7/06 When the Fish are Drier than the Anglers - Here is a nice report from Naples2TX who writes:

Having dispensed w/ the obligatory family BBQ and other related 4th of July weekend activities, it seemed that a Sunday afternoon/evening adventure was in order. I called CC Red, and he readily agreed, Kingz was roadbound and still North of San Antonio. Steve came by the house and we quickly loaded my stuff and off we went to the stomping grounds.

We launched, with some misgiving due to the local clientele in the vicinity (nothing against jailhouse tattoos...) and made a dash to where we were sure the reds would be hanging. I apparently was blind as I did not see much, or Steve was halucinating as he called out tails

I managed one 19" red, and a few missed opportunities. Steve strung one about 23", and had three solid hookups come unglued (rubber hooks to ease catch and release)

And now the part of the report you were waiting for (they explain the post title )

I think Steve photo shopped these tails

Me with my only bent rod of the day

Hey Steve, I think it might rain...

Leave me alone I'm catching



No really Steve it is going to rain


Maybe you are right

6/16 Capt. Brent's Rockout Report 6/15 -

We have still been battling the wind for the last two weeks, but my clients have been doing great in catching their limits (or near limits) of trout. A couple of days last week we had horrific winds sustained at 30 mph gusting to 50 mph!!! Hopefully we won't have any more of that for the next several months. Apart from those couple of days, I have been concentrating our efforts on the deeper shell out in the middle of the bays in 4-6 feet of water. The mid bay reefs have been producing some quality trout averaging 16" to 20" with a few really good ones mixed in. Catching a good box of fish has been fairly easy for my clients. Redfish have been slow for me because I have not been targeting them much because I have not been in the flats. Live croaker has been my preferred bait of choice, but I am looking forward to trying some piggies before too long to see how well they will work. I have pretty much stopped fishing with artificial baits until our water starts too cool off in the fall and we lose some of the "competition".

I still have several days open in July for those of you wanting to get into some really good fishing. I look for this patttern I'm in to hold throughout the month of July into August once I start to fish the surf. Call to reserve your date before all dates are gone.
As a matter of fact, I just got cancelled for this upcoming Thursday, July 19th, if any one of you can get off to come fish with me on such short notice. Other than that, I don't have any available days until July.

Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Until next time,
Remember when the cards are down and the bet is called, You have your Ace in the Hole.

Check us out @ www.aceintheholeguideservice.com

Sincerely,
Capt. Brent Hopkins

HM 361-729-6911
MB 361-534-4007

5/28 - 31 Rockport via Redfish Rick - The fishing in the Rockport area has finally picked up after a couple weeks of slower than average fishing. Over the last four days, both the trout and the reds have really come into the normal summer pattern. Below is a breakdown of my last 4 trips.

Wednesday (28th) - A friend and I went fishing in the evening near some drains out of several back lakes. In front of one particular drain, the glass minnows were showering everywhere and the trout and reds were flying out of the water after them. We caught trout, reds, and skipjacks on almost every cast for over 2 hours. Most of the reds were 18-22" and most of the trout were 16-18". The fish were hitting small soft plastics and very small topwaters. Since they were feeding on the abundant glass minnows in the area, large or "normal" size lures were not drawing many strikes. By far, the most effective lures were a 2" baby torpedo topwater and 2" sassy shad. I also got out the flyrod for a while and caught about 15 trout and 5 reds on it. Overall we probably caught 30-40 trout and 20-25 reds in less than 3 hours. All the fish were released, as this was a "scouting' trip.

Thursday (29th) - (1 person charter): We went to some of the back lakes and found the redfish tailing everywhere we looked. We were able to pole up to about 10 large schools of reds (50 or more fish tailing together) and make good casts on them before they spooked. We caught about 20 reds total, with several fish just under 28". Most of the fish were caught on bass assassins rigged weedless style on a worm hook.

Friday (30th) - (1 person charter): We went back to the same areas were I found the tailing reds the day before. This time, the reds were not in schools, but were scattered out over the flats. We sight casted to over 50 reds with every lure/fly in the box and only managed 4 reds all morning (biggest was 20"). The only thing that the fish would hit was a Super Spook Jr. worked fast.

Saturday (31st) - My parents came down to do some fishing. Mom wanted to catch some trout using bait, and Dad wanted to sight cast to redfish. We decided to take the poling skiff as it could accommodate both kinds of fishing. It was a very strange feeling putting croaker in the livewell on the Beavertail, but it worked out very well. We headed out first to find some trout for Mom. We found plenty of trout around some deep shell in AransasBay, and Mom and Dad both had a great time reeling in some solid trout. At 10:30AM we had 14 trout from 17-22" in the box and we went looking for some reds. We found plenty of hungry reds, and caught 7 nice ones before heading in. Both Mom and Dad had good topwater action on reds for the first time, and Dad caught a really nice 27 3/4" red on a Skitterwalk Jr.


