I'm sure a lot of others will report in. I think a few were either going back out yesterday evening, or were staying for the night. We had a pretty good crowd at the Dirty Pelican. Conditions weren't the best. When I arrived at around 8:30, the wind was turning from the NW to the WSW where it stayed for most of the day. It was also blowing much harder than anyone expected. The water was choppy, but not exceptionally rough. With the west wind, we did have dirty water though.

The fishing was slow for most people, although from what I heard, most people caught fish. I think it was mostly reds, with a few sharks thrown into the mix.

I had a decent day with two reds landed along with three 5 foot sharks - two BTs and one Bull.

Maybe slow, but that ain't a bad day........congrats!!!!

West and southwest winds always dirty the water. With this big high sitting over us, more of the same wind and it will stay extremely hot. You had a good day on the water in not so good water conditions. Take it from me, it beats "work".

As Jim has posted, it wasn't the best fishing day..........but fish were caught.

The wind was way different than predicted but one thing about wind, it keeps you refreshed in the hot, hot days a high produces.

The water was very muddy and for way out. I paddled out to 12' and started fishing.........I was swamped by these little slimmers:



I must have caught 10 gafftops and feed hundreds!!!

My first real fish felt like a gafftop..............but when I reeled it to the boat, low and behold a 29" red fish. Just an inch over the slot................no pics for little red fish!!!



About 12:15 pm the bull reds turned on and I caught three in the next 45 minutes:







There appeared to be about 12-15 kayakers out on the water but we were very, very dispersed.............some, almost out of sight. I think most everyone caught fish, because they stayed so long. Most times, if no one is catching, the crowd thins quickly.......especially with newbies afloat.

The last 2 hours was gafftop city!!!! This is how I ended my day as I ran out of bait.




Not the best day, but a decent day of feeding the slimmers!!! :wink

I sure enjoyed seeing and fishing with old and new friends.

It took us FOREVER to get a fish on! I guess we hit the water at about 9. I finally got a bull red in the yak at 1:00. From 1 until 3:30, we had an ok day. I left with 2 bull reds and a blacktip. My son got a blacktip. The great thing about the blacktips were the aerial shows. I have had sharks churn the water when they realize they are hooked, but I have never had them get airborn like both of ours did. When I hooked mine, the first jump had to have cleared the water by 3 feet. It jumped twice more. My son's blacktip jumped high once and as we soon found out, hogtied himself. What happened was that when it cleared the water, it spun around several times and somehow tied a knot around his tail. With a hook in the mouth and tail tied together, this shark was still cutting up pretty good. I came over for the release, but didn't really know what to do other than cut the leader up pretty high so the shark could release himself from the tail wrap. It worked, but there is a blacktip out there with about 4 feet of leader hanging out of its mouth.

My first bull red


Bull Red # 2 -- The wrist band is for a family friend's son who has cancer. I told him I was going to take him shark fishing and since he was busy with chemo, his wristband will have to do. His name is Griffin and he is one of the sweetest 11 year olds you will ever meet. His mom and boyfriend want to rent kayaks and come down with me to fish. I am looking forward to that day.


My blacktip


Trey's black tip -- hogtied. Just a note about all the balloons, Trey couldn't decide whether to keep his bait on top or bottom so there is quite a collection of balloons around the top of the leader. I am pretty close to letting him fish with 2 rods to avoid this in the future.

That's pretty good, hook 'em and hog tie 'em!!!!

Ya............I would say Trey is making a nice accounting of himself............. Y'all done good!!

Will and I caught three slimers early, but he couldn't handle the chop. Might have had something to do with not sleeping the night before... we bailed out at 11. And the next trip I come alone!

Good job folks. Definately better results than we found to the east on friday.

I'm really growing to dislike slimers......

Way to go guys. It will pick up for sure in a month.

It's a keeper

I'm sure we can either blame it on Global Warming, or the Bush administration, but there seem to be more slimers this year than ever before, and they are much more aggressive. This is the first year I've consiistently caught them under balloons.

And bait size doesn't seem to matter..............they just keep hitting them. I had one bait that was nothing but bone.........looked like crabs had ate it. What I fail to understand is how they get the bait off without a click.

I love feeding slimmers $3.25 a lb mullet............heck, they eat better than I do!

another excellent BTB adventure!

I was really hoping the hard freeze was going to endanger the gafftop pollution. Thats fine, I'll be sure when I take the boy fishing we catch ALL of them!

Thanks for sharing. Glad yall caught fish. Might have to join on the fun next time.

G-Man

Nice fish!

One stuck me in the shin on Sunday....felt like a hematoma...bleeding all over the place and the top of my shin grew to a golfball size knot...I really really really wanted revenge on that gafftop, but getting to shore and cleaning up the wound sounded better.


ended with 4 bullreds and 3 blacktips (2 going 6 feet). Will post report tonight.

I had a 12 in. mullet under a balloon and a 24 in. slimer hit it. A couple other times the only way I knew there was a Gafftop on the hook was because the balloon was moving against the wind and current...

I went over to the Bolivar side Friday morning. I fished an area adjacent to the east side of the jetty from the beach out to the boat cut. The water was completely flat and the wind was nonexistant. I caught rat reds in the 15" to 19" range and peanut trout all morning in the 12" to 14" range, a nice flounder and a keeper red. At one point a school of reds surrounded me for over an hour and I hooked up every cast. It was a blast. I was throwing soft plastics; bass assassins and trout killers. Didn't take my camera out in the yak... I'm too chicken to mess it up.



Mark

Nothing like a good hijack.

You know friend, you can start your own thread.

Not a problem. From the different sets of pics posted by different members I thought I was contributing... won't happen again.

Mark

NIce report and good looking haul.

launched @ fm 3478 near the Estelle Unit
water color-tea stained
air temp-67 degrees
wind-5 knots out of the north
lures-rattle trap chrome w/blue back and white mister twisters










sorry couldn't resist Jim.

All the other pictures and reports were from the same BTB trip.

I think someone's agitating.

I think someone's sissy-fishing.........