You Want to Know What?

There are numerous places that hold fish that not many folks know about. Bay wells are such places, especially the wells that have been pulled and the structure that once sat on top of the spot is now gone and there is no landmark to guide an angler. Those who know of these spots aren't telling or shouldn't unless they want 20 boats to be there the next time they visit.

Fishing reports used to be about bragging rights for those who enjoy that sort of thing. I would never put on an Internet chat board or in a magazine or anywhere else any certain spot that I like to fish and not expect others to heed that advice and go there. So be careful what information you give lest you find your favorite fishing hole covered up with boats on your next trip.

I'll gladly share the how's and why's, when's and what's with anyone but I'll leave it to you to burn your fuel and spend your time to find a good spot and then YOU can tell others about it if you wish. After all, fishing should be about adventure and exploration and not just a "honey hole" that someone else told you about. Or, you can hire a reputable guide and have him take you around and put you on fish then you can come back another time to the spots that he took you to.

It's getting harder to fish with all of the traffic and to quote a friend of mine, "it's almost like combat fishing" with all of the people zooming by you up shallow or pulling into the immediate area where you are fishing. So I'm going to tell you where I fish? Please.

Anyway, what brought on this little tirade was a question asked of me the other day by an acquaintance–not a friend, just someone I know and not that well either. He told me that he was going fishing in Port O'Connor in a few days and would like some information on what the fish were biting on, what time of day was best and where would be the best place to go. I told him that we had been fishing the bay wells in West Matagorda Bay lately and that I hadn't been fishing the back bays in POC for the past month or so. I told him that we had been having the best luck with 3/8-ounce lead heads combined with strawberry firetail touts fishing an incoming tide or a high tide. I told him that you could always find fish early in the mornings but that depending on the tide and such that the afternoons had been good as well if the wind didn't blow too hard. Then he asked me which well to fish and I told him to try different ones by drifting by it and finding the shell on the bottom with the lure or by actually picking up a fish on the drift. If he did pick up a fish to idle out away from the well and then come back to anchor where he could cast to the same location where he got his bite. Then he asked me which well and I told him that the wells we were fishing had no structure above the water and that we found them via our GPS since we had the numbers of the different locations. Then he asked me for the GPS coordinates for the best spot and I told him truthfully that I didn't memorize that information and gave him instructions on how to find a certain well that was easy to see and was a popular spot for catching Trout. He wasn't interested in that spot since it was "popular". He wanted to go where there wouldn't be a crowd. I couldn't help him beyond that and he even went so far as to ask me to look the GPS numbers up for him and call him on the phone and give them to him. I didn't do that.

Now some folks will say that's just being stingy or that it's not very sportsmanlike to not want to help a fellow fisherman out by giving him the locations to your favorite fishing holes. I don't see it that way.

There are few places left in the bay system that I grew up in where you won't get crowded out by the sight of a bent rod in your hands. So forgive me if I don't want to lead folks to those few places that I know of where I can actually catch some fish without having to deal with other lines crossing mine, other folks lures getting caught in my anchor line or just plane rude people who either don't know any better or simply don't care about the proper etiquette of fishing.

The first time I can remember fishing an old abandoned well pad was with my son and I and a friend of his in the boat. We were anchored out in the middle of the bay with nothing around us but water. Boats ran past us all morning, some actually changing course so as not to get too close to us. When we would hook up on a fish, if there was a boat within sight we would hold our rods down and keep the fish in the water and take the chance of losing the fish rather than have the occupants of the boat see us with a bent rod.

That morning when we were filleting fish at the cleaning table a guy came up to see our catch. He asked me where we had caught them and I told him at the bay wells. He didn't ask which well but he did say that he saw a boat that looked like mine anchored up in the middle of nowhere. I asked him what they were doing out in the middle of nowhere and he said, "beats me, I didn't want to get close enough to find out because if they were having engine trouble I didn't want to have to pull them in." Sad to say it's come to that, huh?

Combat fishing. I guess my friend was right when he made that comment and this is what fishing the bays has become.

Shame that.

Be safe,
Martin