4/1 Saturday was a nice day on the water. A little slower than I'd prefer, but I was trying out a new lure setup that proved less than productive. One of my faults is trying a new lure and refusing to change all day. I finally changed lures the last hour of the day and probably quadrupled my production for the day. Orly was throwing the tried and true DOA Cal and landed a nice redfish at 31" pictured here. We picked up a couple of trout to 18" and another slot red.
4/6 A cold front moved through Corpus Christi this afternoon. That gave us a little break from the wind this morning as it was rolling in. The 30 mph gusts we've had all week slowed down to the mid teens at sunrise and slowly faded to the low teens as the morning went on. I got on the water about 9 and headed to the first spot for the day. I knew it had been holding redfish on the tide level we had today, about a foot high. The first drift I saw about 4 redfish, one chased the lure and turned off at the last second, the rest showed no interest. That was definitely not the numbers I was hoping for though. I made one more drift off deeper from that flat and came up with just a few trout. I saw some birds working hard out in some deeper water leading up to a shoreline, so I headed that way. There was bait everywhere, I saw a jack crevalle swimming with it's fins out of the water along the shoreline, but no dice on catching any of them. I was solo, so I like to focus on sight casting up shallow, this lead me to another skinny flat. I saw another 4 redfish, and had three eats, but I either pulled the hookset or they short struck. Still blanked on redfish. I decided to make a little run to the very back of an area I knew redfish tend to tail at and hoped that it was deep enough to get into. It was very shallow. Shallow enough that the shallow sport was bumping ground as I was drifting in. I would have turned back out, but I could see birds working over tailers all over the flat. I was really wishing I had my Ankona by this time. I had to hop off the boat and walk the Shallow Sport into a drift line with the schools. This worked well enough to get one shot at them. So I drifted into one giant school of tails and just enjoyed the scene. I tried to get video on my iphone. It did not do it justice. It was a special moment. I finally made a cast to them once I thought they might spook off me, trying to snag one off the back and drag him out slow. It worked like a charm until my line came tight and slapped one of the other fish sending him and all the rest into panic. I brought that one to the boat and as I was releasing him the school was already tailing again about 50 yards behind my boat. Tailing redfish will never get old. I decided I better start my journey off the flat. I was pushing it with beating the cold front back to the house, and getting caught in water too shallow to put the engine down on the north end of a flat didn't sound too appealing. I made it home rain soaked about an hour later. I couldn't resist stopping to play with some more schoolie trout in the fleeting minutes before the cold front hit. It was a beautiful day on the Laguna Madre. See y'all on the water. Let's let a few go and watch them grow.
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