TexasKayakFisherman.com

On my last visit to the Port Aransas area I managed to get out on one glassy morning and snoop around LHL, but didn't manage to actually catch a red. Saw them tailing in a few areas and stung a couple on a topwater fly, but no fish to hand

Looks like I'll have another chance on the Friday/Saturday after Thanksgiving, but the tides don't look great, with low coming at 11:45 a. m./12:45 p. m., with a N breeze forecast for Friday. Am I right to think that isn't ideal? That you want to fish LHL on the high end of the tide?

If you have any advice to share with a visiting noob, he is all ears That's a really pretty area and a pleasure to paddle, but if I'm looking at marginal conditions, I might look at other spots, or go freshwater bass fishing instead.

Anytime at LHL is a good time. Extremely low tides are a problem (don't go when you can barley get in and the tide is falling!!). On week-ends during this time of the year I go late (not at sunrise); let the hunters have the 'first light' time (and safer).
good luck,
f

there are a few nice holes on LHL that are always good at low tide, if you know where to find them - check around duck blinds.
On the falling tide, the pass at maker 60 is the place to be, unless you can make it all the way across to the Lydia Ann cuts - I've been in jacks beating bait against that beach.

Thanks for the replies guys! One way or another I'll be out there paddling and hoping to fish . . . the wind prognosticators keep changing their minds (admittedly, it is still rather far off of next Friday), but at least it's not looking like 20+ mph.

Anyway, for a guy that grew up on the coast of Maine, mid-seventies on Thanksgiving weekend is a thing in itself

Fish the channels or pinch guts when the tide is super low.

If you don't have a trail map of LHL, Aransas Pass Chamber of Commerce/Visitor's Center across from H-E-B has a free map. Or, Dean at Slowride Guide Services sells a waterproof laminated one with B&R Flats on the flip side. For me, it's a necessity.

TexasJim

Tuesday (11-21-17) late morning was a great calm day for LHL. I was piddling from the bank in the park and two folks launched from the park at the end toward AP. They paddled across the channel in the falling tide and started into one of the many marsh outlets along there. They never made it more than a hundred feet into the outlet. For the next half hour before I left they caught speck after speck. I could not tell how big they were since all of them were unhooked next to the yak and not held up for the world to see. The violent headshaking is what makes me think specks. I was wishing I was healed so I could get over there.

Friday after the holiday was also a great day wind-wise, with a nice strong current running out from dawn to midafternoon when I quit.

No doubt, that area around marker 60 was full of speckled trout! Most were small, but I kept one respectable keeper for ceviche. They took both a little chartreuse popper and a sparse pinkish clouser. Great fun! I also saw a big redfish tail at one point, but no grabs right there. Further down toward Lydia Ann I did finally get a couple reds to hand on the clouser, both of them under legal size. The beach up on Lydia Ann near the lighthouse was full of bait, but no apparent feeding frenzy while I sat there resting for a half hour.

Went out on Saturday morning for more of the same, except for one cool and frustrating event: I saw a school of 6-10 reds come waking around that corner at marker 60 right at dawn, pushing big fat wakes and making my heart race . . . I got at least six decent shots at them, leading a fish with the popper, keeping it quiet until he just about got there -- but no dice! Maybe they just weren't feeding, or not aggressive enough for topwater? I switched out the popper for a shrimpy-looking fly as quick as I could, but they were gone.

Other reds I spotted in late morning were the kind that see you before you see them: spooked. On Saturday the wind was bad enough by 9:00 or so that casting a fly was work, so I bagged it and called it a nice couple of mornings in a really pretty, fishy place.