Lighthouse Lakes - October 7th, 2023

[Neumie]

After the beat down on Friday and still dealing with high waters and winds, we chose to fish Lighthouse Lakes, specifically entering into the Electric Loop portion as the lakes are smaller and there would be enough water to avoid the oysters.



We paddled into the lakes and it was still depressing to see the state of the mangroves. There are splotches where it's coming back strong, but there's still quite a lot of areas where the new growth is sporadic.



My sister and I paddled north and set up for some drifts. I landed a undersized trout.



It was a tough going early on.



Nina and I started to paddle towards the Lighthouse, but as were getting close a boat came in through the cut and started to fish and the wind started to pick up. We parked up along the mangrove carcass to fish and I gave my sister some topwater instruction on walking the dog. While there I caught a small red.



We left that flat and paddled around to the Electric Loop for one last drift. There my sister hooked up with a small trout.



After that we paddled back in as we were the last to come it. I pulled a fast one on the guys and implied I had Hailed Mary'ed a limit of reds as I showed them my empty cooler. Off the water by 10:30, just in time to catch the UT/OU game. After the game I spent some time replacing bungee cord and did some general maintenance on my and my sister's kayak before washing them off. Everyone grabbed some hot showers and naps for the afternoon after the game.

As always, we ended the trip with a shrimp boil. Chase and his two college buddies joined us and been fishing with Dean "Slowride" Thomas on his boat that day.





We finished the evening with cigars, liquor, and fire.





None one went out on Sunday morning, electing to clean up and hit the roads back to SA or DFW. It was a tough trip with the weather and high, high tides, but we scratched out some fish.

Thanks for coming guys, we'll do it again next year.


Meteorological Observations
Time: 7:00 am - 10:30 am
Air Temp: 75°F - 72°F
Wind: 10-20 kn N (gusting to 25+ kn)
Barometric Pressure: 1019 mb (rising)
Sky: Cloudy
Water Clarity: 1-2 ft
Water Temp: 83°F
Structure: Grass and Sand Potholes

Solunar
Sunrise/set: 7:24 am/7:08 pm
Moonrise/set: 12:59 am/3:27 pm
Moon Phase: Waning Crescent (46%)

Predicted Tides @ Port Aransas (MLLW)
High @ 3:30 am (1.65 ft)
Low @ 4:25 pm (0.60 ft)

Lures
Spectrum Spook Jr

Fish
Reds: 1 Keeper, a few undersized
Trout: A few dinks

GPS Track

[Ron Mc]

Great photos Josh.

Saturday was another 18-kt NNE plus-gusting day, though I found it to be much worse. We fished Lighthouse Lakes, taking advantage of the Big water levels to enter through normally shallow Marker 1 pass - it was a huge channel, the lakes and sloughs were 3-4' deep - we were able to take shortcuts between adjacent sloughs straight through the mangroves.
Whit doing what I tried first, finding a slough with a wind break, staking boat and casting into the mangroves.
I heard about Josh's trout far up the slough - didn't know about his topwater red.



The water was turbid after the rain, and I went from bunny shrimp to Minnow-Z Sexy Penny, chartreuse bottom and copper top.
I accidentally cut off Nina setting up this drift, but as you can see, I can't quite apologize.
I picked up my trip-fish 24" red. Wasn't about to lift my drift sock in this wind, but the big fish steered my boat enough, I was able to keep him out of the sock with my Abu finesse rod.
Landing this fish, I drifted close enough to the power boat that they chugged back the way they came.



It was 9am, the wind was gusting harder, and I tried retreating down the wrong lake, had to paddle back up from the dead-end.
Before I could turn into the right lake to find the pass and escape back across Aransas channel, I got into a windcock that would not let my boat turn into the wind, and drove me into the mangroves.
This had to be wind above 28 kts, because I've been able to steer into the wind in 28 kts before.
Luckily, Steve was there, his Outback was steering (better than his other Revo), he took my bow line and pulled me off the mangroves. We retreated across the channel to our launch, and everyone else was 10-15 min behind us.
At the launch, we talked someone else out of going out alone.



In the afternoon, we watched the Texas-OU game - oh well...



Saturday night was Josh's fabled shrimp boil, and since we all agreed no reason to fish in Sunday's cold and wind, we stayed up late, feasted, and socialized. Lou picked up the seafood market tab.



We were joined by new brother Chase, and his two Arkansas U brothers (next game on Josh's tv), who were all down on a guide fishing trip.



One last sunrise over Copano before packing out Sun morning.

[Kitsune]

Thank you for sharing. Looks like a lot of fun. I haven’t been to that portion of LHL in some years. It sure is a fun loop fishing and seeing.