The moral of yesterday’s fishing story is. . .”At least I got to be on the water.” Or at least that is how my wife phrased it in her text reply to me. It was just one of those days where nothing was going to go as planned and at a certain point I just started preparing for the worst instead of acting surprised when it happened.
It all started on Monday when I began checking the forecast to determine what day this week would be the best day to hunt for tailing reds in the marsh. I had a new area in Matagorda I have been wanting to explore and my week was pretty wide open. As of Monday, Tuesday, and early Wednesday it appeared that Thursday was going to be my best day. It looked like there would be a decent window in the morning when the wind would be less than 15mph and that was all I needed to make the call.
Fast forward to Thursday morning >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am sitting in my driveway, loaded up and ready to head out. Radio on, hot cup of coffee in my hand and the daily forecast pulled up on my phone. WHAT THE . . . 22mph with gust up to 27mph ALL DAY! What happened to my window? This was the first of several surprises that would seemingly follow me for the rest of the trip.
I arrived at the launch around 5:30 and was off paddling by 6:00. It looked like the tide was extremely low, but it was dark and I wasn’t familiar with the area so I decided to press on. It didn’t take me long to realize I h
ad been poling through mud for the last 800 yards or so and according to Google Earth I should have been in the deepest section of the canal. After passing my third drain that was completely blown out I made the decision to cut my losses and relocate.
When I returned to the truck I thought I would try to save time and just cart my yak, fully loaded, back to the truck and try to keep things intact as much as possible. The drive to my next location would not be a long one and I could just drive slowly. My plan was going perfectly until half way to the truck my cart broke. Please fill in the bank with any expletives that come to mind, I assure you I did. I made an attempt to “engineer” things back into working order, but it was to no avail. So at 7 am, instead of fishing, I am lugging my things back to my truck so that I can load up my now EMPTY kayak and change locations.
Half strapped with my gear just thrown all over the bed of my truck I head off to my next spot. When I finally get things ready to go, for the second time, I am greeted with a wonderful sight W-A-T-E-R! Who knew you needed this stuff to kayak? I paddled to a familiar location that usually holds a few fish and set up my first drift. The wind was howling and I was really glad I remembered to grab my drift sock. At the end of a 45 minute drift I had nothing. Not even a blowup. So I headed off to find some more protected water.
I pretty quickly decided that it was just not going to be my day and with the super low tides I converted my fishing trip into a research trip. I started taking picture of points, deep cuts and shell reefs. I made note of their stop and starts, referenced them with familiar landmarks and even made guesstimates about their distance away from nearby shorelines. I have fished this particular location dozens of times, but I was still able to discover a few things that I had not previously known. I even played around with some new camera angles for the go pro.
In summary, the day started out as a disaster and had I not refocused it probably would have ended that way as well. However, once I realized that the current conditions gave me a great opportunity to gain some valuable information about one of my favorite fishing spots I decided to enjoy the outdoors and take what mother-nature gave me. After all “At least I got to be on the water.”
| Wind | Tide | Weather | Baro | Depth | Bottom | Lures |
| 25+ MPH | Outgoing w/Small Differential | Sunny | Steady | 6”-3 FT | Mixed Mud & Shell | Skitterwalk KFM Down South |
Texas Flat Rat 