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bulldog1935 · Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:43 pm Post subject: Jan 31 to Feb 2, Arroyo docks

Made the long drive down Friday with Lou and Susie, and after epic burgers and Huts-clone onion rings at Chili Willie's, were fishing from the dock by sunset.
Friday night, Chili Willie's was packed with fishermen, and during the days, many boats were running the arroyo out to LLM.
Though we drove south with a tailwind, we had cold air into the mid-40s and dead calm for both Friday and Saturday nights. We drove back north today with a tailwind, too.

Friday night, I got a limit, Lou was short by one fish, and Susie caught 3. Susie had the best fish Friday at 17-1/2".
The score for 3 nights, I got 3 limits minus 1 fish, Lou got 3 limits minus 2, and Susie got one limit plus 3.

I had all these filleted by 11pm.
The normal drill here is fish sunset to about 9pm, take a nap, get back up at 2 or 3am to fish a couple more hours,
another cat nap, then espresso and cook a big breakfast. Siesta and big meal late in the day, and hit it again at night.
Of course we stuck to our calendar-day limits - e.g., if I got up at 3am and caught two more, would limit myself to 3 fish that night.

About half the fish were caught on 2" swim shad tandem rigs, glow in front and blue in back - every fish ate the blue.
The fish were a blast on 7-1/2' XUL rockfish rods, 4-6-lb test.
I caught one fish on 3" blue SS3 swim shad, but the dock light was thick with minuscule minnows, and the the trout were sipping light, arcing upward from deeper water.
Both sitting down on the dock to wait for fish sign, and change up were important - I caught several on the fly rod. Only slow retrieves without counting down would catch fish.

Jerry's right across Marshall Huts Rd. from us had his shrimp flag out all weekend, with great tiny 1"-2" shrimp - you get a bunch in a pint - and the most productive tackle for the weekend was a 3" cigar cork,
4' 8-lb fluoro leader and size 1/0 croaker hook, fished on our XUL rockfish rods. The long XUL rods are the only way to cast this weightless rig to the edge of the light.

Early morning on the Arroyo.

one of our early-am stringers in the fillet queue

Susie cooked feasts for us - fried fresh spec fillets one night, fried chicken another (she wanted to show it off). Saturday she made a perfect lemon-meringue pie from scratch using Meyer lemons brought from their tree at home.

While Susie was doing her great cooking, Lou and I would throw out head-peeled dead shrimp from the bait bucket or rib pieces from our fillets on the bottom - hoping for something better,
we caught the inevitable hard-heads, though we had a good system for handling them using a hook grabber on their spines, and a pair of pliers on the hook.
I also caught a respectably large sting ray, and Lou and I looked fairly pro handling the thing with his barbs flared using the net and a long hook extractor to recover my titanium leader.
It was very pleasant being a dock lizard in the sun.

Our same dock heron fished with us day and night.

Like I said, it was cold in the wee hours Sat and Sun. Lou didn't get up at all Saturday morning - he did join me for a few fish Sunday morning, but said the warm bed was too inviting.
I caught two 17" specs as soon as he left, the first one on the fly rod, and wasn't far behind hitting the rack.

From the weather forecast, I knew Sunday night was going to be the best, with lows in the 60s. There was a beating wind all day, but it was calm again and we lost our stealth cover for Sunday night.
It didn't matter, we had our best night there - Lou and I both finished our Sunday limits, and Susie caught 5 fish.
Here's the stringer.

Lou and Susie holding the stringer

and my trip-fish, 19 inches - a Real Hoot on the XUL rockfish rod.
It filled my Sunday limit, and was a great way to end the trip, other than talking Susie through filling her limit.

didn't really need the shell layer Sunday night, but it was my filleting bib for the whole weekend - and yes, it needs washing.

ziacatcher · Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2020 10:32 pm Post subject:

Nice mess of fish. Looks like good times and Good eats

bulldog1935 · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:13 am Post subject:

thanks -
Lou and I were discussing that we can't imagine any other place where so many fish come to you, so consistently.
We're all stocked-up on fish tacos.

ps - Jerry's, actually Abuelita's, tamales are also epic, delivered hot with hot garden salsa, and fed us one great lunch.

deputydawg · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 8:27 am Post subject:

Looks like a great time! Is that a rental or do you own it?

LoneOak · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 9:12 am Post subject:

Gotta give another big thank you to Bulldog for turning the wife and I on to this great stretch of fishing water. There are several rentals in the area and guides available to run you out to the Laguna.
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Tyler · Site Admin Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 12865

Great report and a wonderful trip. Thanks for posting!
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bulldog1935 · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 11:19 am Post subject:

Central Scrutinizer · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 2:29 pm Post subject:

Spent way more time on that stretch of the TX coast than I care to remember at times, but despite all it's water quality issues, the Arroyo is really a magical place. Seined up the biggest flounder I've ever seen, watched hoardes of gars boiling the surface, seen massive tarpons rolling, and the trout/red bite is just what you posted!

