Smells Fishy To Me

Sinton, Texas
Rob Bessie Welder RV Park

A trip to Mustang Island State Park was chosen for the excitement today. It turned out to be a long day of great fun. After lunch at my favorite diner in Flour Bluff, the Whataburger, tracks were made to the bayside access at the state park. Along the way it was noticed that there were a lot of folks fishing Packery Channel. On the way home it was noticed that the tide was flooding in and swamped most of the area the folks had been standing on to fish earlier.

The road into the access area is worse than was reported a few blog entries back. Today a couple of pictures of the “road” were taken before the truck got too far into the access. It is very rough and REQUIRES high clearance vehicles, but not 4x4. By taking it slowly nothing was damaged on the truck or in the truck. This is one reason for my affection with this large truck.

After securing a good spot to park away from tidal encroachments, some exploring on foot was done. A walk around a bend in the sand and on to the north led to a salt marsh lagoon. The double track led around it. Dave, you will hear about him in a minute, told me that the double track goes on for a long ways and years ago he used to fish in there.

In this area were some extremely fragrant flowers. The fragrance caught my attention well out on the beach area. Upon following my nose for many feet, this set of bushes in bloom came into view. They are the culprit.

While wandering back to the truck, a stop was made to visit with a fisherman who was named Dave. He had moved back here from many years in California. We talked about many things as he caught several fish too small by an inch or two to be legal to keep. When he ran out of bait, he left and my efforts at catching a fish at the same spot yielded nothing.

While frothing the water to no avail, it was noticed that some kayak fishermen were headed in for the day. It turned out to be Steve and his sister. It was her first time to be in a yak and fish from a yak. From what Steve said she did very well. They only brought in three fish, of the many they caught, for the table. However they were nice fish. These are called redfish down here in Texas. Other places may call them channel bass. Most of us call them delicious.

Before Steve put them into the ice chest, he verified them to be legal with his measuring device. After some pleasant visiting and packing of their truck, they took off for home. But only after he was polite enough to tell me where to paddle my yak to to catch fish like his.
Steve had torn two lures from his rods while packing up. Somehow they ended up in my pocket. After a few more casts with my lures, the discarded ones were tried. Immediately redfish started hitting my lure. Within a few minutes too many fish were caught to keep count.

Swapping to the other lure only increased the catching. Finally the volunteer lures were torn to shreds and mine was tried again. No Luck. None my fish that were landed were legal length. They were only in the three to five pound size.

On the other hand at least three were temporarily hooked and brought in close enough to see well. They were actually too large for my rod to handle. It looks like a new fishing rod for heavier than eight pound test line is in order.

After a while it was getting chilly and my stomach was growling. It seemed strange since it was obvious that my stomach, which had been fed about 11:30 am and it had to bee about 2:30 now, had no business growling. Since it was getting cool, the gear was put away in the truck in preparation to leaving. When the truck was started it was 5:10 to my surprise. When time gets away from you like that, you know you have almost had tooooo much fun. TheOFM.