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bulldog1935 · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 7:52 am Post subject: Five days in the Texas tropics

Up front, no kayaks, and a vacation for the extended family in Arroyo City. My dad's 89 now, hasn't been fishing in 3 years, so this trip was overdue. For 9 years in a row, over late 80s to mid- 90s, my follks would rent a house or condo for the month of October or November somewhere between Key Allegro and S. Padre.
Back then, $1100 would get the full month in a nice place with 3 or 4 bedrooms, and a dock / boat slip.
My dad would be out in his boat every morning, with or without a companion, but extended family and friends did our best to keep him in fishing company. (He also needed to remember how much work this is, because he's been threatening to do S Padre for a month - solo.)

Rent-wise, Arroyo City is the best deal on the coast, with a range of boys-only fishing shacks to really nice places where you want to take your sister, wife and mother.
With any Arroyo trip, boat runs to Laguna Madre are secondary to the spectacular dock fishing into the 40' deep navigation channel.

Keep in mind, this trip was a bit of reminiscing, catching up, and focused fish slaying. Fresh fillets from ice bowl for family meals of fabulous fish tacos and fried feast with hush puppies - the ladies are really good at this part. Also, my mom's goal is to stock her freezer - there are obviously cheaper and smarter ways to do that - but none other quite so fun.

The place we had was big enough for the extended family, had a good dock and boat lift. Anyone needing space can retreat to the palapa above the boat dock.

This was the overdue first time I've fished with my BIL. He grew up with a family cabin in Flour Bluff, he and his brother have bought guide time from Louisiana to Slow Ride in AP, and I've even fished with my nephew from the Flour Bluff cabin.

We had new moon, first-light low tides, prevailing SE wind, mid-70s to pushing 90 for the entire week. The north wind just hit yesterday morning while I was chugging at Adolph Tomae Park launch waiting for my dad to back in the trailer.

The Bays - We were off like a herd of turtles every morning, getting the boat out as late as 9a after a late breakfast, though made 7a one morning. We covered a lot of water from Oilfield Flat (marker 39) to marker 109 and beyond, we also fished Peyton Bay (and I accidentally turned into Rattlesnake Bay one day, but we got the boat out).
The flooding up the coast is affecting the tides this far south, driven by the gulf stream currents and making its way down the Laguna and through the cuts. I've never seen Oilfield flat 3' deep at low tide. We also had brutal winds as the morning pushed into afternoon, making siesta an important part of the day.
Many little trout, a few rats, and I got one 22" slot red on Oilfield.

We found the just-right wind respite, exactly the right color water, grass and sand holes, and countless tourist trout at Green Island. My BIL and I had a blast catching them on TSL grasswalkers - he learned to use my favorite lure this trip.
Pink was my color for early morning light and in murky Peyton Bay, I switched to Birthday Suit for high sun and the slightly off-color seam we found on the west side of Green island. My BIL fell in love fishing Golden Roach, and he and Dad also caught fish on Chicken on a Chain.
I was totally happy releasing a dozen 14" trout every morning in the bay, because I had already limited-out by 5:15 every morning at the dock.

Just said again, I got up alone every morning to fish the dock and had a limit of 16" to 18" specs every morning by 5:15 (that's about when the others would get up and try their luck). By mid week, I was waking up with sore hands every morning from filleting all of mine and my dad's fish.
FWIW, I only filleted 3 female trout the entire week - the rest were males.

The first morning I counted, switched between fly rod and lures, and released 40 fish to get my limit. Over the week, I got better at getting my lure down to bypass the nursery trout, sitting on the dock to watch the fish sign and focus-cast to the schoolies as they moved in and out of the lights, so I would get my limit in 15 or so casts.
Changing up was everything. On the fly rod I fished small whistlers and high-ties. For the spinning rods, I caught schoolies on Bone Diamond TSL grasswalker, blue Wildeye shad, spec rigs, and a long-thin Westin minnow in silver.

Both after sunset and before first light, the quality of the dock fishing varied from walking on fish, visible dozen schoolies swimming by the dock, to dead-calm shy stealth fish - though they were there the whole time - they just went deep and got shy. Other than the next dock light, there was nowhere else for them to go at a new moon.
My BIL hit his good run after the rest of us had retired one evening. My dad hit one great walking on fish run, right at sunset, caught several schoolies and his first ever snook, measured 18". I got the same size snook to the dock right behind him - in fact we had two on the dock - but had put the lens cap on the camera before I sat it down, and the photo my dad took of me holding snook just didn't come out.

