karstopo
Well-known member
My friend and I went out on his Blue Wave center console yesterday. We cleared the mouth of The Brazos River just after sunrise. Several hundred yards offshore of the mouth, a large, long sand bar has formed. We took a look at that, but didn’t see a lot of bait activity so we made way to the beach south.
The beach to the south of the Brazos is inaccessible and uninhabited. Usually, the only way there is by boat. The beach trends to the southwest and hits the mouth of the San Bernard River and then past Cedar Lake Cut on down to the town of Sargent at Caney Creek. There’s about 20 miles of coastline in there devoid of human structures. It’s always a little different each time I go out there. This time, the mouth of the San Bernard looks to be sealed shut, but was open earlier this year. The two cuts to Lost Lake are now closed and the lake looks dried up. We didn’t get as far as Cedar Cut, but based on the complete lack of 4 x 4 vehicles on the beach, I’m guessing it’s still open. The large sand bar out in front of the Brazos is pretty recent and it’s as far offshore as my friend can remember. There’s now a good sized lagoon behind the bar. Some years, there’s no bar and no lagoon.
So we started off fishing the beach to the south. There were a couple of other boats around, but plenty of room to maneuver and fish. There was just a small break in the surf. The water was almost smooth with little rolling waves of about a foot. Here the water was sandy and visibility poor. I caught the first fish of the day, a nice 2# Speckled trout on a pink Borski Slider. My friend was using a bone colored skitterwalk topwater plug. He soon got an identical trout on his plug.
We kept working the shoreline moving south. In some places, there were deeper guts or bars that nosed out a little way offshore. At one point, we went after some birds dipping down in a school of bait being. The water cleared as we moved south.
All this moving around and fishing different structures resulted in fish being caught. Most of the fish were caught on plugs and lures cast from the baitcasting rigs. I fished my 8/9 weight Short Stix the majority of the time. I netted 3 Speckled Trout from 2-3 pounds, a couple of small Whiting, a tiny hardhead catfish, and two 30” sharks, one that was foul hooked. Those fish came on the fly rod and I probably tried 5 different fly patterns. The best pattern turned out to be something I call a silver wired slider. It’s very shiny. The only reason I tried it was that my friend was tearing up the fish on a silver metal spoon.
He caught 12-13 Speckled trout to about 4 pounds. He caught 3 nice slot redfish, several ladyfish, a Spanish mackerel, a gafftop and a few sharks. The water got much clearer down the beach and over the bar at the mouth of the Brazos. Most of out fish were caught in the clear water, but there was one little stretch of muddy water that was productive, too. In the clear water, I had several trout follow the borski sliders I tried, but fail to commit.
The bar at the mouth of the river was absolutely loaded with sharks. We could see them below and around the boat. The biggest we saw might have been five feet. We finished the morning on that bar. I caught all but the first Speckled trout on the bar. I caught two on a plug there and 2 on the silver slider. The fish were hugging the edge of a drop off that went from about two feet to seven in a hurry.
We both were wore out by about 12:30. The fish were still biting, but we had had enough. I had to fly cast most of the day at the extreme end of my range. I took breaks here and there and fished the baitcasting gear. Just before hitting the bar at the mouth, we cruised around for a few minutes offshore in about 20 feet of water looking for Tarpon, Spanish Mackerel, or triple tail. All we saw were dolphins and an airborne eagle ray.
It was any interesting day. I’ve got some new ideas to try on my next batch of wired sliders. I’m not sure why the trout wouldn’t commit to the borski sliders I tried. The flies had been working well. I tried another normally productive Steve Farrar blend baitfish pattern, but got a follow on that with no commitment. I tried a shrimp fly and that was a bust. I had a couple of pretty big deceivers in the box that I now wished I would have tried. Sometimes, I get a little hard headed about refusing to abandon previously productive patterns.
I like doing these port mortems after a trip. “Next time, I’ll be ready” kind of stuff. Maybe some new twist on an old pattern will work out. I guess I’ll have to find out the next time.
The beach to the south of the Brazos is inaccessible and uninhabited. Usually, the only way there is by boat. The beach trends to the southwest and hits the mouth of the San Bernard River and then past Cedar Lake Cut on down to the town of Sargent at Caney Creek. There’s about 20 miles of coastline in there devoid of human structures. It’s always a little different each time I go out there. This time, the mouth of the San Bernard looks to be sealed shut, but was open earlier this year. The two cuts to Lost Lake are now closed and the lake looks dried up. We didn’t get as far as Cedar Cut, but based on the complete lack of 4 x 4 vehicles on the beach, I’m guessing it’s still open. The large sand bar out in front of the Brazos is pretty recent and it’s as far offshore as my friend can remember. There’s now a good sized lagoon behind the bar. Some years, there’s no bar and no lagoon.
So we started off fishing the beach to the south. There were a couple of other boats around, but plenty of room to maneuver and fish. There was just a small break in the surf. The water was almost smooth with little rolling waves of about a foot. Here the water was sandy and visibility poor. I caught the first fish of the day, a nice 2# Speckled trout on a pink Borski Slider. My friend was using a bone colored skitterwalk topwater plug. He soon got an identical trout on his plug.
We kept working the shoreline moving south. In some places, there were deeper guts or bars that nosed out a little way offshore. At one point, we went after some birds dipping down in a school of bait being. The water cleared as we moved south.
All this moving around and fishing different structures resulted in fish being caught. Most of the fish were caught on plugs and lures cast from the baitcasting rigs. I fished my 8/9 weight Short Stix the majority of the time. I netted 3 Speckled Trout from 2-3 pounds, a couple of small Whiting, a tiny hardhead catfish, and two 30” sharks, one that was foul hooked. Those fish came on the fly rod and I probably tried 5 different fly patterns. The best pattern turned out to be something I call a silver wired slider. It’s very shiny. The only reason I tried it was that my friend was tearing up the fish on a silver metal spoon.
He caught 12-13 Speckled trout to about 4 pounds. He caught 3 nice slot redfish, several ladyfish, a Spanish mackerel, a gafftop and a few sharks. The water got much clearer down the beach and over the bar at the mouth of the Brazos. Most of out fish were caught in the clear water, but there was one little stretch of muddy water that was productive, too. In the clear water, I had several trout follow the borski sliders I tried, but fail to commit.
The bar at the mouth of the river was absolutely loaded with sharks. We could see them below and around the boat. The biggest we saw might have been five feet. We finished the morning on that bar. I caught all but the first Speckled trout on the bar. I caught two on a plug there and 2 on the silver slider. The fish were hugging the edge of a drop off that went from about two feet to seven in a hurry.
We both were wore out by about 12:30. The fish were still biting, but we had had enough. I had to fly cast most of the day at the extreme end of my range. I took breaks here and there and fished the baitcasting gear. Just before hitting the bar at the mouth, we cruised around for a few minutes offshore in about 20 feet of water looking for Tarpon, Spanish Mackerel, or triple tail. All we saw were dolphins and an airborne eagle ray.
It was any interesting day. I’ve got some new ideas to try on my next batch of wired sliders. I’m not sure why the trout wouldn’t commit to the borski sliders I tried. The flies had been working well. I tried another normally productive Steve Farrar blend baitfish pattern, but got a follow on that with no commitment. I tried a shrimp fly and that was a bust. I had a couple of pretty big deceivers in the box that I now wished I would have tried. Sometimes, I get a little hard headed about refusing to abandon previously productive patterns.
I like doing these port mortems after a trip. “Next time, I’ll be ready” kind of stuff. Maybe some new twist on an old pattern will work out. I guess I’ll have to find out the next time.
