I can’t think of a more fitting way to end the fishing marathon also known as work than catching copious amounts of upper slot redfish on topwaters. I spent the last month all over the Coastal Bend from Corpus Christi to Rockport and the better part of three weeks as camp instructor for Outdoor Texas Kayak and Saltwater Camp. Fishing was exceptional for a majority of my stay in the area.
The final camp commenced this past Saturday, but I decided to stick around for a few days to relax and fish. It’s funny how my idea of relaxing after spending 23 out of the previous 25 days on the water is with more fishing. Some people might think I’m crazy or even clinically insane, but the fact of the matter is I love to fish. It’s my favorite pastime, more like obsession, and way to relax.
The topwater bite never really materialized even though the campers and instructors have caught a lot of fish on topwaters over the last several weeks. That was until recently when it finally exploded. What exploded? The topwater red fishing that is. Previously, I had been getting a lot of blowups and follows but not nearly as many hook-ups and landed fish as I am accustomed to this time of year.
Yesterday was one of the better topwater bites I’ve had all year long. Every few casts was met with an explosion for me or Mickey. We started fishing around 7:00am and the topwater bite lasted until 11:00am when the overcast skies cleared and the sun started beaming down on us with tenacious voracity. It was hot and humid all morning but bearable with the gray skies, but as soon as our veil lifted the bite turned off and temperature quickly became intolerable.
I wish I could tell you the fish were holding to a certain type of structure or near bait but the truth is we caught fish pretty much everywhere we went. We did start our fishing near areas where we found concentrations of bait and caught some fish, but we caught a majority of our fish where we saw no signs of baitfish activity. We drifted mostly 2’ – 3’ of water over grass and a few scattered potholes. We both caught our fish on a Heddon Super Spook Jr (Bone/Silver & White/Pink Head).
Tuesday also marked a milestone for me. I have now surpassed last year’s number of days on the water by 1 with a total of 95 and it’s only mid-august. Realistic or not my goal for the year was 125 days on the water, but truly I would have settled or been satisfied with a lot less. My goal looks to be very attainable at this point but I’m going to err on the side of caution because who knows what the future holds. I am just content with the fact that I was able to exceed last year’s figure.
I have a ton of pictures and footage, over 100 videos, which I took over the last month that I need to sort through and edit. As I get time I will be posting up a bunch of videos and photos of my adventures from the last several weeks. Visit my blog regularly in the next week or so as I will be posting up things as I get to them. Thanks for following my blog. Until next time…
