Good Weather, Good Water, But...

Wow, fishing conditions last week were really great. Usually, the pattern is great weather during the work week, crappy weather on the weekends. Well, this was one of those exceptions. Decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather starting Friday afternoon.

Brought along a fishing partner and headed to Sabine Pass and Lighthouse Cove. As expected, lots of boats at Lighthouse Cove, word was out that this has been a Hot Spot of late. We still managed to find ourselves a spot and not get in the way of anyone else.

The fishing was, well, Ok. Lots of little trout and flounder. We were fishing Gulps. Fishing the plastics was yielding short strikes on virtually every cast. Suspect those were all small fish. Live bait being used by some around us probably brought more fish into the boat, but I would venture to guess 1 in 5 may have been keepers. But that is better than the 1 in 50 we put in the boat. But the one we put in the boat, and, no I didn't catch it, was 24 7/8" trout. I'd venture to guess that's pushing 5 lbs or more. Not a bad one to put in the boat.

Beyond the one trout, we did manage two keeper flounder out of probably 10 or so undersized. Between two stints at the cove, we tried the Texas Jetty. Water looked good, but of all things, the wind had shifted to out of the south. It wasn't supposed to do that. I fought the wind and the trolling motor for maybe an hour before we had headed back to Lighthouse Cove.

Seeing the water conditions and with the wind and weather holding through Saturday, and, no, didn't make it out Saturday, some home chores to take care of, I headed out to some uncharted, unexplored waters on Sunday morning. I knew with the wind and weather holding along with great fishing reports, the boat traffic would be bad. Let's just say, the jetty wall looked more like pit row at a NASCAR race. Anyway, I made it an very early morning, got to the Launch at 5:00 a.m. and headed for the surf area in the Louisiana Pocket. I had never ventured into this area before, but figured the water ought to be right.

Motored up into the pocket area slowly and monitored the water depth. I'm alway nervous about running in unfamiliar territory. And, with Hurricanes Rita, Humberto, and Ike over the past several years, you just don't know what's beneath the surface.

Amazingly, I was able to run up to probably 100 yards of the beach. And, this was on a low tide. I was very pleased to see green water and lots of bait. Spotted some nervous bait and starting chunking a topwater, a top dog jr. No takers. Tried some plastics. On one of my casts, had one of those strikes that quickly yielded an lureless line, I suspected a spanish mackerel.

Went back to a topwater, had one blowup and then finally stuck a good 23" trout. Getting that first fish is always a great feeling. And, with the conditions as they were, I thought, man I'm in the fish now. Well, after another hour or so of chunking lures, that was all she wrote.

Made a run to the LA jetty. As I already said, lots of boats. Trolled some open areas along the outside of the jetty. I'll say this, the water was absolutely gorgeous, along the jetty wall, you could see bottom. Although I couldn't rustle up a strike, I was able to see sheepshead come out of hiding from the rocks and either turn a nose up at my offering or strike at some glass minnows.

I had another interesting observation while chunking a rattletrap, a, what I believe to be a triple tail, made a pass at it. After talking with a couple of other folks who had also fished over the weekend, I suspect it was. Apparently, lots of triple tail were in.

That observation along with bluefish at the end of the jetty busting bait along the dirty water line was neat to see. With the tide all but slack at 10:00 a.m. I decided I wasn't going to wait on the tide to turn and the bite to turn on. From what I heard, I would not have had to wait much longer as the bite turned on at about 11:00 and was good till about 2:00 p.m. Hey, no regrets, I accomplished what I wanted, I explored some new and very promising water. So, when the weather, the water, and the bite all get right, I'll be there --- Some Day!