As Charlie & I traversed the Galveston Causeway about 12:30am, we tried repeatedly to hail Watson, possibly below (?), on Marine Radio channel 67. We also honked our horns like crazy, a trick gleaned from Capt. Shoffer to honor the brave Causeway fishermen! But Watson remained incognito!
I was low on small plastic night lures & had heard my Plastic Navy extol their beloved "tandem rigs," so Capt. Charlie (recently promoted) kindly gave me the killer homemade double rig pictured below.
No kidding, at the first available underwater light, my first cast quickly hooked up TWO 18" redfish pulling hard against me & each other. After 3 drag-screaming runs, one of them broke off, but I landed her identical twin with Kickingback laughing himself silly. He had to say: " See how good my tandems work?" Is that considered "needling?" Yes, men, I will never again night-fish without a tandem rig. I'm sold.
Too bad that was the only fish I hooked or caught for the next 8 hours! Charlie managed a couple of 14" speck throwbacks, but he blew my mind with his fancy new Garmin LiveScope which is the most sophisticated fish finder I've ever seen. He showed me actual specks & redfish on his screen visible from over 100 ft. away on a side-scan! Is that cheating?
So why no legal fish? Let's ask Shoffer & Watson, ha ha. Maybe we were wisecracking & yukking it up too much to land solid fish! I did manage to take myself a refreshing one-hour Man-Nap. But Kickingback educated me, them showed me, an entire new area of lighted canals east of Lake Como called Lafitte's Cove! And the bay houses are fabulous!
It's too far to comfortably pedal or paddle there from Waterman's Restaurant, but Kickingback towed me under battery power to explore it. We found the long canal of lights there seemed BETTER than the lights we always fish at Lake Como, Sea Isle & Jamaica Beach! The canal at 5+ feet average depth is slightly deeper, & there are no other fishermen or boaters that we always encounter elsewhere. The residents there seem old, rich & always inside their mansions. Perfect!
The Lafitte underwater lights are bright, are staked out on both sides of the main wide canal, & were holding scores of big reds & specks we could see circling the lights.
Problem was we dragged several of our best lures right across their paths & got no bites. Such strange things happen but I predict a return trip there when Shoffer gets home.
Check out Kickingback's killer tandem rig, below. Hope to see you soon on the dark & fertile waters.
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