Up front, no kayaks, and a vacation for the extended family in Arroyo City. My dad's 89 now, hasn't been fishing in 3 years, so this trip was overdue. For 9 years in a row, over late 80s to mid- 90s, my follks would rent a house or condo for the month of October or November somewhere between Key Allegro and S. Padre.
Back then, $1100 would get the full month in a nice place with 3 or 4 bedrooms, and a dock / boat slip.
My dad would be out in his boat every morning, with or without a companion, but extended family and friends did our best to keep him in fishing company. (He also needed to remember how much work this is, because he's been threatening to do S Padre for a month - solo.)
Rent-wise, Arroyo City is the best deal on the coast, with a range of boys-only fishing shacks to really nice places where you want to take your sister, wife and mother.
The house we rented is owned by former Green Island fly fishing guide Spencer Bell, who now lives and guides in CO.
With any Arroyo trip, boat runs to Laguna Madre are secondary to the spectacular dock fishing into the 40' deep navigation channel.
Keep in mind, this trip was a bit of reminiscing, catching up, and focused fish slaying. Fresh fillets from ice bowl for family meals of fabulous fish tacos and fried feast with hush puppies - the ladies are really good at this part. Also, my mom's goal is to stock her freezer - there are obviously cheaper and smarter ways to do that - but none other quite so fun.
The place we had was big enough for the extended family, had a good dock and boat lift. Anyone needing space can retreat to the palapa above the boat dock.
This was the overdue first time I've fished with my BIL. He grew up with a family cabin in Flour Bluff, he and his brother have bought guide time from Louisiana to Slow Ride in AP, and I've even fished with my nephew from the Flour Bluff cabin.
We had new moon, first-light low tides, prevailing SE wind, mid-70s to pushing 90 for the entire week. The north wind just hit yesterday morning while I was chugging at Adolph Tomae Park launch waiting for my dad to back in the trailer.
The Bays - We were off like a herd of turtles every morning, getting the boat out as late as 9a after a late breakfast, though made 7a one morning. We covered a lot of water from Oilfield Flat (marker 39) to marker 109 and beyond, we also fished Peyton Bay (and I accidentally turned into Rattlesnake Bay one day, but we got the boat out).
The flooding up the coast is affecting the tides this far south, driven by the gulf stream currents and making its way down the Laguna and through the cuts. I've never seen Oilfield flat 3' deep at low tide. We also had brutal winds as the morning pushed into afternoon, making siesta an important part of the day.
Many little trout, a few rats, and I got one 22" slot red on Oilfield.
Another Spin noteworthy, the entire week on the bays, I only fished my Lami Classic Glass and Lew's BB-25SW.
We found the just-right wind respite, exactly the right color water, grass and sand holes, and countless tourist trout at Green Island. My BIL and I had a blast catching them on TSL grasswalkers - he learned to use my favorite lure this trip.
Pink was my color for early morning light and in murky Peyton Bay, I switched to Birthday Suit for high sun and the slightly off-color seam we found on the west side of Green island. (The east side of Green island is where you want to wade with a fly rod.) My BIL fell in love fishing Golden Roach, and he and Dad also caught fish on Chicken on a Chain.
I was totally happy releasing a dozen 14" trout every morning in the bay, because I had already limited-out by 5:15 every morning at the dock.
Just said again, I got up alone every morning to fish the dock and had a limit of 16" to 18" specs every morning by 5:15 (that's about when the others would get up and try their luck). By mid week, I was waking up with sore hands every morning from filleting all of mine and my dad's fish.
FWIW, I only filleted 3 female trout the entire week - the rest were males.
The first morning I counted, switched between fly rod and lures, and released 40 fish to get my limit. Over the week, I got better at getting my lure down to bypass the nursery trout, sitting on the dock to watch the fish sign and focus-cast to the schoolies as they moved in and out of the lights, so I would get my limit in 15 or so casts.
Changing up was everything. On the fly rod I fished small whistlers and high-ties. For the spinning rods, I caught schoolies on Bone Diamond TSL grasswalker, blue Wildeye shad, spec rigs, and a long-thin Westin minnow in silver.
Both after sunset and before first light, the quality of the dock fishing varied from walking on fish, visible dozen schoolies swimming by the dock, to dead-calm shy stealth fish - though they were there the whole time - they just went deep and got shy. Other than the next dock light, there was nowhere else for them to go at a new moon.
My BIL hit his good run after the rest of us had retired one evening. My dad hit one great walking on fish run, right at sunset, caught several schoolies and his first ever snook, measured 18". I got the same size snook to the dock right behind him - in fact we had two on the dock - but had put the lens cap on the camera before I sat it down, and the photo my dad took of me holding snook just didn't come out.
It was a week of misses for me. Missed a hook set on my big sow trout at Green Island.
Yesterday morning, very last morning on the dock - Dad was up fishing with me - I broke off my lifetime snook.
I saw him right under my nose, creeping past our dock to the next dark dock - easily 28"-30". When he began his slashes in the dark, I threw over a blue wildeye shad, which he instantly sucked in, but would break me off. Thought I had my drag set just right from many running specs, but a giant charging snook is something else - especially before coffee. He was still feeding and I tried a few more casts, but couldn't turn him again.
Still, probably best in this crowd to let the big ones get away - they wouldn't understand releasing the meat on a trophy fish.
Of course no regrets, and I'm going back next year for that snook.
Posted: 10 Nov 2018, 15:03 • 
