Pier fishing in Port Isabel

I traveled down to the Rio Grande Valley to visit family and while I was there I promised my younger two children that I would take them fishing. We were staying with in-laws in Los Fresnos which is about 20 minutes from Port Isabel and South Padre Island.

On Monday I got up early but it was raining so we had to wait until 9:30am to get going. I went to pick up my niece to take her along and then we all headed to Pirate's Landing fishing pier near the lighthouse in Port Isabel. I bought some shrimp and walked out to a section of the pier the kids and I have been to before. We noted the color of the water was a gorgeous light green.

I had rigged each rod with a carolina rig and a circle hook on which I put one shrimp and set it out. My son was casting my baitcaster rod and reel setup which he really enjoyed and the girls had spinning rigs.

Gabi was the first to catch a fish and it ended up being an 18" or 19" ladyfish (skipjack) which is sometimes referred to as "the poor man's tarpon". We photographed the catch and released it.

Next to catch something was my niece who caught a small stingray which I didn't photograph and released quickly.

My son by this time was getting frustrated as he had not caught anything yet and the girls had. The girls decided to leave their rods on the railing and play on a bench together.

While I was checking on the other rods my son noticed that my daughter's rod was bending over and grabbed it before it got pulled over the railings and I had him reel it in and it had a fairly sizable croaker on it which is related to redfish. We photographed and released it.

By this time, all three kids had caught something and we were running out of time as we only had an hour to fish. They insisted I take one of their rods and catch something before we left and I ended up catching a puffer fish which was interesting as we all ended up catching a different species.

At this point we left but I promised to bring them back the next time we came to visit to see what else we could catch.