Growing up, we were always afforded a lot of opportunities to fish living on the coast. Texas fishing was not just something we did, it was a major part of our lives. I can remember coming home from school and him and I leaving notes on the kitchen counter that homework was done and we were going down to the hole to do some fishing. We'd jump on our bikes and take off with the handle from a tacklebox attached to one side of the handlebars so we could carry it and our fishing poles stretched out the front of the bars pointing forward like we were off to a jousting tourney. Times change, you get older, get married, have kids and you get less of those times to spend together. We got lucky this weekend to catch up and do some good old Texas fishing once again together, even if it was only for a few hours. By all means we still fish every chance we get, just not much together anymore due to logistics.
Today was a day we went a little old school, probably because we were tired from the night before, but we decided to go natural and do some Texas fishing with live bait. We picked up some lively shrimp from the local bait stand and headed out in the boat. We've spent a lot of time on the Laguna Madre and typically you don't have to go very far. We ran for about 10 minutes down the King Ranch shoreline to hit the first preferred spot. Unfortunately for us, it seemed to be the preferred spot of about 10 other boaters. Deciding to give it a go anyways, we made our first drift starting out in the deeper water so we can get in close to the shore without disturbing anything (unfortunately there are many other boaters on the water that DON'T KNOW ABOUT DISTURBING SOMETHING, especially the ones that drive right on thru between you and the shore). A little boaters etiquette here could go a long ways, if boats are drifting into a shore, don't run between them, it only takes a second to maneuver along the backside of drifting boats. Enough rant, was able to hookup on a few little Texas trout, nothing to write home about. So we decided to ease out of the way of the others there deciding that we'd take our Texas fishing journey a little further up the intercoastal waterway.
We've been fortunate enough to have had many family cabins down the intercoastal waterway and know how to navigate around the spoil islands along the way. Our grandfather used to have one that was fairly close and we both remembered being able to catch a lot of fish there. So we worked our way over to where it was located, baited up and started a new drift, with no boats around. The water looked very promising in this location for Texas fishing, a lot of good sand patches mixed throughout the grassy bottom. It wasn't long before this beauty about tore the pole out of his hands as he was busy messing around and talking and not even watching his cork. This fish was spectacular and didn't even really act like a redfish that we've caught before. First, he kind of floated up to the surface and then thrashed his head back and forth kind of like a shark would once it realizes it's hooked in an effort to throw it. Fortunately for Sam, it was set pretty well. Then the fight ensued. That redfish put it's shoulders into it and took him for a little ride back and forth across the boat. He even went under the boat at one point. When he finally tired and rolled alongside the boat, his day was done.
Unfortunately, that was were our Texas fishing "reunion" ended. We had to head back to shore as my wife was throwing his wife a baby shower (congratulations, by the way) and we had kid duty. So needless to say, little bro beat me today, but hey, who's really counting anyways when you can spend some quality time Texas fishing.
Fortunately we were able to find some live shrimp that day but we've had just as good of luck using berkley gulp bait.
