Broke Down Blues & Learning From Others
As summer began I was looking forward to all the opportunities that it provides on our part of the coast. I was eagerly looking forward to catching solid numbers of trout along the jetties and then turning around to go look for other fish. Mid-summer provides a perfect chance for an angler to test their gear and stamina on a big ol’ jack crevalle. This is not something I want to do all day but it is definitely worth doing at least once a trip…just to get the blood flowing. I’ve always joked that there’s no need for coffee or the gym as long as jacks are around. On top of all of that, this is the best chance of the year to catch tripletail. Not only are they fun and exciting to catch, they are also the best table fare that exists for inshore fish on the Texas coast.
Well, just as the season was going to kick off in earnest, my boat started to give me some problems and throwing some codes. After looking into it myself I figured that it was out of my realm of knowledge and decided to take it to the professionals. I dropped it off with hopes that they could find the issue and fix it properly. However, the way my luck has been running, parts have been back ordered and the problem was not a quick and easy fix. Now that I have been without of a boat, I decided to put my truck in the shop to get a nasty dent fixed. They told me it was going to be around 30 days and we are creeping up on that date quickly. So now I am left with only my rental car, a Kia Soul, which severely inhibits my fishing. I can’t exactly strap a kayak on the roof of it and driving to the beach with this thing is out of the question for fear of getting stuck in the sand. Trust me, when I say I have the Broke Down Blues!
Even though I am out of commission with my own equipment, I still have rods and reels and all that goes with them, and a few friends that have boats. Since jumping on another’s boat and watching them play captain I have picked up a few new things that were worth learning. This has given me an opportunity to sit back and analyze what others do and look at fishing from a new angle.
Once summer begins I constantly study the long-range forecast, eagerly awaiting the first northerly breezes to reach the Upper Coast. We were blessed with such an event recently and, of course, I was sick with my boat being in the shop and all. However, a guy I met a little while back has been wanting to go fishing as he recently bought a new Sabine skiff this year. He reached out to me and wanted to know if I wanted to hop on and go look for tripletail. I agreed without hesitation and we took off.
Feeling up for a challenge, we both decided to bring only fly gear on this trip. I have targeted tripletail on the fly before and it is one the toughest fish you can ever hope to catch. The cast has to be accurate and the fish can be really picky when the fly arrives. I have always thrown a shrimp pattern and tended to stay away from anything too flashy. Lucas, my new fishing buddy, agreed on the minimum flash, but he had chosen a streamer fly with a piece of furry rabbit. This gave the fly a lot of movement in the water, even when it wasn’t being stripped. I can say that the fish really preferred that fly over mine. After seeing it in action I realized that there was a need to change out all my tripletail flies for something similar with a lot of movement. It was a great lesson to learn.
Earlier this year, my buddy Chad decided to get himself a little Jon boat. He wanted to be able to bring his wife along, still with a boat small enough to access the backwater areas that we regularly kayak. We finally got some time off together and wanted to go run some marsh. Turns out that Chad took me to some marsh country I had never fished, although I had kayaked and fished extensively a few miles to the south.
We took off and began to fish once we’d made our way into some of the backwater areas. He showed me where the water comes in from the backwater channels and how it flows through the series of ponds we were fishing. He also showed me where the grass grows and how it changes throughout the year. All of this information was most welcome as I can relate it to other areas I have fished and compare it with other systems that are similar.
We also had a chance to compare the knowledge we’ve gained and put two and two together. He told me that he gets stumped as to where the fish go when the water gets high; it’s as if they disappear. I laughed and I told him I know exactly where they go and that they were likely in the main ditch to the south, by the ponds I love to fish. It is as if the high water spooks them off the flats and they head for areas they perceive to be safer, closer to the main bodies of water.
These are just a handful of things I have learned this summer and they have already proven quite helpful. I have always been a big proponent of trying to learn as much as you can about the areas you fish and species you target most often. Sometimes the best learning experiences come from times you were never expecting. So, the moral of this story is this; Just because your boat and truck are out of commission is no reason for not getting out there.
No matter the circumstances, always strive to learn.