Some recent pics are below. I didn't have the camera with me on a couple of the trips above, funny how you seem to catch more fish when you dont bring the camera.







_________________
Capt. Rick Hammond
Clearwater Guide Service - Rockport, TX
361-229-6053
www.flyfishrockport.com

5/27 Ingleside Area report from Puretexan - Brother "B" called this morning, he was just down the canal wanting to go fishing today, I looked out my back door and saw whitecaps.



After 3 days of kayaking with Big Sherm, and Smitty, I had to pass.

Around noonish, Brother "B" calls and asks if I had a legit scale to weight a fish. He gill hooked an oversized trout, and thought it might make the STAR tournament board. I mosied on over to his place to see what's up.



29.75" trout, but only weighted just under 8 pounds, not good enough for STAR....Bummer.

Gerty was there as usual looking for some rib cages.





Brother "B" ended up with 2 trout, and one red for the morning.

Friday, Big Sherm shows up at the casa late afternoon. After unloading his gear, we dragged the yaks across the yard to begin fishing. I take two reds right at 20" right off the bat. Released them due to an internet jerk that claimed my last 20"r was short. Big Sherm takes a 22" red shortly after. Then it slowed to a crawl. I box on keeper trout, and on the way back in, Sherm lands a keeper red in one of the lights.





Lens was fogged up from keeping the camera in the cold storage.

Smitty came down Sunday morning, Big Sherm and I joined him for a little yakking trip. Come 10:00am, my butt was sore from yakking two longs days in a row, So I head in. Shortly after Sherm heads in. Smitty sticks it out and manages a keeper trout, but lets it go for the lack of quantity being caught.

Busy weekend with all the boats and wind this weekend, hopefully next weekend will be better.

until next time
PT

5/20 Rockport 5/17 - 5/18 Via Hogheaven aka Brew-Skies Shallow Water Adventures - So after a mild beach leg run in the Beach to Bay Armed Forces Marathon relay, of which we finished at 4hrs and 5 mins. Then dang Keyans can run... they are just a fast people. Then Spending some time over at the Jerry B's Kayak Demo over at Bluffs landing... Nuther Great Event put on By great people. Then Heading over to Babes on the Bay weigh in to see how My wife done...(found there solid trout at 730am, then couldnt find a Red the rest of the day...Tough) But they had a great time. LOL LOng Day... and up for Sunday fishin.

Fly rods and spining tackle for Him and Her...respectivly. Numourous Reds found just lazily sitn, and cruzin with out a care, until right at 945am...LOL. Flys were swallowed and Tops were tore up. She even got a quick pick of Me, on a this is how you work the lure cast.
Several Break offs, and spits, on the fly rodder...but it was a great day to say the least.

These were mud, grass flats in about a foot of water. Acually fishn lee shores. Tops where bone and gold chrome red heads.

See yall out there...






_________________

5/14 Captain Charlie Newton's Report - The redfish are changing their eating habits again. They are funny fish, one day they want fresh live shrimp that has been killed on the hook, the next day they want live mullet, the next day they want live mudd minnows, and the next day they want cut fresh mullet, and the next cut menhaden shad. Oh, yea the Menhaden shad have showed up and will continue to get more plentiful as the weather heats up. They are out in the bays and can be caught with a cast net. The reds are hiding one day and plentiful the next. Totally unpredictable. If I told you I limit out everyday it would not be true. I search for them and usually keep looking until I find them, and in my search move the boat 10 to ? times, but that's what I do so I keep trying until I find some reds. I specialize in redfish and that is mainly what I chase or look for. They crank my motor in my head and I love catching them or rather love for the customers to catch them. The reds are scattered all over at present, I can't pinpoint where I have found them. Allyn's Byte, Outside Beach, Hogg Island Hole and Bird Island have all produced this past week. Just keep looking and waiting, you will find them. Good luck and be prepared with a variety of kinds of bait. " Good Catching To You" Capt. Charlie Newton www.redfishcharters.com
361 729-8220

