Air Temp: 65-82
Water Temp: 77
Depth: 20-36 feet
Water Clarity: murky to clear green
Winds: calm to 12 mph
Seas: calm to choppy
Bait: live shrimp, squid, and cut whiting
My wife made her first trip to POC with me. We enjoyed the time together and I am
thankful that she also loves being on the saltwater and likes fishing. With both kiddos in college and doing their
own thing, I think there will be more time to enjoy the saltwater together
going forward and that’s a good thing for us.
I almost always fish on the weekend, so it was great to
venture down to POC during the week, especially on Thursday since there was
very little boat traffic. Friday was
almost like a weekend day with plenty of others fishing the jetties. We stayed at Clark’s which was not crowded at
all and probably only about 30% full on Thursday night. It was nice to wake up on Friday morning and
have the boat sitting in a slip right outside the room and it allowed us to get
started early and be headed out to the open ocean and see the sunrise. There is just something about the smell of
the saltwater, the sound of the boat cutting through the water, the sea gulls,
the dolphins and seeing the sun rise above the water that calms the spirit and
makes me appreciate the many blessings in my life from God.
It had been a while since my wife had battled a 20 pound
red, and we knew late October near the jetties would likely give her an
opportunity and POC did not disappoint.
I am still learning some spots and gaining experience about POC since
most of my saltwater experience has been in Galveston. For my last trip, I knew fresh mullet was
usually not available at the bait shops in POC, so I made a Fiesta stop in
Austin and they actually had fresh mullet.
Well, this trip I decided to save the time and skip Fiesta hoping to
catch more ladyfish like the last trip, but that plan did not work. We tried several spots along the rocks to
catch some bait, but none produced, so we finally headed to the end of the
south jetty with live shrimp and squid and it took a while before my wife
finally caught a nice whiting that we could use as cut bait. It didn’t take long at all to entice a big
redfish once the cut bait was in the water.
We lost the first red due to a pulled hook, but then my wife caught two
and she insisted that I pull one in too near the end of the day. It was fun to battle the reds near the rocks
and since we were not planning on keeping any reds, the bigger the better. The reds we caught were about 18-22 pounds
and about 34-38 inches.
The winds really started to drop at the end of the first day
and the bay was like glass around 5:30 PM.
The end of both jetties was still a little rough, so even though I had
some luck at the end of the north jetty on the last trip and saw a few other
boats do really well, we opted to fish the calmer water on the Gulf side of the
south jetty on both days and landed one red on the back side of the jetties
near Bird Island. We started day two
early and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise.
The fishing was good again with four bull reds, several small sharks, a
huge sting ray, a few sheepshead, and several elusive hardheads and some large
gafftop slimers.
We enjoyed some Cathy’s seafood on both days and may take a
day trip in a few months just to look around POC again and have Cathy’s
again. My wife enjoyed POC and wants to
go back, but said she also misses Galveston, so maybe that will be our next
fishing trip together.
Sunrise on day 2.
End of the first day. No wind and the bay was flat.
Sunrise on day 2.
The end of the south jetty on Friday.
Using a small J hook and squid on a light spinning reel to catch a bait fish and landed the 20 pound red below.
