Estes Flats Sep 3-4

[bulldog1935]

When Ida tinkering sent me to the AP tide predictor, found several days of big harmonics and my favorite timing to fish the cuts at Estes.  
The biggest tide swing was Friday, with a 5 am high tide, which gives a good tide current for stacking bait in the passes at first light.   
I began checking with friends to see who could play - no trouble getting Lou and Tony to volunteer.  
We went down Thursday evening (ate at Moon Dog's), and launched at dark-thirty Friday morning.  

 

After our 3-mi paddle, first-light at Little Cut was everything promised - the bait were running into each other, the tide flow was so strong it created eddies.  
Redfish were rolling on the surface like tarpon.  Tony was catching ladyfish on his fly rod, and  right off, Lou caught three 14-inch snook.  

 

Friday was an amazing day in many ways, and a strange day for me - I just couldn't bring a fish to hand.  Whatever the reds were rolling on, I couldn't match the hatch.  YoZuri wake bait made the exact pattern of the bait in the cut, no takers.  
The smallest thing I brought was 3" Z-man on 1/8-oz Texas eye jighead.  
Every cast, the little snook attacked it,  and my couple of hook-ups shook me off.  

 

As always on our favorite drill, when the pass quieted about 9 am, we moved back onto Estes to drift fish.  
Wind was SSW, the cloud cover and threat of rain made an extremely pleasant morning.  
For most of the morning, rained all around us and never on us.  
I hooked a solid red that hauled me too close to an anchored boat and a good whining out - and the fish came unhooked right at the boat - my story for all of Friday.  

 

Lou described a 24" flounder he brought to the boat, and it finally came unhooked.  
About 11 am it looked like the rain was finally going to catch us, Tony and I retreated to Sandy Point for food and beer.  
Sure enough, we got sheets of heavy rain with a 30-kt gale, and watched Lou disappear up Trout Bayou.  
Strangest thing, our pleasant morning disappeared with that squall.  
As soon as the cloud passed, the flat turned to dead calm and brutal sun.  

 

We made one last foray to the duck blinds, where I brought two more redfish to the boat, but no farther, and this little fella was my only fish to handle on Friday.  

 

Friday was Lou's day, with a slot red and a keeper trout.  

Dinner Friday night was Mexican seafood at Los Comales.

 

Saturday, Labor Day weekend, not a great day to cross the ferry, so we ran our Estes drill the second day.  
There was plenty of bait but no gamefish in Little Cut.  
 With light SE wind, paddled onto Aransas Bay and instantly found trout.  It started off bad, 
I had a big trout almost to the boat and one of her head shakes tore the hook - this drift has always been big trout water for me.  
Hoping not to have a repeat of Friday, and this was my first fish to hand.  

 

Lou was done with Little Cut, paddled into my drift right after I lost the big girl, said he was heading to Estes, and we followed.  
Surprisingly, there were fewer boats on Estes Saturday than we found there on Friday.  
The SSW wind was perfect for drifting between the two duck blinds between Big Cut and Little Cut.  
On every drift, we hit a pod of aggressive redfish - most were 17-18", and I managed one 20 for half-shell fillets. 

One

 

Two

 

Three

 

Two of those reds took off as soon as the lure hit the water.  The third one made me retrieve 10' first.  
No clouds for us on Saturday, we headed in at 11:30.  Tony caught an undersized flounder.  
Last one off the flat, Tony caught a 17" red on his last cast.  

BTW, the mangroves on Talley Is. were sprouting green shoots - they're going to come back from the freeze damage.  

Grabbed a Steer Burger on our way out of town.  

Great times, great friends.  We had a really awesome two days.

[TnRiver46]

Thanks for the post and pics. Hard to imagine mangroves freezing! Thank goodness they are the most relentless things on the planet 

[bulldog1935]

24 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Thanks for the post and pics. Hard to imagine mangroves freezing! Thank goodness they are the most relentless things on the planet 

Of course my kind of fun.  

Here's the link to fishing the day after the freeze ended.  

 

[soflabasser]

Good report thank you for posting it.

[bulldog1935]

Thanks friend.  

 

btw, I got to fish my raced-out Zillion 1/8 oz ML+ 22-lb X-braid this trip - it was flawless and could cast the full width of Little Cut at Aransas Bay side.  I had to thumb my casts to keep them out of Lou and Tony.  Same Omen Green rod I've used for ML for a few years, and it was doubled over by every red, and even tourist trout were fun.  
BTW, that tiny Aransas trout I showed above, he rocketed 6' straight up into the air on his first wind.