It was a week of misses for me. Missed a hook set on my big sow trout at Green Island.
Yesterday morning, very last morning on the dock - Dad was up fishing with me - I broke off my lifetime snook.
I saw him right under my nose, creeping past our dock to the next dark dock - easily 28"-30". When he began his slashes in the dark, I threw over a blue wildeye shad, which he instantly sucked in, but would break me off. Thought I had my drag set just right from many running specs, but a giant charging snook is something else - especially before coffee. He was still feeding and I tried a few more casts, but couldn't turn him again.
Still, probably best in this crowd to let the big ones get away - they wouldn't understand releasing the meat on a trophy fish.
Of course no regrets, and I'm going back next year for that snook.

fishinglady · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 12:42 pm Post subject:

Wow. Looks like a great trip. I just wish it was easier to get to/closer.

bulldog1935 · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 1:15 pm Post subject:

It fishes great through Thanksgiving, and wonderful temperate weather - most November fronts don't push that far south, and if they do, the prevailing SE wind warms it back quickly.
Back in Bulverde, I'm cooking up fish tacos for lunch today - last fillets out of the ice water and not frozen. (I let my mom freeze all she wants - frozen fish don't interest me.)

This heron ruled our dock, and I asked permission to board a few afternoons shuttling from the boat.

view down the Arroyo

another good sunset

ziacatcher · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 2:11 pm Post subject:

Looked like a fun trip. Thanks for sharing

bulldog1935 · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 2:20 pm Post subject:

Very Blessed to be able to take my 89-y-o dad out on an adventure like this.
Hope I've lived as well when I get there.

Lettered_Olive · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 5:50 pm Post subject:

Excellent report.
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Bigrock · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 6:21 pm Post subject:

Great report. I cherish what time I can get with my 89 year old parents!

Towboat Trash · Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 6:39 am Post subject:

Completely awesome and great report!
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Sinker · Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:09 am Post subject:

It looks like a great trip.
You created some wonderful memories!
Well done sir.

Tyler · Site Admin Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 12865

What a great story and a fun trip with family!
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bulldog1935 · Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:37 am Post subject:

thanks guys.

Here's the boat's eye view of the boy's fishing shack we rented last year, 5 doors down from the nice family digs we rented this year.
While you wouldn't take your mother, wife, or sister to this one, it had huge enclosed space and a really great fishing dock.
Based on some of the reviews attached to it, some guys are squeamish about it, too, but we had a blast and would go right here again on another boy's kayak trip.
It was a great place for staging gear for 3 guys with kayaks, and the dock fishing was epic.
This one was a good deal, at $425 for 3 nights, and of course no place to park a boat. (Boats need need boat lifts in the arroyo because of wakes from the barge traffic to and from Port Harlingen.) Or it's a mile drive to launch at the county park.
You even have to bring your own kitchen - they provide good beds and linen. But if you're a good camper, you may already have your personal kitchen ware staged - like me.

On our last night last year, we pounded fish casting spec rigs and TSL grasswalkers into a beating north wind, taking turns fishing and warming up in the giant enclosed porch. I got a double with a slot snook in back.

Either of these places are right where the natural arroyo diverges from the dredged chanel toward the north end of Peyton bay, which adds to the quality of the dock fishing. But even the big house in my opening post was a good deal at $200/night - farther up the coast, that will get you a small 2-br on the canals (see my Estes essay).

The county park has good camping, RV hook-ups and really good fishing docks, but possibly good competition for space on them, as well. Never stayed there, but launched boat and kayak, and the facilities look very nice.
http://www.cameroncountyparks.com/adolph-thomae-park

Blast-n-Cast · Full Grown Flour Bluffian Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 1142

Very Cool. Thanks for the report. Looks like a great place to make memories with the familia

Rebecca of Sunnybrookfarm · Full Grown Flour Bluffian Joined: 01 May 2008 Posts: 3967

wow! thanks for all the info!!
becky
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bulldog1935 · Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:51 am Post subject:

you're most welcome Becky.

Something else to note - every place I mention blue wildeye shad for fishing in the dark, I'm actually fishing the Japanese copy of this lure - Tsunami SS3- color Blue Back
These come in a 6-pack (instead of 3 for the same price)
https://www.tackledirect.com/tsunami-ss3-soft-bait-swim-shad-lure.html
I fished through 6 last week - the specs tore them up - and just ordered a dozen for next trip...
I religiously use Procure Super Gel Inshore so the trout won't taste the steel.
https://www.tackledirect.com/pro-cure-bait-super-gels.html
2 oz will last you a couple of years - I also squeeze this stuff in the hook slot of TSL grasswalkers.
Smear on the hooks and heads of spec rigs, etc.

bulldog1935 · Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:30 pm Post subject:

btw, if anybody is curious about power boat navigation on this trip, I figured a way to save the NOAA chart-view gif as a jpeg.
The house is right where the natural arroyo and ship channel diverge to opposite ends of Peyton Bay.
Marker 109 flounder hole is the 3' depth east of the ICW at the north end of the chart.
South of Horse Island is Rattlesnake Bay.
East of 3 Islands - Caballo, Medio and Primero - has a shallow flat with a deeper hole to the east.
Oilfield flat (Marker 39) is east of the ICW at the south end of the chart.
And for low tides this trip, add a foot to everything on the chart.
You can chase it down on texmaps to find all the scoop - http://www.texmaps.com/go/texas-fishing.html - use the overlays.
On Texmaps, the seagrass overlay will show you the S. Padre grassline - a good place to hunt big specs - we didn't make it this trip.