As I am sitting here writing this report reflecting over the last weeks’ worth of hunting and fishing trips, I can’t help but think how much the weather conditions have changed. It seems like just yesterday we were praying for rain so that we didn’t have to fire back up the wells to top off duck ponds; and so that the lakes around Austin would reach the magic level so rice could be farmed in our area via LCRA water. During that time, many old timers told me not to pray to hard, because one day soon the skies would open up more than we wanted and we’d be praying again just as hard for them to stop. Sure enough, the skies have been opening up quit frequently over the last 6-8 weeks and dumping inches of rain on our area. Three months ago we were re-scheduling trips due to lack of rain and now we are re-scheduling because of too much. It’s amazing how just a few months can change so much…. Mother Nature always seems to know what is best and our area has definitely received the “cleaning” it has needed. All the rivers, streams and estuaries are flowing and dumping fresh, food filled water into our bay systems. Fish and bait that have spent two plus years hibernating up the Colorado River are now being re-distributed into the Matagorda Bay System again. Farm and ranch land that recently was moisture deprived is now growing lushes grass and crops again. I’m sure some people’s land might have received a little too much rain and I wish you a fast drain off.
Strong south winds towards the end of last week and through the weekend made fishing tougher than it should have been. The south wind was so strong last week that it was basically just blowing more and more water into the bay. This all but erased the falling tide and made the incoming weaker and virtually irrelevant. Tidal movement and locating bait is the key to catching fish in West Matagorda Bay. With the glass minnow migration in full effect and the river dumping tons of bait into the bay, locating bait is not the problem. On Thursday the wind wasn’t howling up to 30mph+ like it would on Friday and Saturday and Todd and company took advantage. Chasing balls of bait throwing top waters and soft plastics they boxed almost 30 fish with Nick. Jacob also made the run down that morning to do a little scouting and help cover some more ground. Jess and he boxed 8 fish on only one wade as she had to get back in early to head to work. Jess did manage to hook up with a solid 4+lb trout that hammered the top water she was working. Friday and Saturday were a different story as the wind really started pumping. Nick and Jacob tried to locate the fish they were on the morning before, but the strong winds just had everything screwed up. Both days they had to resort to protected waters catching mostly rat reds and 14 inch trout to scrap a box together. Sunday’s trips we convinced to reschedule as the winds hit 40+mph. With calm winds forecasted all week and into the weekend, we are expecting some great boxes to come in. Currently Jacob is open this Friday and Nick is open on Saturday for anyone interested in coming down and catching some fish.
We have updated the website and all the pages with new pictures and information. All the photo galleries have new pictures in them as well and a few new pages will be hitting the website soon, so stay tuned. www.run-n-gunadventures.com
Nick and Jacob both got on the fish pretty good today wading with lures. Nick had a group that ended the day with almost 40 trout and a couple of reds and drum to boot. Jacob was just out scouting and had a good stringer of fish as well. We still have a boat open Wed-Fri & Sun of next week if anyone is interested.
Fish were caught wading the South shoreline of West Matagorda Bay.
Majority of the fish were caught late morning once the tide started to move.
Slow retrieves boxed the fish in the morning and then faster retrieves were the ticket once the bite turned on. Hogie red flash and Bass Assassin chicken on a chain caught most of the fish; while the ED lure produced most of the keepers and the larger fish.
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