Got knife?

One of the things that happened on my last trip to the coast that I failed to mention in a previous post was that I accidentally dropped my Kershaw folding knife in the water and lost it. I had taken it out to cut some mono line that had tangled in my line and then I placed it in my pant pocket rather than in my zippered PFD pocket. While I was fighting a fish, I heard a *ploop* and realized it fell into the water. Aw man! I also broke my spinning rod on the last night by dropping my anchor on it. *sigh*

When I got back, I decided that my next kayak knife would have a fixed blade with a sheath that I could attach to my lanyard (so it has to be lightweight) when wading or to my PFD when in the kayak. My daily carry knife is a Kershaw Rainbow Leek which is a great knife (lightweight, easy assisted opening, holds an edge and is pretty to boot) but I was open to other quality knife manufacturers for the new kayak knife.

I did some research and decided on a Benchmade Instigator tether/neck knife. I was able to find a new one on ebay for less than $35. Benchmade makes high end knives and the Instigator is part of the lower end made in their factory in Taiwan to their specs and not in the USA factory. Still, it is the gem of the lower end and a real nice value. I just hope I don't lose this nice knife on my next trip. I may have to attach some parachute cord to the knife to keep it around my wrist just in case. We'll see.

Texas Trout Bum

My cousin in Corpus Christi quit his job not long ago at an IT company after having spent several years working for them as a network specialist. He was on call every other weekend and sometimes on holidays. He routinely worked 80 hour weeks and in my opinion was getting little respect from his company. After having worked an 80 hour week before the Memorial Day weekend and then asked to work 30 hours on the weekend without Memorial Day off was the last straw. He happens to be an former Marine that served in the first Gulf War so that sort of disrespect to a veteran was just too much. He quit a week later.

So after that I had several conversations with him about going fishing as he was now free to do so anytime. I made plans to stay and fish with him from June 27 to June 30. I anointed him a trout bum due to his unemployed status though of course I meant it of the Speckled Trout saltwater variety as opposed to the cold water variety.


Day 1 fishing with a Trout Bum (June 27)

I arrived in the afternoon and after having a great dinner we prepared for a night of fishing under the Portland causeway bridge which spans between Corpus Christi and the adjacent town of Portland. The causeway also separates Nueces Bay from Corpus Christi Bay. It is also an excellent place to take the kayaks to catch trout, redfish and flounder underneath the causeway lights.

This was two days before the full moon on Friday and the winds were blowing above 20 to 25 knots gusting to 30 knots so it was a bit rough but we managed to anchor and waited for the trout to show up under the lights from the causeway above.

I did bring my 6wt out but the wind and current just wouldn't allow me to use it. I had brought along my spinning rod and it ended up being the right tool for the situation. We found shrimp jumping around and this seemed to be what the trout were eating though we were also catching them on three inch minnow soft plastics.

In the dark section below the bridge where we anchored you occasionally saw green glowing lights as the lure or your anchor rope touched a jellyfish which seemed to be plentiful in the area so care had to be exercised when hoisting the anchor or the stringer for the trout so as not to get stung.

Most of the keeper trout caught were in the 16" to 17" length but we lost some larger trout to the concrete bridge supports. In fact, we probably lost two thirds of the fish to break offs which was frustrating but at least we were catching fish. We caught lots of undersized "schoolies" as well. At around 2am in the morning we called it a night.

Day 2 fishing with a Trout Bum (June 28)

After sleeping until 11am, we got up and had breakfast/lunch and cleaned the previous nights fish. We stopped at a couple of fishing stores to purchase more soft plastics and stock up on shrimp type lures for the night.

This night we decided to try a different spot. It was the JFK causeway bridge that spans the Flour Bluff section of Corpus Christi over to Mustang Island. The situation here was very different. While there wasn't as much wind, the channels here were too deep to anchor and so we had anchored away from the channel in the shallower water near the bridge lights. There was also a lot of floating grass at this location whereas Portland bridge was clear of grass (though it was loaded with jellyfish).

