Pier Pressure

After a relatively long work week, the call of the salt water beckoned to us for an evening trip to Palacios to plumb the depths of Tres Palacios Bay for speckled trout.

The last time we visited the City by the Sea, there were several lights burned out on the 1st Street Pier so I called City hall to inquire about the status of the replacements. I was plesantly surprised to hear that the work order had been sent out weeks before and that the lights should all be working.

Our plan included finding a low fat supper a the Outrigger but upon arrival, we soon learned that this one time restaurant was now a bar & grill with emphasis on the former and with only a few non-fried items on the latter.

We opted for plan "B" and went to Baytown Seafood for some boiled shrimp and some grilled shrimp, scallops, and flounder. After supper and the traditional strawberry-banana smoothie from Sonic, we headed to the seawall to fish some dead shrimp on the bottom for the remaining hour of daylight.

A brisk wind was blowing as predicted by the weather forcasts but our hopes were that things would calm down after the sun went below the horizon. There were a few clouds in the area but no threat of rain so we were looking forward to a nice warm summer evening.




We didn't find any fish along the wall so we moved out to the end of the pier and immediatly begfan catching yellowtail, croaker, grunts and the occational black drum like this dark colored one.




While we waited for the coming darkness, we fought several major battles with the local gafftop catfish. Tracy displays the biggest one she caught...



When the sun finally slipped out of sight we changed to the double shad rigs and cast into the lights.



At first there didn't seem to be a trout within 5 miles of the pier and casting a light rig into the wind began to take its toll on the enthusiasm of the pier fishermen. Finally, even though the wind continued to blow, some trout moved in and began chasing bait in the lights.



We each caught some nice specks and a few sandy's but nothing big enough to bring home. A large group arrived during a lull in the bite and we rolled up and headed for home. All in all it was a good evening of fishing and the Braves were playing a late game against the Padres which we were able to pick up on the XM radio. - Bonus!