5-11-18 - South West Drum Bay

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Chubs
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Joined: Wed Oct 25, 2017 10:54 am

5-11-18 - South West Drum Bay

Post by Chubs »

Here's my report from the Friday.

Here is the weather for the day.
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Put in almost 7 miles hunting for fish Friday morning from 6 - 12. Launched around 6AM, had two other yakkers launch at the same launch as me.

My plan was to make it to the back of a new marsh to catch the outgoing tide, but I ended up burning too much time getting there. It was super windy most all of the morning, from the south east.
I started fishing the oyster shells a bit with my 1/8 oz jighead and cock of the walk 4" cocohoe minnow, spooked a ton of bait with each cast but got nothing so kept going. Got to bend and smelled the watermelon smell of feeding fish and saw a tide line so cast the area with the same jighead, nothing again. I tried a spec rig too but nothing.

Kept going and saw a good choke point so tried it, swapped out my spec rig for a cork with gulp shrimp new penny 3" but nothing (got nibblers though).

Made my way to the east mouth of the bayou, tons of oyster and I tried to fish the choke points, nothing. Entered the bayou and fished random drains (any time I saw wakes or other fish sign) nothing. Tried a dark red cocohoe with white tail 4", a chartreuse matrix shad 3". Nothing the whole way, kept spooking small fish and bait. Water was mostly brownish, maybe 6" vis. Sprayed some anise scent on my plastics but that didn't help either.

Got to the marsh at the back of the bayou, it was chocolate milk! You can't tell from Google earth but there is no wind break basically from the shoreline so that south east wind was stirring up that marsh badly. Water depth was probably 6". I spooked probably 100+ fish back there. No idea what they were but I only spooked 2 or 3 that were big enough to be reds. Nothing was eating! But with the crappy water I have no idea how they could have seen my bait. I swapped to a 1/8oz gold spoon with a crappie grub tail teaser to add some thump to my bait, still no takers.

One funny thing back there, I spooked a massive fish, could see him making his escape but could also tell he couldn't see, he made a zig zag path and nailed the side of my yak with a huge thump that I felt lol.

My alarm clock eventually went off so I headed back to the launch.

On the way back, I approached another yakker near the outlet of the bayou but before I got to him and at the same point noticed a bunch of nervous bait! I casted the area a bit then got my matrix shad bit! But the fish wasn't there when I pulled in... He bit off the tail of the shad! I hooked up a gulp mantis shrimp white with chart tail to the same jighead and cast out a few times with a slow retrive. Finally fish on! Reeled in a nice 17" red.
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Made me happy I found one. I let him go and then I had to get out of there.

I made my way past the other guy, he said he'd put in a ton of millage and only had 2 rats all morning to show for it. I knew the feeling and wished him luck. He said he was using artificial like me.

Not too much excitement on the way back, I was in a hurry at this point. I did however stop at the oyster area from earlier, and had a line out with the now shriveled up gulp shrimp on a cork (in bad about keeping my gulps wet). I was dinking around with some other gear when the shrimp took off! I think it was a trout cause the rod was shaking like a trout head shake, but unfortunately by the time I grabbed my rod it had shook loose.

Got back to the dock at 12PM and saw the other yakkers from 6AM had left already, wonder how they did, they went the other way from me.

So now that I've had some time to think, I think that the fish were short striking my baits as evidenced by my matrix shad getting it's tail bit off. 4" was way too long. I kept feeling snags as I pulled the l longer baits in and especially that mantis shrimp. I think they wanted something small, 2" or so. The nervous bait where I caught my fish was all tiny, so I'd guess the reds weren't looking for bigger bait.

Also I think the fish back in the marsh might have been sleeping and had not turned on yet, I'm not sure what was going on there. None of them were feeding while I was back there, saw no bait being busted up etc. I see from the weather, it was rising pressure the entire time I was out there - I believe I've heard falling pressure is what you want - also noticed they started to wake up around 11 which is when the pressure started to stall.

Also - that spot is not the best in a strong south east wind due to not enough land mass in the way to bust up the wind; I was pretty exposed back there which was churning up the water badly.

