The week was about time spent with the brothers you choose - those you want be with when doing what you'd always rather be doing, like this.
Friends don't go to this length for you, only brothers do.
Just got back from the 12th annual Fall Redfish Round-Up, hosted by Josh (Neumie) and his sister, Nina.
They also own and support Texas Kayak Fisherman forum.
Five days of kayaking different flats in the Texas coastal bend. The cast changed over the week.
We faced oppressive heat and humidity, huge water level, monsoon rain, wind - in the end, time with our brothers was the most important thing.

First thing, Steve let me haul his Oliver travel trailer down. Josh's cousin Darrell let us park it on his property.
Steve was working Monday through Thursday, the fishing began on Wednesday, and Steve decided to come down Friday, but too late to fish.
Lou hauled our kayaks on his trailer, Steve's trailer and boats were in storage in Rockport. (he hauls the trailer back, and we each haul our own boats home...)


Wednesday, Josh, Whit and Andy drove two hours up the coast to fish sloughs at Point Comfort - Josh and Whit brought home redfish. Josh released the trip-fish over-slot red.
Lou and I opted to stay close at our favorite Estes Flats, especially since it was the biggest tide swing of the trip.
We were probably too late on the tide swing, but we always dream about finding stacked snook here again at first light.


We moved back onto the flat, Lou moved up to fish the 2nd duck blind south, and I stayed close to fish the shoal between the 1st duck blind and the inside of Little Cut.
For me, every fish that mattered this week was caught on Z-man Minnow-Z and 1/8-oz Texas Eye jighead - more on that later.
Right off, my favorite color Mood Ring paid off dinks and rats.


From the wakes, subtle slashes, and jumping bait, I estimated there were 200 redfish on my shoal.
I went through colors on the climbing sun, Sexy Penny, Mood Ring, Redbone, and couldn't buy a strike. Finally went to The Deal, opaque grey on bottom and blue on top, and caught my next redfish.

Funny story, I saw a big wake too far from my casting arm, and tried to cast anyway. My 4-year-never-backlashed Zillion changed my mind, and snapped my 4-y-o braid in the spool wrap, sending my lure out of sight. Grabbed my Silver Wolf finesse combo and cast out the topwater prop tail shrimp (Supra 65, aka "Mr. Peanut"). The double trebles hauled up my broken line and my Z-man Deal. Looking at the two lures, decided this means something, swapped the Z-man onto the finesse combo, and proceeded to catch 7 more fish on 12 casts - they wanted subtle blend colors with mullet sheen.
I didn't photo the last and largest two reds separately - I was too busy fishing.


By 10 am, I had my redfish limit, tried to put Lou on my shoal, but it cooled down. Lou brought home a thick keeper trout from the 2nd duck blind.
We called the day early. (Lou and I were sweated-through on Tuesday setting up the trailer, and again fishing on Wednesday.)
Our stringers, which included the only redfish limit of the trip. My total for short morning on Estes, 6 trout, no keepers, 6 reds with a slot-fish limit.


Wednesday night, our brother Tony arrived from San Antonio.
Josh cooked a fried feast, shrimp, oysters, and redfish, spicy hush puppies, with cucumber salad and coleslaw. (Josh and Nina could both be chefs - Nina wasn't here yet, traveling on business)

_________________________________________________________

Thursday looked really bad on paper. The front was coming, but we had a favored SSE wind until it got here.
We picked Dagger Flats down the coast from Estes, which excited me, because I haven't fished here before.
On the water for sunrise.


I followed Josh straight upwind around both sides of an island.
Nothing to sight-fish, and we began drifting the deeper flat, but found only dink trout.


After 2 drifts, we both headed back upwind to the other side of the island, and were joined by everyone else in our group.
Josh got out to wade and brought in a solid slot red.
My next drift got my best fish, and Whit caught everything except the fish he wanted.
My 22" slot red was 1/4" shorter than Josh's.


Josh had done a great job of following the front while he was on the water. His dad texted him when it hit Halletsville, and when it reached Goliad, told everyone at 9am, "we have a half-hour to fish and then we have to run." I got another 18-inch red on my last drift, and Andy got one right beside me.
Running home toward the storm. We had our boats loaded at 10:35 when the wind and rain hit.
It would rain 5 inches in the next 24 hours.


When we got off the water early, we went for giant Tex-Mex plates at Vallarta (Rockport standard), and a follow-up run to TackleTown.
So full from lunch, we ate only appetizers at Hu-Dat/ Bencharmers bar that night. Nina arrived from the airport to join us.
All I can write in one sitting - I'll be back with our big blow days.

Thanks Mike, working on round 2.
Friday, the rain laid off for us in the morning (returned in the afternoon), but the NE wind was 18 knots and gusting. The best thing about it, it was a tailwind going home.
We picked our favorite East Flats on Mustang Island for some wind shelter, which we didn't find. We covered a lot of water, and later, Josh will add his GPS paddling trails.
All the bait we found was tight against the island shore, and no wakes, tails or fish sign going after them.

Only Josh brought home a redfish, though Tony caught an 18" red and 12" trout on Z-man.
For zig-zag drifts all the way up Pelone Is., I caught a dink trout first cast, at the draining pass from the flat into the boat channel, a pinfish and another dink trout after some hard paddling.


Everyone gathered at the pass for our retreat back through the $M neighborhood canals.
Our buddy Jim from Estes joined us this day, and for the 2nd time this year, we've put him on East Flats without the banner results we normally expect.


