Spending five days with the family at the beach near Port Aransas is great, but when you are that close to great fishing, you have to take advantage.
For two of those mornings, my brother-in-law, Andrw, and me loaded up my 14-foot, dual-seat kayak and headed two miles south of our rental home to
The first morning, Thursday, we had nothing but artificials; a mistake.
After watching a school of feeding black drum cruise right under us and ignore everything we threw, from top-waters to DOA shrimp to scented plastics, we knew we needed something else. It was fun watching another boat catch fish on every cast with live shrimp as they chased the drum down the shoreline, though.
That first morning took us south of
Saturday would be different.
After a quick run to the bait shop in Port A, we had a bucket-full of live shrimp and we put them to good use immediately.
First, a jumping ladyfish on my ultra-light. Then, we found a point north of the cut and boated a few small reds, although we saw bigger fish feeding. After that, it was off into the salt marshes, where we caught a few more ladyfish and several hardhead catfish.
I switched back to artificials, but again the bite got tough, especially when Andrew was getting a hook-up on lots of casts.
About noon, the north wind picked up and we turned back south.
No keeper fish on this trip, but a great paddle, lots of wildlife and enough bending of the rods to keep us happy.
Better than the 7 hour drive back to
