Bridge City, evenings of 4-17 and 4-18.

[Chubs]

Well this won't be the greatest report ever, and it's not from a kayak but I'd assume that's ok!

Was working over in the Port Arthur area this week. I attempted to go fishing after my client meetings in the evening after dinner twice while I was up there. Only got about 1-2 hours in the evening on two nights before the swarm of mosquitos tried to carry me off. Tried to fish up at Bridge City but never caught anything.

I was trying to use artificial and cut bait (I salted some shrimp and squid from last year - but I stored it in my garage and it smells sort of rancid now heh). No takers, guess the fish did not want botulism! I had a few crabs attached to my bait when I pulled them in, that was fun.

I fished sort of far up the channel on the 1st day. the 2nd day I drove down to the mouth of the cut and discovered there is a big concrete berm in the way of the flow path, and further review on google earth shows there is no other way for the water to make it into that marsh; so I wondered how the heck any fish could get up the channel??? There was a little bit of water pouring over the berm, and an egret working it over. I figured to try there my second day as the water should be pulling bait over the blockage. Had a few nibbles and lost a few lures to the concrete

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I think you have to use live bait if you are staying stationary, unless there is just a ton of fish in an area. Artificial baits work great when you are moving I’ve found, but sitting in one spot it’s probably not the best idea.

Anyways, hopefully my next report is better!

Here's a few pictures.

Nice Sunset

The bridge at night

A horrible attempt at a selfy with the bridge

[kickingback]

Good report for sure! Never fished that area. Looks like a good spot to ambush fish crossing there. Google Earth shows that was solid across there for years back but got washed out. The water is moving good through there to wash out that concrete area so you should have landed something I would have thought.

[Chubs]

It's deceiving, it looked like it was washed out, but I can confirm the concrete is still fully intact with moss all over it.
Possibly they repaired it from the time of the last satellite image.
It's more like a low dam that holds a minimum amount of water in that's probably right at the normal high tide level.

Some water does creep over it, but I'd suspect you need high tides with a strong south wind to push any large amount of water over the barrier that would be suitable to let a red fish in. As it was, I was fishing high tide with a weak south wind and the water was actually slightly flowing out (strong south wind from the day before probably raised the water levels, but I never made it far enough down that day to investigate). Actually it was really weird, the flow path over the dam would oscillate from slightly flowing out, to slightly flowing in about every 10 minutes. I assume it probably had something to do with passing barges out in Sabine lake but I never saw them from my vantage point.

Next time I'm out that way I'm going to try the levee/ pleasure island I think it's called. Also going to take a bait bucket.

[kickingback]

Take a look at Google Earth and the "history" images. 2011 it was firmly across there and through the years it looks to have washed out a bit but still there. The best image is in 2017 I can see. Thanks for the info about the spot!