I first planned this trip for the chance to meet up with Mark - ablecane.
At the same time, Josh had pm'd me about wanting to get together sometime, so it was great for me to put this together.
Josh and I shared a really good fishing shack - new since Harvey, and I was able to keep it 2 more nights, letting me take a nap after yesterday's paddle, and make it home by 9:30 this morning.
I met Mark and Donna the night before at my favorite Rockport Mexican seafood, Los Comales.
He and I met up for fishing at 6a at Tacos de Oro in Aransas Pass, and I had the best plate of Migas ala Mexicana I've ever eaten.
Sunrise at Palm Harbor.
This day really looked good on paper, with a SSE wind and 7am low tide. I expected us to be walking on fish with the 2-mi paddle to Little Cut.
The day before on our paddle in, Josh and I were talking wouldabeen, couldabeen, shouldabeen, as we paddled home through that beautiful deeper flat containing more fish and better drift fishing. Same kind of thing today. I put Mark on fish, but if we had waited out my tide instead of heading out to chase redfish, would have probably had a better fish-catching day. Still, it was a great day.
What we found, the 24-hr NW wind had pushed so much water out of the flat, Little Cut wasn't a pass at all, but a deep slough on Aransas Bay. The wind change, though, was creating a current, and with an eddy at the back of the slough.
When we got to Sandy Point, and found the hardpack exposed, I knew we'd have to walk our boats after another mile paddle to Little Cut -
- luckily, the middle shoal at Little Cut was all hard pack when we got there, had to get out and walk, though the unburdened boats floated right in.
The deep side of the channel stopped dead where it should turn up Traylor Is, but with an eddy from the wind current coming off Aransas Bay. There was a trickle coming through the skinny north pass, and no fish sign on the side to make easy downwind casts.
This cut was last dredged in 1960 - it's really the remnants of a cut, and Big Cut is now the boat path.
I put Mark on the slope of the old channel, and he had landed 5 small trout before I could turn around. I had him set up with Tsunami SS3 black back, started with my cocahoe, but would switch to his lure, too.
typical tourist trout
and another
Casting into the wind, Mark's new spinning tackle was an advantage over my baitcaster, though I did get the baitcaster dialed in for the wind before too long.
Mark caught 20 fish here, had a really big trout spit on him, and landed this 16", our only keeper trout of the day.
Just above Mark here, in the wind eddy, I hooked up a massive flounder - at least 24" if not more. He began creeping toward Aransas Bay, taking drag the whole time. At least 3 times I held the spool with my thumb and set hard, but after a few minutes of small steps toward Aransas, it all came back to me.
We would have probably done better staying here and waiting out the tide, but by 11am, I decided to paddle wide around the shoals, and head up toward Big Cut, to take advantage of the SSE wind and drift for reds. I really wanted to put Mark on reds.
The same water Josh and I had drifted 2 days before was bracketed by shoals, but the different wind set us up a perfect drift to miss the shoals and end up right at Sandy Point.
Didn't find a redfish, but got into small trout again as we neared Sandy Point.
It had been a day for Mark, who put up a great paddle, was pretty well fished out.
When we stretched at Sandy Point, like throwing a switch, the wind shifted to ESE and sailed us straight in to Palm Harbor.
Two perfect fish taco fillets came from the small trout, and at the cleaning stand, handed my camera to a guest who had just finished up a similar trout - Mark and I are out of focus, but the water looks good.
Back at my digs, enjoying a brew, before Mark headed back to his wife and friends at NPI.
Here's the view from the digs that Josh and I shared. At the far right is the new Harbor island desalination water plant - makes me happy.
2 nights before, a couple from our "neighborhood" had been cast-netting bait in the slough.
Our front deck also had a Cajun chorus frog, who sang for us at night.
A great trip, great friends, and looking for Mark's report on the rest of his stay at NPI.
He texted me he followed up our trip with success in the surf.
