I had the pleasure of fishing with one of my best friends Craig Rader and his father-in-law, Chuck, last weekend. The morning started off rather unique as Craig, who is normally very punctual, slept straight through his alarm. I would accept part of the blame for that since he was enjoying a few adult beverages at my house the night before but he knows better than to be late for fishing. The problem was we were running Craigâs boat that day so Chuck and I were left standing in the driveway. Apparently even Craigâs dog had a rough night as knocking on every door and window on the house didnât even illicit a bark. After waiting thirty minutes I decided to go check on my parents to see how the crabbing was going since they were just about 10min away from Craigâs house. They already had a little over a dozen nice blue crabs when I got the phone call from Craig asking, âwhere you at?â Well… Iâm eating donuts and catching a few crabs since you couldnât wake up!
I met Craig and Chuck at Walmart in Bridge City and we were off, albeit a late start but we were going to have a great time regardless. Spending so much time guiding it is rare to get a day to fish with buddies or family so I wasnât going to miss out on this opportunity. We headed out to the jetties first but the bite was too slow for me to stick around. I wanted to fish a couple spots in the channel so we moved on. We wound up spending the next several hours in one location in part due to a driving rain but mainly since the redfish were going crazy. Craig was catching them on Down Southâs Chicken of the âCâ Southern Shad and Chuch was throwing a Gambler Flapping Shad. I threw both a Texas Tackle Factory Killer Flats Minnow and Egretâs Wedgetail. Color did not seem to be nearly as important as the size jighead we were using. We got way more bites using a 1/4oz jighead versus the 1/8oz jighead. The majority of the redfish were in the slot but we also let quite a few oversized fish go as well. I was able to sneak a few of the upper slot fish back into the water while Chuck wasnât paying attention. I didnât mess up his meat haul too bad though as I think we ended up boxing 24 or 26 fish total, I canât remember. The landing part would have been much easier but Craig forgot the net, I suppose that was due to his oversleeping and hangover but we still did alright! After the rain the redfish bite slowed so we made another move to go catch trout before calling it a day. Unfortunately, with all the rain our phones stayed in dry storage for the trip so we ended up with only one picture from the water but the memory of the trip wonât soon be forgotten!
Adam Jaynes | 409-988-3901 | www.justfishsabine.com