Plus, if you happen to be a birder, it's a really cool place in the Fall when the Owls have fledged and you see these little owls watching you from the holes in the banks, 15-20 feet up! Chachalacas, green jays, it's an all around great place, so don't let the pea-green water scare you.

bulldog1935 · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 3:12 pm Post subject:

If you check my last thread on the topic, they've made a huge conservation effort on the water discharging the arroyo - since 2007 initiative.
Those big tiles you see on my borrowed aerial photo are settling ponds to let the citrus field sediment and nitrogen out before the water drains into the arroyo.
With Corpus looming water quality issues, Nueces depletion below 1994 discharge requirements since 2003, jumping on Arroyo history seems too close to the surface.
The Nueces discharge was zero when we drove past Labonte park.
I remember fishing Green Island in the 90s and terrible brown tides coming from the arroyo. That problem has been solved.

Yes, great birds - we had a pair of owls every night, hawks all day.
A flock of turkeys hiked through the yard in the middle of the day.
There was some thick bird marked like a tern or shearwater that fished with us at night - kind of looked like a penguin where it perched.
Couldn't do better for a photo in the dark, but substantial body size - not much less than the heron, except for those stubby little legs and no neck.

Happy not to see the Egyptian geese that have infested the Guadalupe.

Central Scrutinizer · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:04 pm Post subject:

I've actually been a part of the water quality initiatives in the Arroyo.
You got a sweet spot, and I've been by your dock many, many times.
Glad you guys have such a good time down there.
CS

Edited - I've always enjoyed your posts from there. That 'thick one' is likely a Night Heron. Proves that, despite the bad rap it gets, it's one productive stretch of the coast!! Enjoy.

bulldog1935 · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:52 pm Post subject:

thanks for the ID - that's it exactly.

We used to wonder what the heck when we'd fish around Green Island running up from SP and suddenly hit brown muck from the arroyo.
The temperate weather and fishing combine to make it the most desirable area for inshore from November through March.
27" Green Island spec

saltyhook · Horse Mullet Joined: 20 Feb 2008 Posts: 141

Like Bulldog said "The Arroyo is a magical place . Living in Harlingen during the 1950's my Dad and fished it . There were very few camps and one bait stand as I remember it . I am in shock as I look at the photos now like the rest of the world development has taken over . I left the area in 1961, my last visit was in 1972 . As a cold front approached I caught monster trout till I was so exhausted I had to go to bed with them still biting . . Wish I had photos of those fish, one of the best fishing frenzies of my life .
Thanks Bulldog for the report and all the good memories it brought back .
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bulldog1935 · Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:59 pm Post subject:

thanks Salty - we were there also in November celebrating my dad's 90th birthday, and it was just like you described.
Regards

Then we were releasing everything less than 17" (unless injured), so that our daily 5 could be larger fish, and every limit had a trout over 20" - and these were all male schoolies -
- the baitfish were larger, and we were taking trout on all types of lures, also a few reds off the dock, big ladyfish, croaker.
One early am, walked out and caught my limit in 8 casts, and my dad did the same the following morning.
I landed two doubles, one on the XUL with a 17" and 19" trout. Three years ago, got a double with a slot snook, and broke off a Big snook two years ago.

In November, it was warmer, the specs were schooling shallower and feeding in competition.
This Jan/Feb trip, the UL Japanese rockfish rods made all the difference with the trout arcing into the lights from deeper water and sipping tiny baitfish. We got sipping strikes on everything we threw,
but caught fish on small lures with light touch, and of course on small live shrimp. Even though the trout were deep, couldn't get a strike down deep -
- that was also different in November - we caught fish in the whole column.
I've been fishing the long super-light-tip, reinforced-butt rods in just this niche for 10 years now since I bought them for kidfishing ritual with my daughters (Cap'n Benny's then Fulton Beach pier).
Just ordered another - this one 8' - from Japan, along with a great UL spinning reel.
Lou first tried one of mine 3 years ago in Arroyo, he and Suzie both cleaned up on them in November, and ordered their own from Japan for this trip.

Here's a whole range of UL rockfish rods from a good Japan vendor
https://www.plat.co.jp/shop/catalog/default/language/en/cPath/38_4052/rod/light-game.html
Nobody in the US imports or copies these salt-specific UL rods - the one I just bought is Black Hole from Korea. TackleDirect imports offshore rods from both Black Hole and Major Craft, along with Major Craft offshore jigs.

We fished LLM every Oct and Nov through the 80s and 90s often running up to Green Island from SP.
We've also had several trips in past years to Arroyo City with power boat and kayaks, where night dock fishing wasn't the priority,
and had good days on LLM, as well - a few snook along the way.
Even the same dock heron was there two years ago. West side of Green Island - the east side is all wading water.

a paddle to Rattlesnake Bay - I missed a big sow trout this day, and my buddy Steve paddled over one in a sand hole he said was 30"

TexasJim · Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 5:35 pm Post subject:

Salty: Ron's aerial photo doesn't show the real picture. I was there in November kayak fishing, and it seemed liked about 1 in 10 of the waterfront "developments" were in ruin. It looked like after a hurricane, when most properties were rebuilt, and the rest are wrecks, with a For Sale sign. The waterfront lots are invaluable real estate, and it's amazing there are so many derelicts. I'm sure they will eventually be bought and re-habbed, but now, it's depressing. The waterfront houses and rental units are great, with good fishing under the lights. Got a lot of cash to buy some primo land? Wish I did. TexasJim
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