Stars & Stripes kayak tournament

Having never fished Sabine before, I think we did ok. Both Steve and I studied bay maps, aerial photo's, and previous fishing reports to make a decision on our top spot.
Wind predictions were not favorable for just about any area. We decided on a marsh lake that was going to be somewhat protected and went to work.
Sabine's tides are a lot different than our home waters in galveston. The current was ripping through all the small marsh channels. it made it difficult to work any thing but tops.
I opted to make the paddle to the protected end of the lake and bounce a top water for a bit while steve stayed in the main channel. Bait was everywhere and I spied some nervous activity along the grass. As I was walking the dog along the edge I felt something bump my kayak, now this being so close to L.A. I thought alligator!!!
When I turned to see what it was there was only a mud swirl beside my yak. Thats when the first red nailed my lure. All i can think is that he was on a bee line towards the noisy plug and bumped my yak on his way by.
Whammo he 's on. this was a large red and the drag was screammin. i tightened up a tad and worked him back
to the kayak. When he saw me he made his second run and 2 hooks on the lure bent strait. wow what a dissapointment. i bent them back on the side of the yak and sent it back to the same area. another red was there waiting for the thing and the fight was on again. after the hook failure I loosened up un the drag a bit and let him run. i got this one, a nice fat 23.5 inch red.
we worked the shore for a bit more and there were a few small reds but no upgrades.
on the way to the weighin i could not help but think we were going to be way short on weight, considering that there were a lot of local and L.A. boys fishing this one.
it seem a lot of folks had the same slow day and TEAM GULF COAST RODS TAKES 2ND PLACE BIG RED.
I know one thing for sure, if your using powerpro MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GOOD HOOKS.

RANDALL

Pre tournament planning

Well steve and i have been at the planning board for weeks now and its on. I am sitting here about 8 hours from fishing the stars and stripes kayak fishing tournament. we believe that the spots that we have researched are on the mark.
this tournament is kayaks only and no boats to ferry us to the spot so it will be a 3.5 mile paddle for me first thing in the morning. i will be throwing tops till daylight, then switching to the pattented brown paddle tails to try and catch the alusive slam. 1 red 1 trout 1 flounder. i have been having visions of sugar plums dancing under the cake and ice cream with this weather we have had. it seems that the patterns have changed to the weekend warriors side.
if all goes as planned we will have some great photo's to post tomorrow. wish us luck and good night.

PICS

HERE YA GO

UPPER BAY TROUT

Well the weather has finally turned in our direction. I got out today and did a little kayaking. Man it is really nice out right now with the sun shining down on us and warming the flats. The fish are starting to thaw and bite again. We need about 2 weeks of this stoff and the fish will be in a full blown spring pattern. i threw brown lures all morning and had a few hits on the amber paddle tail but no commitments, so i switched to the cajun pepper and they started to play with me. i used the rockport rattler head in them to give it the little bit of noise and it worked i caught numerous fish in the 16 inch range and 6 in the larger size . released all but the 6 and let them swim to play another day. working the lures on the bottom and slow was the ticket today. the bite was soft and you can still tell the fish are cold. come on spring.
RANDALL

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Weather Patterns

It seems that the weather is not working for the weekend fisherman. having a daytime job does detour our fishing chances. The weather was perfect during the work week and i thought about getting the sniffles numerous times and takeing off. Being the dedicated employee that i am i did not do it. i have had reports from a few fellow anglers that the bait is comming back with all this warm weather. that is a great thing to hear. the last 3 times that the team went out we did not see even 1 mullet jump or any pods of bait. the weather is looking promising for sunday if you are a duck so having webbed feet i will be out. Master scuba has been stricken with a cold or some sort of bug so i will be going without him unless he has a miraculous recovery. the temps have been in the high 60's and some 70's and the water has warmed up enough for mabey even a top water bite. i will be primarily using the brown soft plastics in strawberry whipped cream and amber ch. full report after the trip.

lets all hope this crud goes away and the pattern of weekend rain and wind changes to during the week. it would be nice to have a great day on the water after all this gloomy stuff we have dealt with.

pics soon
Randall

Man its cold

OK we fished again today and finally found a fish or 2. they are mooving so slow that you can barely feel them bite.

capt. wayne said the water temp at the galv. channel is 48 deg. WOW.. thats cold stuff. the trout we caught today were frozen. I really believe that they were just biting out of instinct. i threw brown paddle tails and had a couple of hits early. the sun never came out from the clouds and it never had the chance to warm the flats.

as the story goes we fished 8 hours and had 3 fish to show. i finally caught a fish on the amber c/h mullet in the 8 ft. deep range. it was funny the way they were biting. i really think without the powerpro line i would not have felt the tap, cause thats all there was is a tap. if you did not set the hook emiediatly after the tap you missed the fish.
i see a turn in the weather coming soon and we will have a better report to show. here is a pic of the better fish

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Winter is tough

Winter time is a tough time to fish. We have had very little weather that is fishing friendly. Altho we have not sat at the house and wished that there was a windless and rainless day, it has been harsh and few and far between.
The S & S TOURNAMENT was no such exception. Winds were forcasted at north east at 15, we got to the spot of choice only to find winds north at 25. this made for adifficult paddle considering we planned for north east.
We fished a small reef that was getting blown hard. I threw a B&L cork lure for the first hour and decided to go to the bottom. i threw brown devil strawberry and whiped cream, amber , and the glow ch. the water temp was right at 48 deg. i knew i would have to hit the fish in the nose to get her to bite it and it did not happen. We redirected our search to a softer area and it was just as trecherous, the marsh was exposed to the wind and the tide was extreemly high for some reason. i could not figure out why we had a north wind and an extreemly high tide. must have been a moon thing. we found a great spring time area to kill the reds and flounder. they were not playing this day.

conclusion: Water temps at 48 fish do not move much.
lets all keep our fingers crossed that the rest of the winter is not so cold .
i have been through 2 fish kills in the bay system and all it takes is 42 degree water temp. since we are at 48 now i think another hard front will be the demise of some of our prized species.
have great day and keep the line tight.
we will catch something soon and give a full report

New Years Day Fishing Report

Happy New Year Everyone

Hit the water this morning around 7am . Today's goal was to catch photo and release a few specks. I was armed with nothing but Brown Lures and an assortment of jig heads both rattling, plain and varying in weight from 1/16 oz to 1/5 oz. I was fishing a mud bottom around 6' in depth and ambient air temp was about 50 degrees with a slight N-NW wind. There were two other waders in the area fishing live bait and didn't appear to be catching anything.Started out throwing B&L Original Small Tails in both Amber and Cajun Pepper with several trout hookups. Decided to tie on a Brown Lures Devil Eye in the Black Cat color. Immediately started catching trout this time in the 18" range. This continued until the wind started picking up. I decided to drift the wind back towards my launch area. Hook ups continued all the way back to the launch area while using the Devil Eye.

This is my first trip fishing exclusively with Brown Lures since Joining Team Gulf Coast Rods and I have developed the utmost confidence in Brown Lures ability to catch fish. It didn't make a difference what color I used or what weight jig head. They all caught fish so long as the retrieve was slow and erratic.

Tight Lines,

Ted