Blue Bellied Red

[YakRunabout]

Launched at Waterman’s in the early AM yesterday and hit some lights followed by some time in Dalehite and adjacent areas. Both the water and air were in the mid-upper 60’s, wind out of the east – southeast, not too bad but having an impact. Tides were on the high side this day.

For me the lights were not too productive. Most of the lights had few baitfish but some had a moderate amount in their never-ending circular race. Many of the lights, baitfish or not, had some nice redfish silhouettes or dark shadows blocking the light. A few had some active feeding - splashes or the scattering of the bait race. It was at one of these that I pulled out my blue bellied red – I have seen the blue tails, but do not recall one with a blue belly! It turned out to be 19” so not a keeper but welcome for a visit none the less. It had taken a small white/glow curly tail on a small 1/16 jig.

As I was crossing over one of the non-productive lights I was looking down, watching for any movement, when I had one of those – What the . . !! – moments! It was a large gar – appeared to be 5’ plus – thought someone had sunk a small kayak!! It appeared to be just laying there on the bottom!

At another light with active feeding they did not like any of the mix that I threw. A bit frustrating, especially when Mike, off in some other canal keeps pulling in some adequate fish. He will add his information in this post.

In the Dalehite areas I had similar results for a time, with little fish action showing up, whether in deep water or marsh. But I did manage to find an area that produced some hard-hitting specs – they were smashing the jerk shad that I offered. As I said earlier there was a steady wind from the east-southeast. There was not much of a tidal flow, but there was some wind produced flow. The specs were available along some sharp drop offs of a couple of feet down wind from this current. I ended up with a 16” and two 18’s. A more satisfying result than from the lights!!
A tiring day, 10 mile plus, but a great time out.
Enjoy your next outing

[Ron Mc]

thanks for posting - nice fish .
I posted from Arroyo last November how the trout at Green Island came up with dark greens and blues - unfortunately, I didn't take a photo

[karstopo]

Nice fish and report. Seems like different areas produce different hues on fish. There’s a couple of places I fish where the redfish get a brilliant metallic gold color. One medium marsh pond I fished produced two different races of redfish. The shoreline fish were a pale golden bronze. The fish that sometimes roved in the middle were a dark brown bronze.

Seems like some areas have Speckled trout with lots of spots and other places the trout have few. Christmas Bay seems like the trout tend to have less spots.

[YakRunabout]

Christmas Bay seems like the trout tend to have less spots.

Well, Karstopo - Hopefully I will have a Christmas Bay trio soon for comparison - I will post up the pic comparison to test your theory!

[karstopo]

I looked at some old photos of trout from various places around Brazoria county. I can't really tell the difference between them. They do overall seem to have less spots than photos of the ones I've seen from the lower coast and other regions like Florida.

[Drifting Yak]

Nice post Ken!
Funny how it goes - two people fish the same area with different results. Ken caught keeper specs while I did not. I caught keeper reds and he did not. I even jumped, with his agreement, right into his new spec pattern. Same exact spot, same exact bait and yet I caught nothing there! Cannot complain though because two very nice reds had already joined my net (26" & 27"). Pic below.

One thing that we've been doing this winter is covering a ton of water and exploring new areas (covered some 10 miles in 9 hours yesterday). We've also paid close attention to Tobin's Trout Support videos and things are starting to take shape - at least we hope we can apply what we've learned! Yesterday was a good example. We've hit Dalehite many times over the years but on this trip Ken found a new area for specs. Funny thing is that it's been there all along but somehow our fishing lens has changed and it stood out. What's wonderful is that for this area to produce the conditions (temps, wind, tides, etc.) have to be just right. And yesterday everything lined up and we found 'em! I guess the point is to learn and then go test your knowledge. Then rinse and repeat.

As for the reds their colors were beautiful and they are starting to pack it on. Too bad the Lone Star Kayak Series wasn't yesterday because these beauties had the weight!

Spring is just around the corner so get out there and get you some....

[YakRunabout]

Great reds, Mike -a pair like that does come around too often! Congrats

[YakRunabout]

As for the blue bellied red aspect - it may be a case of once you have one you see them all over.
Here are a couple of reds from Anahuac last fall - with a bit of the blue belly as well!!

[Cityfisher]

Ya'll covered some water! And it payed off. Good report.

I always find it interesting the different shades fish will have. Just this Saturday I caught a few crappie and they were all dark colored. My friend caught one about an hour later about 100 yards away and it was white. I have heard there are white and black crappie but I thought it was strange that close together. Then after sitting on ice overnight the white one was just as dark as the dark ones I caught. hmmm

[karstopo]

Those are some stout redfish. They would be money fish for sure. How nice is it to fish a place repeatedly and then discover some new hotspot?

[Ron Mc]

fish change colors - they have blend colors, aggression colors, spawning colors - they turn them on and off, if their metabolism is up, they can turn the on and off like a strobe light.
There are strain colors that can be very defined, but there are also colors that they all share and are a reaction to their environment.