I spent some time on my home waters on the upper coast this past weekend. The weather and conditions were near perfect: cool weather, overcast skies, light winds, and plenty of bait everywhere; conditions don’t get better, especially for surface plugs. I checked out a couple of areas that I hadn’t fished since last year. I figured these area would produce given the pattern lately, areas with scattered shell near deep water.
Saturday, Raymond and I checked out an area that I hadn’t been to since last fall. The conditions were great all day long. Mostly cloudy all morning with light SE breeze. Perfect topwater conditions. The fishing started off slow for us. The tide was high when we arrived but falling out strong. Despite the water movement the fish were not feeding. We only saw a few fish actively feeding all morning, which was odd considering the amount bait in the area.
We stayed on the move looking for signs of feeding fish but we came up empty. About mid-morning we made our way into a small lake and we both heard the familiar sound a crashing redfish in the middle of the lake. We both turned at the same time and to see what direction the commotion was coming from. After repeated casts in the area with no results, I moved and Raymond continued to work the area over.
A few minutes later I heard the splash as his topwater plunged into the surface followed simultaneously by the distinct sound a redfish makes when it explodes on a surface plug. He must have hit the redfish on the head with his topwater as he didn’t even have time to twitch it. “I got one!” is all I hear from Raymond as I turn to see his rod doubled over. A few minutes later he lands his first topwater redfish. I think we have the makings of another topwater junkie in Raymond. Awesome was the repeated word he used to describe his first encounter.
From there the bite started to pick up until the tide fell out around noon. We caught several more redfish to 27.5″. We also missed a bunch of bites and had one break-off. We both were throwing a redfish pattern Rapala Skitterwalk.
Raymond with his first topwater red…
Sunday, Mark and I fished a different area with hopes we could get a few hours of fishing in before the winds blew us off the water. The forecasts were predicting stiff SE winds to blow through mid morning before the cold front that’s moving through today. We fished all morning with bait everywhere without a single bite. We spooked only a few reds all morning. The water was high again but falling.
Once the water level dropped enough we started spooking some big reds but we couldn’t get them to eat. We would fan cast an entire area and then paddle past that area and the reds would dart out pushing a wake for 30 yds into deeper water. We kept moving as the tide was still falling and I started spotting some fish backing on shallow shorelines. My luck. The first time I left my fly rod at home since the redfish moved shallow and I get plenty of close range sight fishing opportunities. About the only thing I enjoy more than seeing a redfish explode on a topwater is watching a redfish inhaling a fly.
After loosing a couple of fish I decided to cover water until I spotted fish. No more blind casting. I covered about half the area we were fishing before I found the fish. Most of the fish were in an area near a slightly deeper drain. I caught several reds to 25″ sight fishing in next couple of hours.
I caught most of my fish within 10′ of my kayak by pitching a morning-glory TTF Flats Minnow past the fish and then bring it back into the strike zone and slowly bounce it in front of their face. They would pounce on the lure as soon as it was in the strike zone. All of the fish were thick and apparently eating crab according to Mark who kept a few for dinner. I had a one fish that weighed over 7lbs and it was barely 25″ with a pinched tail. I had only one blowup all day. For the first time in weeks the fish wouldn’t touch a topwater. A correctly presented plastic was an automatic bite.
Fat 25″ 7lb red
Also, here’s a pretty good article in The Corpus Christi Caller-Times about fishing with topwaters…
Season of the Surface Plug
I’m putting together a video of all the topwater action from the past month from places all over the Texas coast. I should have it up on this site later this week.
Here’s a short unedited teaser until then…