5/5 I'm Headed South's Rockport Trip - Hit the St. Charles ramp at 7 am. only to have motor problems again. Another dead coil that makes the third different one in the last two months. Was able to track down another one from a friend of a friend right there in Lamar so we were back in business by 8:30. Ran to St. Joe looking for bait but we didn't find a lot, we waded one area picking up some rat reds in knee deep water. I was fishing way up shallow and caught two nice flounder (18" & 20") in about a foot of water on a pink devil tail and managed to snag a very large stingray that luckily came loose before I had to let him have my jig. Wind was really pumping out of the south so we ran into Carlos and fished some shell picking up a hand full of trout up to 20" and one 21" red. Then the front hit and the wind tore everything up around there. We tried a couple of spots that were protected but found nada. We decided to run back into St. Charles to get a little closer to home. We ran straight into the wind and got beat to death but found some decent looking water and waded a area of hard sand with some grass mixed in. My wife really put it on us right off the bat chunking her old trusty popping cork with shrimp. First cast was a 22" red. About 6 or 8 cast later she has a better fish on I figure its a good red but when she gets it close she gets very excited saying its a big trout. I tell her to take her time and to wear it out and after spinning around a dozen times she slips the gripper on her lip and she has her new personal best trout. She just about shorts out when she picks her up out of the water, by then I'm getting there with the camera and I ask her what she's going to do with her. She says that she wants to get some pictures and then turn her loose. It was a pretty surreal moment knowing my wife was raised in a family that never throws anything back. We take some pics and I weigh her on my boga and she grabs her by the tail and works her for a little bit and turns her loose and she just glides off into the grass and my wife stands up to wipe away a tear and just says "amazing". So her new personal best is just a tad over 26" and weighed 7 pounds. Just to rub it in all of our faces two cast later she catches a 26" red. By then she was out of shrimp and we weren't catching anything on arties so we called it a day. You should have seen the looks on her relatives faces when she told them the story and how she turned it loose, she kept telling them "you just don't get it". I don't want this to turn into a thread about catch and release where someone gets bent out of shape because its their right to keep what they catch as long as they don't break a law. We are lucky enough to be able to fish quite a bit and would just rather eat 5 - 17" trout instead of one big one that's all.
Sunday stuck my head out the door to see the wind still blowing and went back to bed to rest my aches and pains from the boat ride the day before. Only 11 more months till my new boat fund is fully funded then it off to Chris's for a H.O. ..I hope.

Mike

Capt. Brent's Fishing Report 5/1 -Fishing Report 05-01-08

Boy does time fly! Seems only yesterday I was writing a report for March and we're already turning into May. Anyways....back to my report.
The last two weeks my customers have seen some ups and downs on their fishing trips with me because of the weather (storms/fronts). Most days we have been doing great on redfish and drum when the winds have been howling out of the east and south east. This kind of fishing is going to come to a sudden stop before long though on my boat. The winds should lay some now since we're getting into May and I will be concentrating more on trout than redfish and drum because of both the water warming up and croaker season upon us. BTY..the croaker are still a little small for "my taste", but they should be working and plentiful before long.
The few days I have been able to fish for trout the bite has been good except for yesterday when I couldn't get anything going for my customers in the bays I had been fishing. It was the day after a front coupled with a west wind (which I hate). I took a gamble and went to a new area that I hadn't fished in quite a while. The gamble saved the day!!! Made two anchors and my customers had their limit of 30 trout and a few black drum. We were ALL smiles from ear to ear.
Best baits for the redfish and drum have been live mullet or fresh dead, peeled shrimp fished on bottom. Live shrimp has been best for trout while using some sort of pop'n cork. I have not had many trips here lately that we have used artificial, so I can't tell you what has been working best on that side of the spectrum.


Until next time,
Remember when the cards are down and the bet is called, you have your Ace in the Hole.

Check us out @ www.aceintheholeguideservice.com

Sincerely,
Capt. Brent Hopkins

4/5 - 4/6 Bay Yaking Ingleside via SQ - Mounds of sargassum, poor driving, and rough water all prompted us to look towards the shallow lagoons of Ingleside for a change. Plans were first made sometime early last week to take the kayaks to Purtexn’s house and hit the bays. We were eager all week, and luckily the weather gave us a decent window.

Garrett and I had our truck headed Southbound some time around 8:30pm Friday. We would’ve left earlier, but the traffic on I-35 in San Antonio was horrible due to the final four. With the recent cool front passing through, the winds were high so we weren’t in a huge hurry anyway.

We finally arrived at Purtexn’s house somewhere around 11:30 or so. As expected, the wind had picked up considerably throughout the afternoon and was still blowing a steady 15-20, gusting higher. We quickly 86’d our previous plans for kayaking the canals and flats Friday night. Bruce had also received a phone call saying he had to work Saturday for about half a day, so GQ and I would be on our own. Smitty would be heading down Sunday morning, but for Saturday it was just GQ and I.