Great dinner at Moondog's (soft-shell crab BLT, shrimp poor-boy, and blackened tuna, calamari and crabmeat-queso appetizers) - Steve treated the group.
__________________________________________________

Saturday was another 18-kt NNE plus-gusting day, though I found it to be much worse. We fished Lighthouse Lakes, taking advantage of the Big water levels to enter through normally shallow Marker 1 pass - it was a huge channel, the lakes and sloughs were 3-4' deep (we were able to take shortcuts between adjacent sloughs straight through the mangroves.
Whit doing what I tried first, finding a slough with a wind break, staking boat and casting into the mangroves. Josh got a small trout doing this, and I was getting strikes.


The water was turbid after the rain, and I went from bunny shrimp to Minnow-Z Sexy Penny, chartreuse bottom and copper top.
Moving deeper into the lakes, the wind was picking up, and several of us tried drifting.
I picked up my trip-fish 24" red. Wasn't about to lift my drift sock in this wind, but the big fish steered my boat enough, I was able to keep him out of the sock with my Abu finesse rod.


It was 9am, the wind was gusting harder, and I tried retreating down the wrong lake, had to paddle back up from the dead-end.
Before I could turn into the right lake to find the pass and escape back across Aransas channel, I got into a windcock that would not let my boat turn into the wind, and drove me into the mangroves.
This had to be wind above 28 kts, because I've been able to steer into the wind in 28 kts before.
Luckily, Steve was there, his Outback was steering (better than his other Revo), he took my bow line and pulled me off the mangroves. We retreated across the channel to our launch, and everyone else was 10-15 min behind us.
At the launch, we talked someone else out of going out alone.


In the afternoon, we watched the Texas-OU game - oh well...

Saturday night was Josh's fabled shrimp boil, and since we all agreed no reason to fish in Sunday's cold and wind, we stayed up late, feasted, and socialized.
Lou picked up the seafood market tab.


We were joined by new brother Chase, and his two Arkansas U brothers (next game on Josh's tv), who were all down on a guide fishing trip.


One last sunrise over Copano before packing out this morning.

__________________________

I promised the details on Z-man Minnow-Z colors.
Top to bottom, reflected light on the left, transmitted light on the right.
Sexy Penny,
Mood Ring,
The Deal



Sexy Penny, chartreuse and copper, and The Deal, grey bottom and blue top, are both opaque.
Mood ring reflects blue and transmits pink, my favorite clear water overcast color, also caught my lifetime speckled trout in May.

Thanks Mark,
I brought home my 4 largest half-shell fillets in ice water.
Also sent Tony and Lou home with fillets, so their wives will let them play again.

Thanks Nick, there's a reason we stage (months) for this annual event.

Thanks for sharing the additional lure and feasting details Ron. Sorry about the high winds. BTW my retired buddy who fished for them (guided, bait & bobber) in Galveston the week before you went saved me a redfish fillet so I will eventually have the opportunty to taste them.

Good Heavens that looks delicious!

Though every red is different, they're strong fish that don't want to surface, take drag when they know they're hooked, including 2nd and 3rd runs, and your rod will be double at the boat trying to turn and control them.
The last couple of years, with the emergency speckled trout regulation (after the freeze kill), reducing slot and bag limits increasing male catch odds, more guides are targeting redfish, especially in easily accessible water like Estes. The emergency trout reg expired in August, and complaints from guides was a big factor.
We've found redfish lure shy, actually running away from good lure presentation, especially if the color is too obvious.
So finding the fish is one thing, getting them to eat is another.

The Texas Eye jighead adds several things to Minnow Z on the flats, making them weedless in our shallow grass, more natural action, and also making the lure feel more like natural bait in the fish's mouth. I smear Procure on the jighead and steel, masking the taste of both the metal and us.

Hi Donny,
Big difference in the water level when we were fishing winter low tides versus last week's huge fall tides.

We were more than a foot over normal fall means last week (graphic shows annual tides by month), and 30" higher than the photo below with you hooked up.
The shoal that I was fishing 2'1/2' down last Wednesday was dry when you were here (good geography in the winter photo).
Camera is pointing same direction in both these photos, though in the redfish photo, my boat is over the far end of the shoal.
Wednesday was also a calm day that let me see subtle fish sign.
Our Friday and Saturday winds were a lot like when you were on Upper Laguna Madre at Bird Island.

@Mike, no need to apologize for our added wind adventures. Even a week of fail would be a good time with this group (vs. going out alone). Steve and I go back to 6th grade.
Whit and I go back 20 years, he and Steve were on my dad's 78th b/d trip. Tony and I go back 20 years fly fishing the hill country. Lou, Steve and I have been fishing and bicycling 10 years. Josh and Whit met talking fishing in a Rockport bar, and together organized the first fall Round-Up - the overlap must be something more than random.
All these stories come out around the fire pit.

You get this many smart fishermen together with charts and weather prediction, we can usually plan something worth trying tomorrow.
Josh's knowledge of the coast is over the top - he put this google earth chart together. One joke this trip was how everything ends up in one of Josh's spreadsheets.

Fun and fascinating report as always. I truly hope to get on board one of these days. Have to get my kayak skills boned up first.

Thanks also for sharing Josh’s Google Earth access map.

Of other regional interest: My sister and brother in law just worked on a cool-sounding fishing destination hotel pier restoration project in Rockport called The Reel ‘Em Inn. Have you heard of it?

thanks - some very handsome redfish there..
yet another species I have not yet caught, need to work on that ;-)