The shrimp were here just as they were at Portland bridge yet the water was full of ribbonfish that were eager to eat our plastic shrimp imitations. These ribbonfish have some mouths full of needle sharp teeth and so releasing them takes some delicacy. I did add another species to the list of fish caught on the fly as I was able to catch an 18" ribbonfish on an orange cactus shrimp fly. I also caught one 17" trout on a plastic shrimp. Unfortunately, the catching was very slow so about 11pm we decided to head once again to the other side of town to try our luck at Portland bridge.

Once at Portland bridge, we found a couple of kayakers in the spot we were in the night before and they indicated they had caught 6 keeper trout but that it had turned off and so they were leaving. They should have stayed because it seemed that the bite turned back on for us. I caught three 18" redfish that I released since the minimum legal length is 20" but they fought hard, particularly in the current.

Again, we lost quite a few good fish and we had to work for the few keeper fish we landed. Since we got a later start we ended up quiting about 3am and headed back and got to bed at 4am.

Day 3 fishing with a Trout Bum (June 29)

After getting up at noon, it was basically a repeat of the day before. Lots of preparation buying replacements for the lures that were working (mostly shrimp soft plastics). We did go for a couple of hours in the afternoon in my cousin's motorboat but didn't have any luck where we went in the Laguna Madre so we decided to save our strength to fish Portland bridge one more night.

We started fishing the bridge around 10pm and for the third night the shrimp were there and so were the trout. This night the moon was out in all its bright glory and I did better than the two nights before. None of the trout I kept were larger than 17" but they were all very fat and aggressive.

My cousin brushed a jellyfish and got stung while grabbing his anchor line but he missed most of it though I am sure it was still painful.

Sometime before 2am, the water level seemed to rise instantly by a foot and the current started really ripping as you could see eddies form behind the bridge supports. You had the wind blowing hard from one direction and the current really moving from the opposite direction that if you raised anchor, you didn't move. That was very strange and we took that as a sign to leave. The paddle back to shore was difficult due to the strong current but we managed to make it to shore, loaded the kayaks and gear and headed home.

Last Day (June 30)

Being it was my cousin's birthday party this day we didn't fish and instead prepared for a little party in the evening and finally to get a normal night's rest. We also cleaned the fish and I realized I hadn't taken any photos the previous three days so I wanted to take a photo of the limit of trout while they were stacked on the fillet table except there was so much humidity in the air that my lens was fogged up and all the photos were coming out foggy. By the time it cleared up, my cousin had filleted all but three trout of which I took a photo before they got cleaned as well and so that is why you see a trio of trout though there were more of his fat buddies that are now in my freezer (three bags of them actually).

At the birthday party we enjoyed some BBQ brisket that my cousin made along with his wife's delicious potato salad. We had a few beers and some conversation and then everyone left fairly early and I showered and was in bed by 9pm but fell asleep around 10pm.

The next morning, I wished my cousin a happy birthday, had some coffee with them, said my goodbyes and thank yous for an excellent stay and headed home to Austin.

I intend to go back possibly in September or October if I can and just hope it's at least as good a trip as the three days of being a trout bum with a fellow trout bum.

A couple of hours at the range

I finally got to go with brother-in-law to the pistol range and fire my new Springfield Armory XD-40. I put about 250 rounds through it and think it's a great pistol. My brother-in-law liked it as well and thought it was very smooth overall. He also liked the additional features such as the visual and tactile indicators indicating when it is cocked and chambered. He also liked the stainless steel high capacity magazines.

I compared it to my brother-in-law's Glock 27 and while I do like the accuracy of his Glock, they are fairly comparable at 10 yards though my XD-40 is a bit larger since his Glock is a sub-compact. I took along different rounds and got some good groupings and results from the Winchester USA 180gr JHP bullets. We'll probably go back out to the range to put another 300 rounds though the XD and break it in further. I'm pretty pleased with this pistol.

