Galveston Bay 4-19-09 (near the causeway)

[JMiller]

Well, I finally got to get out of the house and wet a line even though the northwest wind was absolutely brutal. I had not fished in about 3 weeks so I didn't know what to expect. I was thinking that all of the rain that we had yesterday might have messed up the fishing.

I launched around 6:30 am and paddled out to my spot only to find muddy water and relatively large waves. Things were looking bad, real bad. Thick fog moved into the area and for about 1 hour, I was completely lost and disoriented so I dropped the anchor and waited it out. After the fog lifted, I was able to locate the shore and found a semi-protected spot near the rock groins. The bite was slow for about an hour and there was no tidal movement. Around 9:30 am the tide started coming in and it brought in some of the best looking water color I've seen in Galveston Bay in quite some time. I immediatley began getting good hook ups only to be cut off within a couple seconds. I realized it was a huge school of spanish mackeral and some of the biggest I've seen. Some of them were going airborne busting shad and glass minnows. They were just shredding my 40 lb. mono leader and after losing about 10 hooks and leader to those guys, I focused my attention closer to the rocks.

Using touts, white Gulp! pogeys, and TTK lures, I managed 5 flounder ranging from 16"-19". I free-lined the remaining live shrimp I had and caught 3 trout ranging from 17"-20" and missed a few nice ones. The bite shut down around 11:30 am.

The highlight, or should I say the "scare" of the day was the arrival of a HUGE bull shark that began circling my kayak. It wanted my stringer of tasty trout and flounder really bad. I immediately threw the fish in my front storage hatch and proceeded back to the launch as quickly as I could paddle. The brutal northwest wind made the long trip back just that more stressful.

All in all, it was an exciting and exhausting day on the water and I'm grateful for catching the fish that I did. Honestly, I was smelling skunk when I left the house. This was one of those times I'm glad I convinced myself to go fishing.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

-Jantzen

[immadmacs]

Very nice catch and report. Too bad you didn't have a steel leader for the macs.

[Phishtech]

Nice catch and way to stick it out and catch some fish.

[dlsalva]

where are there rock groins near the causeway?

[Milkjug]

Very nice catching, you tore them up!

[finfisher]

where are there rock groins near the causeway?

Thinking the same thing

Nice catch and report

[BullyARed]

Very good story Jantzen. You are flounder master. I ougth to get some lessons from you. Yes master.
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[paddle-4-fish]

Are those rock groins out past Swan Lake entrance?

[GHSmacker]

Really nice stringer...especially for today. Thanks for the report.

[Night Wing]

I'm hoping the huge spanish mackerel you saw are the some of the large spanish mackerel that make their presence known down at Surfside. Those spanish mackerel, some of them will crowd 30" in length down there.

[JMiller]

Are those rock groins out past Swan Lake entrance?

Yes, I was in the deep gut next to the rock groin (first of the 5 rock groins I believe). It was just about the only spot protected enough to fish.

[barrytx05]

Nice report

[davewave12]

First time I went saltwater yak fishing, I bought a bunch or pre-fabed steel leaders, my very experienced fishing partner sneered at the store bought leaders. Twenty minutes into the trip, I had landed 4 nice Smacks and a 30" nurse shark, he had been cut off at least a half dozen times and was running short on leaders. He paddled over and asked "hey you got any more of those steel leaders?" I still raz him about that today

[Forever Fishing]

Thanks for sharing that excellent report. Well done!