Aransas Pass 12/3 and 12/4

Ken J, Michael H, and I had a great weekend at AP. We launched about 8:30 am into South Bay and spread out to look for fish in perfect conditions. While Ken and I struggled to pick up any reds early, Michael found the sweet spot. He paddled onto a nice flat and found a large school of tailing reds. He started picking the largest tails and quickly had a limit of hefty reds to 26". He continued to pick off keeper sized reds and frantically waved his paddle at Ken as his radio battery had died. I, of course, was out of sight. I finally noticed that Michael had been sitting in one area for a long time and decided to see what he was up to. After a few distracting shots at fishy looking spots, I had still not hooked up. Michael came to my rescue and showed me his stringer of hogs and the hackberry hustler in hoodat color that he had been catching them on. The closest jig I had to that color was a glow chartreuse assassin, so I tied on and immediately hooked up with a fish. He came unbuttoned but I quickly caught another fish, an 18" red. I had called Ken on the radio and just about the time he got to the spot, the wind died and so did the bite. I didn't catch anything else, Ken got a blow up on top, so we paddled to another spot looking for more reds. We paddled over to a channel with green water and were quickly catching small trout on jigs. Michael and Ken grew bored with that and paddled off to find bigger fish. I was having fun with the trout, so stayed behind and caught fish on nearly every cast. It was so easy I got out the fly rod. The fish absolutely refused the spoon fly I had on, so I tied on shrimp imitation and got hammered on the first cast. I landed what was my first salt water fish on the fly. I continued playing with these small trout and decided to try a few other spots on the channel to see if I could find any larger fish. Hit several places with similar results, 12-14" trout with the occasional 8-10" mixed in. No keepers. Finally hit one of the guts between spoils along the Shrimp Boat Channel and hit the sweet spot. Started catching larger trout and had two keepers inn the yak, when a power boat came through my gut, missed the channel and plowed over the bar. Mud, shell, and screeching motor later, I figured that was the end of my honey hole. But, after just a few minutes the dinks were biting again and then finally the larger trout. I finally managed 8 keepers to 18" and quit when i hooked a stingray. I paddled off to catch up with Ken and Michael. Both had been catching large numbers of small trout but no keepers. At the end of the day, Michael had his limit of reds, my 8 trout, and Ken had lost count of the number of small trout, but he estimated it to be over 50. We all had caught too many small trout to count and had a blast. It was a great day of fishing in just a small area of South Bay. That's the problem with AP, too many places to fish, too little time.

The next day we were booked with Capt. Charlie Ives for a wade fishing trip. We anticipated a great day with similar conditions to Friday. Early on we looked for reds, but managed a few small trout. Not the action we expected. Several other wades produced a couple keeper trout and Michael caught a nice red. On one wade, Michael was in the water and Ken and I were on the boat as the guide was moving us in closer to a spot to wade when we spotted some fish. There were a few reds and suddenly Ken noticed something very large. As it swam by the boat we realized it was a monster trout. We were in water less than three feet deep and very clear and this trout looked like a torpedo as it made a path directly for Michael. As Ken and I both frantically tried to get a cast in front of that trout, she quickly disappeared. Perhaps if the guide were not trying to get Ken and I in position, Michael may have had a shot at that trout. Charlie was certain the trout would have gone 30" or perhaps larger, she was huge.

Alas, not much more luck on the trout and reds. Capt. Charlie decided to make one more run to an area that he thought might hold some reds. Instead, we came across a couple pods of large drum. Luckily, Charlie had a few live shrimp in his live well, left over from his trip the day before. He began to bait hooks with shrimp that he threaded onto a wide gap hook, minus the head and tail. I had exited the boat for a wade when the school came within casting distance. I was soon hooked up with a large fish and from the boat Ken was hooked up as well. Naturally, as we were fighting the fish, our lines were crossed and as I was trying to untangle the lines from in the water, I caused Ken's line to break. I managed to land my drum, about a 25 inch fish and the chase was on. We spent the next hour or so, chasing those pods of drum, free spooling small chunks of shrimp. We'd cast the shrimp into the school, leave the reel on free spool, and wait for the fish to pick up the bait. When he hit and began to run, engaged the reel and hung on. We managed 8 nice drum up to Michael's 27 3/4 stud. These fish are really strong and put up a stubborn fight. I lost one fish at the boat and had another snap my leader clean. Lots of fun as a couple times we had double hook ups. Quite a dance around the boat getting those fish to the net.
The end result wasn't quite what we or Charlie expected when we launched that morning, but we had 8 drum, one red, and four trout, plenty of filets and half-shells for the grill. Not a terrible day, but we were itching to get back into our yaks and go back for more Sunday morning. Unfortunately, the weather man didn't cooperate. The norther came in during the night and we were blown out. We headed back to Houston with thoughts of our return to AP, it can't come soon enough.