We got on the water by 9am, in no rush due to the cool air and brisk winds. We figured the fish would be biting better once the sun warmed the flats. After a good mile or two of paddling, we got between two islands with what looked like perfect water…and the only place out of the wind. There was bait all around, and plenty of smaller fish…but we had trouble finding anything decent. A few hours in I finally hooked up on a gulp! new penny shrimp. The fish was peeling drag and staying down, typical bully redfish battle. However, it was not meant to be as the hook pulled. I did have two redfish and two trout investigate my bait as I reeled it in…but couldn’t ever get them to hit for some reason. GQ had landed a few sand trout, but nothing major. Despite all of the activity around us, we opted to start heading back somewhere around 2pm with little to show for our efforts. On the paddle back, I had to cruise by a shallow sandy flat with grass up on the bank. As soon as I got within 20’ of the grass I spot a tailing redfish. By this time I was way too close to do anything about it, but I motioned GQ to stop paddling and keep quiet as I tossed a sand eel passed him. It was the perfect cast, but I think the redfish had already suspected something was up because he bolted before the bait got to him. Bummer! But, exciting either way as that was the first time I’ve ever sight-casted to a redfish…rush! Not much else after that, so we paddled back to the house – STARVING due to no breakfast or lunch.

By the time we headed to get lunch, Bruce had come home from work. The wind had now picked up more and we opted to wait it out and see if it would lay. The wind never laid, and after watching TV for a bit we decided to hit the store for some BBQ groceries. A few hours later and we were munching on some of PT’s famous saltwater quail (Redfish throats) and Corn on the Cob…can’t beat it! By the time we were done, it was almost 11pm. We were all spent, but I still wanted to hit the canals.

Despite the wind and lack of energy, PT and I opted to try them while GQ crashed out. By the time we got on the water, it was 2a.m.



Upon arriving at the first light in the canal, I quickly land a 18” redfish and a dink trout. We move on and head to the bay. Luckily the wind had been blocked on one shoreline, and the fish were there. PT and I managed to land 10-12 fish, mostly small…half reds, half trout. I did manage one legal trout at about 15.5”, and a red that was likely legal but I released him just in case.


Sometime around 4am we called it a night and headed back to the house. Cleaned the trout and hit the pillow.

8am Sunday came quickly, and Smitty was knocking on the door. He just got in from San Antonio and was ready to hit the bays. The winds had laid significantly, the water looked good, and we headed off.
Bruce was the first to hookup, quickly putting two trout on the stringer. I followed shortly after with another 15.5” trout. Smitty’s wife and 3yr old daughter stayed near the house as GQ, PT, Smitty, and I all headed out a good bit further. We came across a nice flat where I hooked up a nice trout only to lose him within about 5ft of the yak. Shortly after, I see Bruce getting towed about 50yds away. No sooner then I see Bruce hooked up, Smitty gets bent. Bruce ended up with a 26” (?) red and Smitty boated a fat 21.5” trout.



He then nailed another 17” trout a few minutes later. A few more minutes passed with nothing else but a small rat red, and we moved on.

Smitty and PT got to the next spot well before GQ and I showed up. They were getting hit on almost every cast by mostly dink trout, but PT managed to put one good one on the stringer. With the quick action, they both decided to try topwater and both of them had some exciting hits. Unfortunately, by the time GQ and I got there the bait had stopped. I continued to grind it out in the area and managed one more 16” trout. GQ hung around for a while, but finally called it quits around 1:30 and opted to head back towards the house as Smitty, PT, and myself stayed out.

As Smitty and PT paddled to fish the first spot where we did good…I hung around and hit another grassy/sandy shoreline, and a seawall looking for reds. I immediately see a redfish and a black drum in about 12” of water….but both were spooked before I saw them. As I was cruising the sea wall, I see a tail right up against it, and as soon as the sun poked through the clouds I saw the black dot. I backed up a bit and pitched a sand eel up near him and he nailed it! Unfortunately, there was debris and oysters all over, and he wrapped me around an oyster covered tire and busted my mainline…likely a 24-26” red. I continued on and ended up seeing a bunch of mullet, but no more reds…until I saw a pack of 10-12 mullet really shallow and right in the middle of them a redfish. One cast with the spoon and he followed it…but didn’t hit it, so I pitched my gulp right where he turned around and BAM! Fish on…and landed, but only 18”. Odd to see him cruising with a bunch of mullet though…

By now it was nearly 2pm so I slowly worked my way back. I caught up with PT and Smitty when we were pretty close to the house. PT got one more keeper trout, and a small flounder that was released…



Fishing the bays via yak can be a little cumbersome and a little bit of work in the springtime winds…but it sure is a nice change of pace. Battling the seaweed is getting old, and with rising gas prices I can barely afford to head South on PINS. I’m looking forward to a few more good bay trips…and hopefully that 30” trout I searched for before I ever fished the beach. We ended up with decent action, plenty of throwbacks, and a few good fish to eat. I'm anxious to do it again.



BTW, Thanks to Bruce for letting us crash out at his place...

Till next time,
SQ