Alligator gar washes up on beach

My cousin and his better half went driving down to Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi to do some beach combing and they spotted a four foot alligator on the shore. Interesting since alligator gar normally reside in freshwater lakes, bayous, canals and rivers.

I have heard of folks running into some in brackish or salt water. It is possible that when there is a good amount of rain (as was had recently in the area) that they may move out into the ocean and bays when the salinity levels drop. However, they can't survive there very long.

My cousin indicated the gar was freshly dead. On a side note, for those that haven't eaten gar before, the flesh is white and firm and when fried tastes a lot like chicken breast. The hard part is cutting through the armor plating hide. By the way, my cousin left the fish on the beach.

I think I need to get my son a fly rod

This afternoon I took my son to the pond for an hour of fishing before dinner. I took my 4wt and he took his spinning rod and worms.

We both started catching brim soon after getting there though I caught a few more while he re-baited his hooks with worms. After a while, he asked me for a fly. At first, I told him to stick to the worms. He asked me again so I took out my fly box and let him choose a fly. He chose a white #8 Cypert's mylar minnow. I tied it on and adjusted his float a bit higher. I figured in a few minutes we would be back to the worm hook and worms.

To my surprise, a short time later he hooked a sunfish! This went on several times and some of the brim he caught were pretty good sized! I kept wondering just how he did this. It seemed that his casts were near the fountain in the center of the pond that circulates the water. Near it you get some wave action so apparently the minnow under the float would jig up and down and possibly looked like an injured or dying fish and the big brim couldn't stand it!

Well, after a while we had to leave but I am now seriously considering a fly rod for this boy. If he's willing to try a fly on a spinning rod, I might as well replace the spinning rod with a fly rod and complete the package. I may have to research some fly rods for him and possibly take a trip to Cabela's and see what fly rod combo kits they have in a 5wt.

Passed my CHL test

No fishing today on such as beautiful day because I spent the entire day in a concealed carry handgun course. It was quite interesting. Most of the information came right out of the law book as well as additional information from very well known authors on the subject. Our instructor was a lady and the 14 people were all men but I'm pretty sure this lady could outshoot most of the men. She did a good job with the instruction.

I was a bit nervous about the shooting part of the exam but it went pretty well. A perfect score is 250 and I scored 243 which was about average. There were some 245 and 248 scores but no perfect scores. Everyone shot autos. One guy did have to leave in the middle of his test since he didn't bring sufficient ammo (you needed 50 rounds for the test). I, as well as the teacher and the other students, were dumbfounded. The instructions clearly say what you need to bring and this guy was renewing his license! Other than this, it was somewhat uneventful. They brought in some BBQ from a local restaurant and it was OK though I think I offended my instructor since she thought it was great.

Now I just have to go to the Texas DPS office to get my fingerprints and turn in all the paperwork, pay the application fee and then wait. I hope to get that done before the end of the month.

My cousin the fishing guide

I talked to my cousin that lives in Corpus Christi this evening. He recently earned his captain's license and started his own shallow water guide service called Double - G Charters & Fishing Guide Service as a full time guide.

He was telling me about his day wadefishing the shallow lakes near Shamrock Bay. He basically indicated that it was a pretty good day with a lot of trout and flounder caught. He did find a school of reds that were tailing but a group of rude or possibly novice kayak fisherman moved in front of him and scared them off.

He did end the day though with a high note as he caught and landed a very nice 27 3/4" speckled trout that weighed in at 8lbs. That is the one in the photo though you have to realize my cousin is a fairly large man so the trout is much bigger than it looks.

I have to find some time in my schedule to go out there one weekend and he indicated that there are a lot of fish to be caught. I just hope that now that he is a full time guide, it will be on a weekend he doesn't have a client to take out.

My son caught a bass!

This weekend I took my kids to the pond a couple of afternoons. My son continues to outfish me with his spinning tackle.

I did manage to catch a few bass on Friday afternoon that were all pretty small along with some nice brim. However, my son definitely caught more brim.

On Sunday afternoon we went back and continued to catch more brim and a few small bass.

I decided to move across the pond and leave my son in his favorite spot. Then I heard him call me and I noticed his rod was bent over deeply. He caught a bass! It made one splash and then made a run for some heavy vegetation and snapped the 6lb line on my son's reel. Even though he didn't land it, he was really excited and so was I. I instructed him what to do if this happened again which was to try and steer the fish to shallow water without vegetation if he could without pulling too hard on the line. We estimate the bass was around 2 1/2 pounds. It was his first sizable largemouth.

It wasn't much later than I also hooked a largemouth bass on my 4wt that I had to work out of the vegetation a couple of times but was able to land safely. I estimate it was a healthy 1 1/2 to 2lb fish. Snapped this photo and released it.

Again, my son outfished me both in numbers and with a larger bass. He asked me if there was a place we could go to catch big bass now that he had a taste of what it feels like catching one. I'll have to consider this question carefully.