Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving at Palacios

Everybody declined my offer to take a ride to Palacios looking for night time speckled trout. Something about the north wind blowing and the temps dropping into the 40's...

Go figure.

That is just the combination that brings the larger specks into the bay and up under the lights to feed.

I arrived at the pier at 7pm and there were several fishermen out on this holiday evening with the same idea as me. I heard a lot of, "You should have been here yesterday," from the locals. They said the bite was hot just ahead of the cold front. We saw the leading edge of the front at about 7pm in Needville so I guess things can change a lot in 24 hours.

I was getting outfished by everyone on the pier. My confidence bait, the Texas Tackle Factory double shad rig was doing OK and my go-to bait for trout off the sea wall, the TTF Little Spec Killer caught a couple, but the color that seemed to be best was anything small and chartreuse.

I was travelling light and had left my usual arsenal of small stuff at home so I had to make do with what I had.

"Dance with the one that brought you," so to speak.

A couple of keepers had been landed before I arrived but they were just barely legal. I caught several in the 14' to 14 7/8" range and a few sandys but couldn't connect with anything over 15".

I did manage to snap a shot of this pretty speck:

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I saw my friend Tony from Pearland fishing with live finger mullet and having about the same luck as me. He said there were some nice trout caught off the wall in front of the Baptist Encampment just before dark along with a couple fat reds, one of which was currently in his cooler. He also told of some folks who had caught several sheepshead on shrimp along the seawall before dark as well.

I hooked something big enough to straighten out one of the 1/16 oz jigheads on the double shad rig - most likely a flounder, and lost a couple of trout that might have made the stringer, but at 10:30 I rolled everything up and headed for home to make my agreed upon curfew of midnight.

As I was thinking about all the good fish that would be caught by those that stayed, it started raining. Sometimes there is wisdom in making it a short night!

Thanks to a loving wife who keeps me from losing all good judgement - which I am prone to do when it comes to fishing.

Proverbs 12:15

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,
But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.

2 comments:

Bawana said...

Sounds like a classic case of zigging when their zagging. Must be quite the crew down there, pretty serious about their fishing. Check out the Camping Champs when you get a chance.

Paul Batchelder said...

Yes it was quite a few days in the woods too..I do not have a box stand so I was under the stars..and rain all week!