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Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 5:29 pm
by karstopo
Arrived at 08:30. Water levels middle of the road, tide strong incoming, visiblilty variable, some 1’ some closer to 2’. Wind moved around during the day, at times from the south or west or southwest. Paddled some shorelines looking for fish. Didn’t see much except a few flounder flipping after bait, caught a few, but nothing quite 15”. Somewhere along the way I dredged up a little red and a croaker.

Abandoned the shorelines for some mid bay fishing. Really started catching fish then in moving water. Not sure of the depth, 3-4’ maybe. Fish were a mix of speckled trout, sand trout, a couple of redfish and a couple of flounder. One speckled trout went about 18”, the rest too small to retain. I kept 4 sand trout just because.

A storm built up just inland. Decent lightning show and a big, cool wind came off the storm for a few minutes. Lightning got to within 3-4 miles at the closest.

I caught a ton of little fish. Missed a ton more. Forgot my hook sharpener, had only one tail of the best color, salt and pepper type. Hammertime worked pretty well too. Got pretty hot and probably pushed my old body to near the limit. Paddle in was interesting, glad the head wind wasn’t too much. Back at launch at 2:45. That’s way long.

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 6:17 pm
by shoffer
Thanks for your report, Karstopo. I fished Drum Bay once and found it too shallow for my liking, but I know the old ICW goes through there, so maybe that is the place to be. How deep is the deepest area of which you are aware?

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:07 pm
by karstopo
As far as I know, parts of the old ICW in Drum Bay are at least 6 or 7 feet deep and maybe even deeper. Mainly in the areas where the old ICW comes into the Bay.

There were a lot of people out there today. It is summer and a Saturday so that’s to be expected. Probably should have been out there at 6:30 instead of 8:30. I should have covered more areas. I was more or less stationary in some spots too long. I could have fished the deeper area better, the July sun beating down on me sort of harms my decision making processes and lowers my overall activity.

Lots of flounder seen and that’s encouraging. All in the 12-13” range, what are they a year old?

Oh and the green horseflies tore me up.

I’ll go back, I like fishing Drum Bay.

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:14 am
by karstopo
5A8EBC12-DDF7-4BAF-8B27-DC195E9D37F2.jpeg
BTW, Sand trout are really good table fare in case any of y’all haven’t eaten them in the past. Thinking I might do another trip targeting those. We cooked these on this past Monday, sand trout don’t freeze well.

https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Ov ... 741990.php
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Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 2:16 pm
by karstopo
Went back out there this morning. Hit a shoreline or two and saw one nice redfish, but, unfortunately not until I was right on it.

Anyway, went away from the shoreline and fished some deeper shell. Found 4 or 5 flounder to about 14” found a few specks to 14”. Caught and kept 8 sand trout. Let a few more go. Everything on 1/16 ounce jig heads and various paddle tails without chartreuse.

Wind was from the south. Medium light. Tide was incoming. Water level middlish. Visiblilty, streaky green or sandy.

Gut, gilled, headed and scaled the sand trout. Going to fry it whole with skin on.

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2022 7:51 am
by karstopo
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I don’t typically de-scale fish, but these sand trout sort of beg to be scaled, then pan fried, skin on until crispy.

Side by side cooked fresh, I give the nod on flavor to sand trout over speckled trout. My son agrees.

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2022 10:54 am
by Dandydon
Yes, Sand trout are delicious when cooked fresh. I agree they taste maybe slightly better than Speckled trout, but I'll take fresh Crappie over those.

Hey guys, call me if you need company on a Crappie trip...

Sent from my SM-G973U1 using Tapatalk


Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2022 8:12 pm
by karstopo
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Cooked those fish tonight. Did a little rub of pulverized garlic, peppercorns, cumin seed and lime juice. Delicious.

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2022 1:56 pm
by OldTownYakBoi
Great report as always Karst, you sure make them sandies look tasty. I think frying them whole is the way to go since they're so small to begin with. Maybe i'll try this next time, I normally never keep sandies bc it feels like a waste of a fish, but this method captuires the whole fish

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2022 3:45 pm
by TxAquatics
Btw Karstopo, have you ventured out to the north shore of Drum bay as you launch out of 257F? Been thinking of making the paddle once I find a day of light winds

Re: Drum Bay 7/16

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2022 5:06 pm
by karstopo
Sure. Not a long paddle. I like the north shore. One time, I paddled over there and suddenly the wind went dead calm. The water was clear enough to see the bottom and I realized I was absolutely surrounded by slot redfish. They were feeding in groups of 2 or 3 fish for the most part, circling around. I wouldn’t have been able to see them for the most part if the wind hadn’t completely stopped. This all happened when I was very new to fly fishing. I tried to get them to eat my lead head rigged paddle tail, but they would follow it and then veer off. I could see it all. I said the heck with that and broke out the fly gear. That got me some eats from the redfish. Maybe the wind stayed dead calm for an hour at the most. It was a great experience.

There’s places over there I really like. I like Drum Bay as a lot of the big fiberglass power boat rigs stay away from most of it with the shallow reefs. There’s enough edges, margins, reefs, and shorelines to escape having people always in your space.