Thought I'd share my path incase anyone else wants to try it out. Don't think I'm committing a tkfm fauxpas, especially since I didn't catch anything of significance :P If anyone tries out the area let me know how you do!
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TxAquatics
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat May 12, 2018 9:21 pm

Re: 5-11-18 - South West Drum Bay

Post by TxAquatics »

Hey there, I'm a 2 year looker, finally joined the TKF club. I'm interested in the launch, I did not think there was a launch there where you started. I was considering launching a .5 mile back from SS in the little cove. Any how nice detailed trip. I've launched from swan lake boat ramp and headed over to that big lake in Essex bayou, no luck however.
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stuman
Posts: 172
Joined: Sun Jun 16, 2013 5:36 pm
Location: The Heights- Houston, TX

Re: 5-11-18 - South West Drum Bay

Post by stuman »

I had a rough outing on Saturday as well, threw my top water til the paint started chipping off without any serious blow ups. Donated about 4 jig heads to the marsh witches due to getting hung up on shell. Guy I was fishing with hooked up to a nice one on a topwater drifting the open lake but he broke off. I grinded pretty hard from about 6:30-2:00 and fought the wind but no luck. Every once in a while the fish win :roll: I'll be chasing little green fish next weekend with my Dad on Toledo Bend. Ill be back after them soon enough, ready to get on some surf Trout.
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Chubs
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Re: 5-11-18 - South West Drum Bay

Post by Chubs »

TxAquatics wrote:Hey there, I'm a 2 year looker, finally joined the TKF club. I'm interested in the launch, I did not think there was a launch there where you started. I was considering launching a .5 mile back from SS in the little cove. Any how nice detailed trip. I've launched from swan lake boat ramp and headed over to that big lake in Essex bayou, no luck however.
Hey welcome aboard. I had seen a few potential launch spots to get into that bayou, but they all looked a little risky and you might be driving through some water :)

Check out Coachsmills website, he's got a great map of the upper coast for launch points. I'm not sure how up to date he keeps it but anywhere I've gone that he's marked is a valid spot:

https://tailtailsigns.com/launch-points/

stuman wrote:I had a rough outing on Saturday as well, threw my top water til the paint started chipping off without any serious blow ups. Donated about 4 jig heads to the marsh witches due to getting hung up on shell. Guy I was fishing with hooked up to a nice one on a topwater drifting the open lake but he broke off. I grinded pretty hard from about 6:30-2:00 and fought the wind but no luck. Every once in a while the fish win :roll: I'll be chasing little green fish next weekend with my Dad on Toledo Bend. Ill be back after them soon enough, ready to get on some surf Trout.
Well, misery loves company :P But I'm sure we didn't fail for lack of trying! That wind effecting the water clarity conditions really caught me off guard. How was the water clarity where you were fishing?

I'm a little clueless on how I ought to fish when the water is so murky as it was that day. I tried my 1/8 oz spoon to give more "thump" but that didn't seem to work. The fish probably didn't like the haze on their gills either I guess which might have had them turned off.

I looked up a little weather history too, apparently the water had been running much shallower for the few preceding days, which would have added to the overall turbidity.
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stuman
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Joined: Sun Jun 16, 2013 5:36 pm
Location: The Heights- Houston, TX

Re: 5-11-18 - South West Drum Bay

Post by stuman »

stuman wrote:I had a rough outing on Saturday as well, threw my top water til the paint started chipping off without any serious blow ups. Donated about 4 jig heads to the marsh witches due to getting hung up on shell. Guy I was fishing with hooked up to a nice one on a topwater drifting the open lake but he broke off. I grinded pretty hard from about 6:30-2:00 and fought the wind but no luck. Every once in a while the fish win :roll: I'll be chasing little green fish next weekend with my Dad on Toledo Bend. Ill be back after them soon enough, ready to get on some surf Trout.
Well, misery loves company :P But I'm sure we didn't fail for lack of trying! That wind effecting the water clarity conditions really caught me off guard. How was the water clarity where you were fishing?

I'm a little clueless on how I ought to fish when the water is so murky as it was that day. I tried my 1/8 oz spoon to give more "thump" but that didn't seem to work. The fish probably didn't like the haze on their gills either I guess which might have had them turned off.

I looked up a little weather history too, apparently the water had been running much shallower for the few preceding days, which would have added to the overall turbidity.[/quote]

Your guess is as good as mine. When its super dirty I try to find "cleaner" protected water and throw a topwater, or Spinnerbait, or if I'm desperate enough a popping cork and gulp. I didn't have my spinning rod set up that day so didn't try that. Last summer I caught some nice trout in a marsh drain that was basically chocolate milk so sometimes it doesn't matter. I saw a few fish, but I wasn't too far from where you were fishing. I think you're right about the lower tides early in the week affecting the area. Tide movement should have been good for that area that day but if most of water/ bait was gone all week those fish didn't move back up in there yet. I hadn't been skunked in a little while, I was due :lol:
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