When we went to his home to clean the pistols afterwards, the XD-40 was very easy to disassemble, clean and re-assemble. My brother-in-law had a little bit of trouble in disassembling the Glock.

Fixin' to get a salt fix

I talked to my cousin on Friday and it's time to get salty again. I'll be heading to the coast this week for three or four days and hope to get into some reds and trout. My cousin mentioned taking his boat down to Baffin and fishing there and then possibly camping out at the Mansfield Cut. I'll have a full report when I return. I will take my 8wt an 6wt XP fly rods along with my favorite Kistler Helium med-light casting rod.

Finally hit the lake

These past few weekends have been spent working on the house with projects such as replacing the carpet in the bedrooms with laminate wood flooring and cleaning out the storage shed out back which has meant no fishing...until this weekend.

I took care of mowing the yard during the week since the days are now longer so that I would have the weekend free. I took out the kayak yesterday and cleaned off the cobwebs and drained water it held inside from all the rain we've been having lately.

Speaking of the rain, I was eager to see what the lake looked like since all reports indicated that due to all that rain, the lake was now 102% of full pool. They were finally releasing water from the dam downstream to maintain pool level. Back in a December post I mentioned that Lake Travis was 37 feet below pool level and after that post before the rains really started in March it had dropped to around 40 feet below full.

The days lately have been warm and muggy with temperatures in the high 80s to low 90s making it feel much warmer so I decided I would do my fishing at night. I got all my gear together and went to bed at 9pm on Friday and set the alarm for 2:30am.

Well, 2:30am came around and I just couldn't get up! So I reset it for 4am. I did get up later, had breakfast and headed to the lake and was in the water by 5:30am. The water level was right up to the top of the ramp! I launched and headed to the boat slip I wanted to fish since it was usually surrounded by lots of bright lights. Denied! The lights were not on so I had to find something before sunrise. I found one set of green lights with baitfish and some predators and had one hookup with my black Bonker Zonker fly but it came unhooked a few seconds later. I had a couple of other short strikes but didn't land anything by the time sunrise came around 6:30am so I moved on.

I again got a strike but no hookup near a swimming platform. I saw some splashing around me but some of those spashes were from carp and some appeared to be from bass pushing baitfish to the surface. I noticed one splash on the opposite shore and I headed directly to it and cast in the same spot.

I was stripping the fly back to me when the line got heavy about 8 feet from shore and then it dove! Fish on! It was pulling very nicely and when I got it up near the surface I saw it was a nice bass! I played the fish and I'd almost forgotten what a nice fight a keeper size bass puts up on the 5wt especially when it wants to dive into deeper water! I think I've been fishing for brim on the 2wt for too long.

I landed the fish and it was a nice, healthy 15" largemouth. I released the fish and kept paddling around the back of the cove. Sections of this cove were high and dry not long ago. I explored some of the area and fished it with several more bites but no other fish landed.

I decided to head back just before 8am as it was starting to get pretty warm and muggy with light winds. As I was walking up to my truck after leaving my kayak at the ramp, I saw a rather large spider strolling across the road. Since I figured last night I was going to be night fishing, I didn't bring the camera with me. I got really close and it looked like a Texas Brown Tarantula but it could have been some other kind of tarantula. I found a photo that best looks like the spider I saw on wikipedia which I have linked to this post. It was a beautiful tarantula. It was heading for my truck and since I didn't want to accidentally run over it, I gently redirected it with my shoe. Boy, can those tarantulas move fast when they want to! It scurried for the wooded area on the other side of the road and it was gone.

Even though I didn't land a bunch of bass, it was great being on the lake again and catching a nice fighting LMB as well as seeing the lake back to full level again. I also enjoyed seeing the wildlife. Besides the tarantula, I spotted a Jackrabbit and diamondback water snake as well as some herons. I'll hopefully be out on the lake a few more times this summer.