Blow Me Down

Our holiday house guests headed for home this morning and before long I had the yaks loaded and we were on the way to PPRV #7. We had a great visit with Matt & Carly and it was tough to say goodbye but school starts Monday and, like it or not, all good things must come to an end.

I read on TKF last night that the weather predictions for the weekend were bleak and the local weatherman confirmed that a cold front was heading our way. It hit Needville between the time I got the Jeep loaded and when we left. The temperature dropped significantly and the wind switched to the north. We probably should have stayed home but sometimes I have more desire than sense when it comes to fishing.

We could see the leading edge of the front as we drove south and finally caught up to it just before we got to Matagorda.

There was some light rain falling where the cold air and warm humid air interfaced. We hit a pocket of air near the front line that caused all of our windows to fog up almost instantly.

We drove to McNab to check on the water level and saw this cute calf along the way.

Mama & friend are keeping a close watch on "Blanco" the baby bull.

We say another unusual sight on the way through town. I guess Peafowl crossing the street in the middle of the day could be considered unusual - even for Matagorda.

The hen was getting her feathers ruffled over my picture taking.

As a tier of fishing flies, I must admit I was eying those tail feathers!

The water was low at McNab and the wind was really blowing so we decided to fish from the bank until lunchtime and see if things would settle down before launching the yaks. We had just a couple of nibbles on the Gulp but no hookups.

After lunch we took a drive to the beach. The tide must have been high a time or two in the last week as the beach was as flat as a pool table. We drove about 7 miles from the access road and I hopped out a couple of times to search for beans but Tracy wasn't too keen on the 15-20 mph north wind that was blowing sand back into the Gulf while cutting the tops off the breakers.

After returning from the beach, I was convinced that launching the kayaks in this wind would be more foolish than making camping stoves out of soup cans so I opted instead to try my hand at cast netting up some bait.

Throwing a cast net in 20 mph wind has it's own challenges and though I didn't find any bait initially, I was successful at capturing some shad and finger mullet at the McNab bridge.

The live bait proved to be the ticket for tempting the redfish along the rocks.

I caught several small fish, lost two keepers and finally got one that was picture worthy. He was two inches shy of the slot but gave me a good fight and posed like he was a trophy.

Remember to wet your knots! I tied on new hooks on an 18"- 20lb mono leader and got in a rush since it was cold and I wanted to fish. One of the bigger fish I lost pulled the improved clinch knot out and the other one broke me off just as I was about to lift him clear of the rocks. I have a long handled net just for this purpose and you can bet that I will be keeping it handy in the future. When the big boy broke off I was standing right over him and contemplated jumping in and trying to grab him but better sense prevailed this time and I watched him swim away instead.

Tracy was cold but hung in there and finally connected with this pretty red. You can see the shad on the bucket that this guy fell for.

We are all ready for some decent weekend weather for a change. I think Tracy looks good in wool but we could do without the wind.

I'm getting a workout loading and unloading the boats!