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I had meetings in Houston last week and again this week. Rather than deal with more airport time in January and the cold temperatures in Maryland, I stayed the weekend in Texas. I spent Fri evening in Galveston. It is the offseason, so things were not crowded. With 75 deg temperatures and good seafood, I enjoyed myself.
I woke up Sat morning to heavy fog. I took the free ferry across to the Bolivar peninsula where I planned to meet my friend Mike, who has a beach house at Crystal Beach. I arrived 90 minutes before he did, so I went to a small inlet (Rollover Pass) where I could fish from the shoreline. The fog was quite heavy during the morning.
I saw one 37" redfish in a cooler that had been caught the previous night, but otherwise, nobody around me was catching anything. I tried soft plastics, a Cicada vibrating blade bait (this lure had caught redfish there in the summer of 2010) but had no bites. I switched over to a Gulp bait. Over the next 30 minutes, I caught two flounder at about 14" (the legal limit in Texas). I threw both of them back. One of them is shown below.
Mike arrived about 11:30. We ate a quick lunch then drove to a ramp (the launch fee at the privately owned ramp here was only $2
). We fished in Mike's Boston Whaler for about 2 hours in open water over oyster lumps in 4 ft of water. I caught another flounder and had a trout part way to the boat before it jumped and threw the hook). Mike picked up a sand trout on a Corkie lure -- the rest of the fish came on Gulp baits.
We moved into sheltered channels through the marsh grass (Mike called them bayous). We each picked up another flounder in the bayou - Mike's was about 19". By late afternoon, the mosquitoes came out in force, so we called it quits. Mike cleaned 3 flounder and the sand trout, which we had for dinner.
We woke up Sunday morning, planning to take the boat out again. But the fog had reformed so we fished from the shoreline again. Mike caught a small sand trout, but I caught nothing. We called it quits and had a delicious lunch of grilled shrimp overlooking East Bay.
The fishing was far from fast and furious, but the shirt-sleeve weather was fabulous. I also can now claim my first ever January flounder.
I woke up Sat morning to heavy fog. I took the free ferry across to the Bolivar peninsula where I planned to meet my friend Mike, who has a beach house at Crystal Beach. I arrived 90 minutes before he did, so I went to a small inlet (Rollover Pass) where I could fish from the shoreline. The fog was quite heavy during the morning.
I saw one 37" redfish in a cooler that had been caught the previous night, but otherwise, nobody around me was catching anything. I tried soft plastics, a Cicada vibrating blade bait (this lure had caught redfish there in the summer of 2010) but had no bites. I switched over to a Gulp bait. Over the next 30 minutes, I caught two flounder at about 14" (the legal limit in Texas). I threw both of them back. One of them is shown below.
Mike arrived about 11:30. We ate a quick lunch then drove to a ramp (the launch fee at the privately owned ramp here was only $2
). We fished in Mike's Boston Whaler for about 2 hours in open water over oyster lumps in 4 ft of water. I caught another flounder and had a trout part way to the boat before it jumped and threw the hook). Mike picked up a sand trout on a Corkie lure -- the rest of the fish came on Gulp baits. We moved into sheltered channels through the marsh grass (Mike called them bayous). We each picked up another flounder in the bayou - Mike's was about 19". By late afternoon, the mosquitoes came out in force, so we called it quits. Mike cleaned 3 flounder and the sand trout, which we had for dinner.
We woke up Sunday morning, planning to take the boat out again. But the fog had reformed so we fished from the shoreline again. Mike caught a small sand trout, but I caught nothing. We called it quits and had a delicious lunch of grilled shrimp overlooking East Bay.
The fishing was far from fast and furious, but the shirt-sleeve weather was fabulous. I also can now claim my first ever January flounder.
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