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Thursday, December 4, 2014 |
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PACKTX 2014 FLOUNDER TRIP REPORT
By brbjr @ 6:18 AM :: 2168 Views
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What more could go wrong with the 2014 flounder run? A two week “largest cold front weather system I ever recall” hit the Texas coast in mid-November while the little males, bait stealers and modest flounder females were passing through. The giant front knocked the water temperatures down from over 70 degrees to 51 degrees. As Mickey Eastman posited on his show, most of the best part of the flounder-run-to-come went deep to the ship channels, leaving slim pickings along most of the shorelines. Well there goes this year! Add some weather, car and boat problems the days prior to the trip and the game is on!
Sunday morning, November 23, 2014, four hopeful flounder fisherman left the breezy dock in my boat at the end of the Texas City Dike to find Nirvana at “the green bush” on the Houston Ship Channel shore of Pelican Island. New members Jerry Hite and Mike Stanley teamed up with Lisa McGonigle and me to attempt to scare up some of the last straggling flounder that had not yet gone deep. Sun up brought 18 mile per hour southwest winds, ugly, brown (but protected) water, but a great all morning outgoing tide on a no moon. We had rescheduled the trip a day later due to a 100% chance of Saturday thunderstorms with severe weather warnings including possible tornado activity. We waded all morning for the duration of the tide to bring in only three 16 to 17 inch fish in the barren 54 degree water. After brief stints anchored off the destroyer in Sea Wolf Park watching a lot of empty stringers leaving the water (except my buddy Jack got 16 large in his little 8 foot square hole and left while we watched his two 20 inchers), we went back to work a few more stretches of the first shoreline before heading in. Same result, except the combination of wind, tide and passing tanker swells moved the boat just enough to finish our day with cold water in the waders.
Back at the ramp we agreed to look forward to the PACK Christmas party - and to help Jerry figure out how to get out of his physics course final exam to his A & M Galveston students so he could attend also. We gave thanks for the enormous pecans Jerry passed out from his trees, for the PAC and our buddies, for the few fish we did catch and the prospect of next year’s run, and for a beautiful day on the water. Happy Thanksgiving.
Dick McGonigle, trip leader |
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