Couples summer fishing trips inside Aransas channel

OUTDOORS

Fishing is about so much more than catching fish. Putting lots of fish in the boat is tons of fun but not as important as fishing with friends and family.

My wife, Beth, and I have a coastal house in Aransas Pass. One of our biggest joys is sharing it with family and friends. Recently, our son Terry moved his boat from Matagorda to Aransas Pass. He complained about the wind blowing too much at Matagorda (like it doesn’t blow at Aransas). But we were glad. He could spend much more time with us and I could teach him about our bays.

He found a storage barn quickly and moved his 19 foot Mako bay boat into its new home. I rode with him to a grassy area in the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. When the winds are low and the water clears it’s a great speckled trout spawning area in May – June. We hit it right. By noon we had 10 big speckled trout (our combined limit) in the ice box. Terry really enjoyed it since he caught 7 and Dad only 3. But I did catch the largest trout. At the cleaning table the guides, almost all of whom use live bait, were surprised to see such a good box of fish caught on lures.

The next day should have been a slam dunk. We had the trout located and weather conditions were still good. So we invited my brother, Wayne, to come with us. Now we could keep 15 trout. But don’t count your trout before they are the line. We fished hard and caught only 4 keepers. I didn’t catch one. They gave me a hard time about it. But I did catch 2 nice redfish that were just under the 20 inch minimum keeper limit.

The next week we invited our neighbors, Tom and Cathy Ray, to stay 3 days. Beth and Cathy shopped while Tome and I fished. This trip is their annual end of school vacation. Tom and I usually catch plenty of fish on this late May-early June trip. But not this time. Strong south winds were an enemy to us. Nice for moderating the hot weather but tough on boaters. We fished 3 days and caught plenty of fish to eat and some for Tom to take home but no big catches. But, as with Terry and Wayne, the catching wasn’t the main event. Lots of quality fellowship, jokes, fun, etc.

Last week our friends, Randy and Ruth McReynolds of Rosanky came to Aransas with us for 2 days. Randy and I caught several nice redfish but not big numbers the first morning. Most of them were caught wade fishing from the boat at anchor. The next morning, Ruth wanted to fish so all four of us fished from my small boat. The winds were strong again so I just motored toward Port Aransas in the Aransas Channel and set up a drift with the incoming tide and south wind on the channel. We managed not to hook each other in the ear. It’s one thing to fish bait in a crowded boat – just cast the bait to a hole and wait. But four people constantly casting lures can be like dodge ball.

The blessing was on Beth that trip. A few days previous Beth and I had fished together and I caught all the fish. She didn’t even catch a little one. But on the trip down the Aransas Channel she was hot. Randy and Ruth did manage to catch a few small fish and I caught a nice flounder. But she caught more than all 3 of us combined.

We have many couples scheduled to fish, shop, eat and play dominoes with us at Aransas this summer. We hope fishing will be good but if not we still can’t lose.