Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

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Ron Mc
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Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by Ron Mc »

Back from a long weekend at Arroyo, worn out, wonderful trip, terrible fishing.
OK, terrible meat fishing - dink fishing was still fun, pedaling the NWR and wanting more, great times with friends, were all over the top.

Our beating tailwind for the drive down was a beating cold front into our face Thursday night, lingering cold on Friday.

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I caught 20 fish Thursday night, We finished the night each with a large spec caught on RB77 - the bait that could reach past the lights into the headwind, and get down to the hunkered fish.

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20" and 22-1/2" - both upper end of slot, both filleted out female.
The conditions somehow kept bait from concentrating at our dock, so no schoolie males ever arrived.
Top it off with an extended family moved into the dock next door Friday and Saturday nights, blowing their ghetto blaster through the dock piers - they caught hardheads, and the kids all hooted and hollered, which was the good part.
The prevailing SE wind and the tropics returned on Saturday. Think I caught one fish each for those two nights, and then 15 on Sunday night after our loud neighbors were gone.
Again, all nursery trout up to 16" and all fun on light tackle and lures - caught many fish on the metal micro-jigs - it's always fun to have success on new lures (and I didn't have to fillet 50 fish).

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Before the trip, I sent out an e-mail that mesquite and yucca chert on the trails would require bringing spare tubes - not that Lou ever listens.
We discovered Saturday you can't get into the NWR from the county park, and that was a good ride right up to Lou's flat.
My saddle bag has 3 tubes and a fold-up tire - Ice Mule and beer in the front bag.

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Then most of Sunday was spent chasing down a tube at Walmart, so we only got enough taste of pedaling the NWR on Sunday to want more,
but it's in the Ten Best Things You Can Do on a Bicycle. @Neumie - this is the top of Stover Cove

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We made Granjeno loop - we have to go back for the Upper Cayo loop.

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The star of the trip was the palapa and Steve's fire pit.

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Steve's firepit with screen top is safe on the wood deck, kept the girls warm and entertained on the cold nights - and even better,
Steve has it set up as a pizza oven with a 700-degree stone.

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Susie's melt-in-your mouth beef stew + perfect cornbread was a warm welcome on Friday night.
We got creative with the pizzas, picadillo, nachos and Abuelita's home-made tamales (from Jerry's bait shop across the road) for other meals.
Susie's star for the trip was a lemon buttermilk pie. No words to describe the quality of her pie crust.
I let Susie take my big fillets home to bake an exotic feast for Lou - they were too big to saute for my favorite fish tacos.

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Everyone had a blast, relaxing time. Enough fishing to make it fun, enough adventure to want to go back next winter.
Last edited by Ron Mc on Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
wittich
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by wittich »

Excellent post. Is that a solostove fire pit?
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Dandydon
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by Dandydon »

Terrific Arroyo adventure, Ron, super narrative and photos. Made me feel like I was there. Your two big-girl specks at 20" and 22" looked delicious and I agree that good human interaction even trumps the fishing.

The cuisine and bike details were a nice bonus. Congrats on a great trip.

Tomorrow Saltykat and I hit West Galveston Bay in ONE of his powerboats... He's in a boat club with access to several fishing craft. Looking forward to my first fishing trip in months. Watch for something saucy.

Sent from my SM-G973U1 using Tapatalk

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Ron Mc
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by Ron Mc »

wittich wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 2:01 pm Excellent post. Is that a solostove fire pit?
The firepit is solostove, and the griddle top.
I don't know the brand of the pizza oven, but it's made for a stovetop.

Thanks Don, we would have fun here with this group no matter what happened.
Looking forward to your trip report. Rip dey lips.
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by Neumie »

Excellent read as usual.

Can you drive and launch a kayak from Stover Cove? When the tides are higher. Also, I don't see fishing rods in the bicycles.

That little pizza oven is cool, I have an attachment for Weber grill for pizzas.
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Ron Mc
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by Ron Mc »

Thanks Josh.

When I called, they told me no bank fishing from the NWR, but my half-frame bag was carrying 5-pc rod, my Zillion and an opportunity lure box, anyway.

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We only had about a 90-min ride, so we didn't cover the area at the top of my list, which is northern-most dam on the Cayo, North Point, and Horse Island. Blake has mentioned snook stack below that dam, which is at the top of this map crop.

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We headed straight to Granjeno because it was the first marked trail. My compass told me were heading away from my printed map.
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We're going to do this better next time, with a full day on bikes and a picnic. This was more just finding the place - I didn't find the good trail maps until I got home and had the Granjeno trail name - the topos I had found before and printed in my map case were inadequate. The NWR website is even more inadequate, with no information on the trails and of course, the Visitor Center was closed - only paper they had posted was a spare tube warning, so I could pick on Lou again.
https://naturalatlas.com/map/details/place:2279621
You might want to pursue this - there's an NWR boundary north on Buena Vista - you may actually be able to drive to the north side of Stover, Realito, and Redhead Bluff on Rattlesnake Bay. The problem with our truncated time.

No to the drive part where we pedaled - they have a permanent barricade at the trailhead across the one-lane macadam that makes up the Granjeno loop - they have a trail so a bicycle can get around the barricade. I suppose if you had a small enough kayak or inflatable on a bike trailer, it would be possible. Bayside Dr is the Granjeno trail, and is barricaded at the turn from Buena Vista Blvd.
All the roads inside the NWR boundary were closed to motors in 2012 because of an ocelot kill.
Even though they've made "underpass" crossings for the ocelots, they haven't opened the roads back up, except to bicycles.

ps Josh - from your map, This Part of Buena Vista is outside of the NWR boundary, and gets pretty close to Rattlesnake Bay.
Last edited by Ron Mc on Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by karstopo »

Very nice! Looks like a good time.
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by saltykat »

Looks like a nice place to stay. I'm sure you were booked in advance and had to deal with the conditions when you're weekend arrived. You always do it up right. Seems like the north wind has been blowing more than usual this winter, Thanks for the report
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Ron Mc
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Re: Even when it's bad, Arroyo is Good

Post by Ron Mc »

Thanks for kind replies, friends.
Yes, we always try to book a new moon - the goal is to get the schoolie males sweeping through the lights at night, because they have no other place to feed in the dark. We've been fairly successful at this 7 years in a row.
Our first trip was a boys-only fishing shack, but when we found this nice rental, began bringing women and family. Rent on the 5BR house is what a 2BR canal house costs farther up the coast. You get a gang of friends together, and it becomes inexpensive.
Nov and Dec new moons this year were the major holidays - we had one successful Feb new moon a few years ago.

This was an overnight stringer last year - all males, including Susie''s 25"er - all male - landed on XUL.
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also didn't turn a snook on a micro-plug this year, and I've broken off 3 over-slot snook in past trips.
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Most years, we get at least one night where the dock light turns into glass-minnow blackwater, which we've also had 4 nights in a row - just didn't happen this year - the fish we caught were spitting up tiny pilcher. In the fall, can get finger-mullet blackwater under the lights.
Previous trips, we've taken kayaks, my folks with a power boat, and our first trip, we paddled all the way from Thomae park to Rattlesnake Bay.
This year, we decided to bring bikes, and will do this again - I plan to make the bucket-list pedal yet.
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