Coast-kayak-monsoon trip report

bulldog1935 · May 17, 2023

Wind and weather prediction from Friday night through Monday afternoon said stay away - 60 to 80% rain chance for all 3 days.

Saturday wind looked bad, Sunday wind looked like good fishing, and Monday was too far to know. The weather services were wrong about most of it. My buddy Stevo made the call - with the big automatic awning on his Oliver trailer, knew we'd have a good time even if we cooked and drank beer.

With his boats in storage at Rockport, decided on two vehicles, mine to shuttle kayaks - his to haul the travel trailer and run errands.

We were staying at Palm Harbor RV park in Estes, with Estes Flats in our back yard. We arrived with dry and enough daylight to have our boats staged for Saturday morning.

Crossing the ferry to Port Aransas to fish East Flats on Mustang barrier island was high on our list, because Steve had never fished there. We ran the drill early Saturday morning, driving through sheets of rain. Even with the wind shelter, 18 kt gusting to 26 was too much, with Doppler showing continual storms moving up the coast. We made the call at the marina ramp to return to the trailer. I took this photo for Josh, because a different morning launching 9 kayaks here, my photo caught him in a nature call - hey, I cropped it before I published it.

We were back in the trailer watching a movie, but Steve was watching weather updates and Doppler on his phone. At 10 am, he called a window in both the wind and rain, and we drove 200' to launch kayaks at the RV park bulkhead. While NWS was calling 12-kt SSE, we were getting 12-kt NNE - after 1 mi paddle across, and 2 mi into the wind, a perfect drift down our favorite Trout Bayou.

Dead center of Trout Bayou, I hooked up a dink. Nope - when it got close to the boat, it turned on redfish shoulders. Second time close to the boat, she did a tailstand flapping her head, and it was a major trout. Drift sock in, right now. She made at least four trips around my boat, two stopped attempts under, and was giving me a sleigh ride. I measured a quick 26", but you be the judge -

- my beam is 28", and this is my lifetime speckled trout. Caught on Z-man Minnow-Z, Mood Ring, and 1/8 oz Texas-eye jighead. The lure color is my favorite in clear water overcast, reflects blue and transmits pink.

This was a lot better than a bad movie. Our 2 hour window was over with the wind building to 18 kts, and a tough tack across Estes Cove to get back in. Calorie deprived and jonesing, we made a run to Steer Burger.

We crossed the ferry again Sunday morning, and the weather prediction had everything wrong - no rain, and no wind - none to move us onto fish, and none for stealth cover. We paddled 8 mi to cover everywhere in the flat and shallow lake, mostly without fish. The hot sun and still air finally drove us in. Instead of predicted ESE, a light NW wind was enough to drift-fish the mid-depth shelf across the flat on our way back to the marina, and we found dink heaven. Almost every cast got small reds and trout - a tail shot of the day's 16" red.

Since Monday was a short day on the water, we chose to stay at Estes, and were joined by a new friend we made at the Redfish Rodeo last fall, with his son on a first paddle (Steve said, "you brought bait"). We launched in calm at 6:15, expecting the predicted SE to come up later, and headed due E to Little Cut.

Before we got to the cut, the shoal was black with bait, small reds tailing and slashing bait. Light NW glided us onto the fishing.

I was catching rats on my prop-tail topwater shrimp, and having a blast.

Our friend and his son went in after 3 hours, and reported 3 redfish, two of them just 1/2" below slot. When we got enough ESE to drift, I drifted twice from the oyster close to Little Cut into deeper grass, and found those nice just-under-slot reds our friend had been into. Finished our last drift at the first duck blind and headed in to pack out. Different color Minnow-Z, green/grey with red flecks.

Especially since I owe Steve for the call on my lifetime spec, a beer-thirty photo in his Outback before our last-mile paddle in.

We finished packing out in light rain, and drove through walls of zero-visibility rain on the way home.
Great trip, would do it again in a heartbeat.
We outsmarted the weatherpersons.

AlabamaSpothunter · May 17, 2023

Awesome fish, equipment, and report as always friend!

Congrats on the new PB! Weather people have ruined many a day for me, then again I've flirted with lightning and torrential down pours as well. It's the game we play.