when we got there due to the tournament. We opted for some live piggy
perch and caught a few small sharks, a huge sting ray and some
catfish. The fishing was slow, but we
still had fun. We ended the day with a
great dinner at Cathy’s, checked out the scenery and water at the local beach
and turned in early so we could get an early start on Sunday.
Sunday started about 5:00 AM and since we were so close to
the dock, we were launching about 45 minutes sooner than normal and way before
sunrise. We were able to get some live
shrimp, almost bought a great looking Lab puppy at the bait shop, and then
headed out to the big jetties in the dark at a slow speed with our navigation
lights on. We dropped the anchor before
sunrise and began to test our patience.
After about 30 minutes of no action, we moved to the back side of the
jetties into the bay in about 15 feet of water where we observed plenty of action by the diving birds on bait fish. My daughter had fun catching
plenty of cut bait (ladyfish) for us to use later in the day. We then anchored along the rocks again and
caught the one and only 32 inch redfish which was released (we rarely keep even
the slot fish). We chummed and caught
several small sharks during the day, but nothing large. The highlight of the day was seeing a 4-5 foot, 40 pound king fish explode out of the water about 100 yards behind our boat and in
the general area where I was freelining a ladyfish. The king went about 4-5 feet in the air and
had the bait fish going crazy. We also
saw a small sting ray do the same thing, but his hang time was much less.
Always fun to get on the water and already look forward to
doing it again.
