It is cool and looks like we may get even more rain today, but there was hell to pay to get rid of that horrendous south wind. I just thought Thursday was tough with gusts up to 30 mph, but the water was still in pretty good shape and we managed to get bit a lot, even if most of the trout were small.
We fished both live bait and plastics and caught fish pretty much everywhere we could fish. We even found a few birds working over small trout in East Pass, but that didn't last long. For the most part, I fought the wind with the troll motor while Wes and Ralph fished as best they could.
Wes caught and released this slot red in a semi-protected stretch of the bayou.
This was a CCA trip that Ralph bought at the Beaumont banquet earlier in the year and they had no intentions of keeping any fish, but I would guess that we easily went through 50 fish over the course of the day. I would also guess that only 7 or 8 of the trout and one slot red would have kept anyway. We found one school of trout in the mouth of a bayou and they caught a fish virtually every cast until the tide slacked up a little.
No dock and no launch at daylight and the water was still rising!
I thought the water was as high as it could get even with the big southeast wind and incoming tide until I arrived at the dock the following morning. There was no launch visible, the docks were all under water and the wind was blowing just as hard as the day before. While I would never have expected to find the water up in the parking lot, I did try to cancel the trip Thursday night, but they still wanted to give it a try.
We found one short stretch of fishable bank on the ICW under less than two foot waves and caught a handful of small trout on Swim Baits. Other than that, it was absolutely impossible. We tried to vertical jig a few deep holes on the river and I could not hold the boat in place long enough to get a lure to the bottom.
The only good thing that happened was that we got back to the landing maybe 15 minutes before the wind switched to the north and it started raining sideways. Cow Bayou, Adams Bayou, and the river were dirtier than they have been in a while, but it won't take them long to clear up with this north wind. A lot of water has to go elsewhere before the bite under the gulls that was getting so good picks back up, but there are still plenty of fish in the river and bayous.
Not surpisingly, while I spent the morning burning gas and impersonating a guide, a pair of Pt. Arthur anglers managed to outfish Mother Nature's ugly ways. Someone always does!
I talked with them at Academy this morning and they said that they got off the water about an hour too late yesterday, but it was worth the soaking. They were fishing one of the cuts leading into Bessie Heights off the Neches and they kept 2 limits of reds, 3 flounder and 13 trout. They said the fish started biting around noon and they caught all of their fish on mud minnows.
Great day of fishing Dickie - Enjoyed a good day away from the office in the Wind. Good Luck!!
Ralph J.
Posted by: Ralph Jordan | October 13, 2009 at 11:50 AM