Trying to catch fish for dinner in Aransas Pass

Sometimes in the outdoor world of hunting and fishing, expectations have to be adjusted.

Things don’t always work out the way we would like. I guess that’s true with all life.

Recently, my wife Beth and I took Charles and Cherri Huebner to our fishing house in Aransas Pass for two days of fishing for Charles and I and two days of touring the Fulton Mansion and shopping for the girls. Charles and Cherri are hard-working home builders in the Canyon Lake area. They are members of our Cowboys for Jesus Church.

I was hoping that cooler mornings might have turned the fish from a summer pattern into some great fall fishing. Not so! Another strong cold front is needed for that to happen.

“The pressure is on you guys,” said Beth. “We are planning on a fish fry for supper.”

“No problem. We’ll bring home the fish,” we boasted.

At our first stop near a small island in a shallow grass flat, Charles hooked a fish that didn’t fight much until it neared the boat. It was a flounder. Flounder fillets for supper until I put it on the ruler. 14 5/8 inches long. It needed to be 15 inches to be legal. There was no way we could stretch the fish. Back into the water he went.

Then I hooked a flounder. But when I lifted the fish, I knew he was a fraction shorter than Charles’ fish. No supper yet.

At our next stop I had a hard strike. The fish fought hard, trying to circle the boat. Soon Charles netted a beautiful bronze colored redfish. He looked like he was over 20 inches. But the ruler said 19 ½ inches. I need to shrink that ruler.

In my favorite hole, Charles caught a small redfish before I hooked another strong redfish. But 19 3/8 inches was again too short.

But I had an ace in the hole for supper. Two weeks previous my son, Terry, and I ran across Corpus Bay to a distant old oil platform. It was loaded with sand trout.

We caught 42 trout. Sand trout are not prized like speckled trout because they are softer and don’t freeze as well. But they are great for eating when fresh.

But the sand trout were scarce on that old well for Charles and I. We caught only two. Then something more powerful hit my bait. My arm began to hurt as I wrestled with this powerful, bulldog fish. He didn’t make long runs like a redfish. The fight was mostly straight down. Maybe it was a stingray? The fish finally broke the surface and to my surprise it was a big silver blue-colored gafftop catfish.

He was about 5 pounds. I don’t usually eat gafftop catfish but the “ox was in the ditch.” Into the live well he went.

Charles asked, “Are you from Louisiana? They eat anything.”

But I knew gafftop catfish, though slimy on the exterior, were great for the table.

Several years previous my son Tim asked me to take a party of kinfolks fishing on his mother-in-law, Lisa’s 60th birthday. Most of the fishermen were novices. I knew fishing for trout and redfish would be difficult with such a group. So I enlisted my brother, Wayne, who lives in Aransas Pass to help me.

Wayne knew where we could catch lots of gafftops with cut bait.

We took three boats — Wayne’s boat, my bay boat and Tim brought my bass boat from San Marcos. Things worked out beautifully. All three boats just drifted an area off the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.

It was almost constant action. Gafftops filled our ice chest.

Tim and all the birthday party stayed at a condo at Port Aransas. They fileted those gafftops and ate for two days. Tim said it was a delicious feast.

So Charles and I fileted the big gafftop and two sand trout. We also bought two pounds of big shrimp. We couldn’t eat it all. So Plan B turned out just fine.