A trip month’s in development has finally concluded last weekend. Mark and I planned a trip to the Land Cut for some time now. Mark hasn’t lived in Texas very long and his first sight fishing experience was a trip he made to Land Cut last fall with his buddies Chuck and Randy. Ever since that trip he talked about how incredible the fishing was down south. I’ve fished all over the Texas Coast, excluding the Land Cut/Baffin area, and I love fishing new areas, so a talk of a trip to the area was intriguing.
Mark talked to Chuck on several occasions and convinced Chuck to let us stay at his cabin over the weekend. Chuck and a few of his buddies, including Tobin from Trout Support, were planning to make the trek south too. The trip south is a long haul from Southeast Texas. Mark and I left early Friday morning. After a few pit stops to pick up Mark’s boat, load up food and extra fuel we made it to ramp with about an hour left of daylight. Mark wasn’t certain how to make the hour run to avoid rough water so we followed the channel all the way there. The ride started off rough but we cruised through mostly smooth waters until we got to the mouth of Baffin Bay. We took it easy crossing Baffin because of the swells that built in the area due to the wind. Once we passed Baffin the ride was to the cabin effortless.
We arrived at the cabin right at dark. We unloaded our heavily packed boat and relaxed after the rough ride. The pier lights came on shortly after our arrival and they were boiling with bait and exploding trout. We all caught as many trout as we cared to catch. We talked about the game plan the following morning and called it a night. We got a late start the first morning after a good breakfast.
The first day was tough. We ran all over the place looking for fish but we never found any concentrations. We spotted a few singles here and there but between three boats and two kayaks around a dozen fish on the day. The tides were running low and the only reliable bite was in the deep dirty water. We made the run south to sight fish so we left those fish alone but one of Chuck’s buddies on another boat caught a good number of fish in the dirty water blind casting.
We called it a day a little early to play rings and horseshoes after getting our asses handed to us. We were left perplexed. We ran all over the place and barely saw anything. Our best guess was all the fish were hiding in the open, dirty water and not the clean water near the shorelines. Mark stated several times that we should run back to the Upper Coast and fish our home waters. He felt we could catch and see more fish in marsh. He didn’t realize how good the fishing was in his backyard until after got a taste of the marshes on the Upper Coast and compared them to his trip the Land Cut last fall.
The next day we planned accordingly. We planned to start in the dirty water where we knew there were fish. We found fish as soon as we started looking in the dirty water. I put the kayak in the water while everyone else was fishing out of the boat. The water was clean enough for us to see the fish but skies started off overcast which made seeing them a little tough. We caught several reds up to 28” with some trout mixed in on topwaters and plastics. We moved around a few times and set up long drifts over the stained water. We caught fish on each drift. I found an area loaded with black drum that were tailing over grass patches in about 1’ of water. Most were single fish but there were some small pods cruising around too. I caught about half a dozen on flies and plastics.
Mark and I called it day after noon because we had to make the long haul back to Houston. Chuck and the gang stay out there until dark picking up scattered fish. We made it back home late Sunday night. We never found the monster reds I’ve heard so much about but it was enjoyable trip. Not complaints here. The fishing was decent, the food (fresh fish or steak each night) was good and the company was great. Meeting and hanging out with Chuck and the other guys was worth the price of admission. I had a blast. I am ready to make another trip south, so I can get another shot at a bull on the fly rod.
I shot a bunch of video and I should have something together in the next couple of days.
