April 2012

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Plus:Those #@%!Turkeys

Rules ofThe Game:TexasTurkey

LAKE CALCASIEU’SGator Trout

PLAYINGTag WITH

CCA

aPRIL 2012 | VOL. 27 • NO. 12 | $3.95

Spring TurkeyBASICS

Inland Edition

AFTERNOONCatfishDELIGHTS

NEVER GRIN AT AGrinnel

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4 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ®

CONTENTSapril 2012 • Volume XXVII • NO. 12

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ON THE COVERS:

LA’s Gator TroutJust 25 miles inside the Texas-Louisiana state line, and respon-

sible for 3 of Louisiana’s top 10 speckled trout last year, Lake Calcasieu is an attractive draw for Texas anglers looking to hook a Gator Speck.

by John N. Felsher

Rules of the Game: Texas Turkey

Part 4 in our series year long series: The laws and regulations

governing turkey hunting in Texas, what they mean and why they exist.

by Bob Hood

STORY:

38

www.FishGame.com

22 AFTERNOON CATFISH DELIGHTS All-day channel catfish strategies that will help extend your effective fishing well into the afternoon.

by Matt Williams

42 THOSE #@%! TuRkEYS The maddening, frustrating, and just plain mean things turkeys do to hunters every spring.

by Paul Bradshaw

28 PLAYING TAG Success (and sob) stories from CCA’s million-dollar, coastwide, summer-long tournament, the State of Texas Angler’s Rodeo.

by Calixto Gonzales

60 NEVER GRIN AT A GRINNEL Grinnel, a.k.a. Bowfin, are gain-ing new respect from freshwater sport fishermen who appreciate a good fight.

by Chester Moore

STORY:

56

FEATuRES



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StaffBox-Contents.indd 5 3/7/12 9:40 AM

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CONTENTSCOLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS

COLUMNS

APRiL 2012 • Volume XXVII • NO. 12

DEPARTMENTS

8 LETTERS 10 TF&G REPORT

10 biG bAGS & CATChES

34 NEW! teXas DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

50 TRUE GREEN

www.FishGame.com

14 Chester’s Notes Flounder Q & A by CheSTeR mOORe TF&G Executive Editor

16 Doggett at Large Cranky by JOe DOGGeTT TF&G Senior Contributing Editor

18 Pike On the edge thank Your Lucky Lone star by DOuG Pike TF&G Senior Contributing Editor

20 texasWild Check, Check, Double Check, Check again by TeD nuGenT TF&G Editor At Large

21 Commentary Killed with Kindness by kenDal hemPhill TF&G Politcal Commentator

41 texas Bow Hunting a Day to Remember by lOu maRullO TF&G Bow Hunting Editor

45 Hunt texas Picking a Cat Fight by bOb hOOD TF&G Hunting Editor

46 texas saltwater the Dark Half by CalixTO GOnzaleS TF&G Saltwater Editor

48 texas Freshwater Operation Buckbrush by maTT WilliamS TF&G Freshwater Editor

64 Open season Modern Camo by ReaviS WORTham TF&G Humor Editor

StaffBox-Contents.indd 6 3/7/12 9:40 AM



www.humminbird.com

Long Range Shots at Big GameYouR aRticLe foR the feBRuaRY edition of FishGame was one of the best I have ever read in many years of hunting/shooting reading. You told the TRUTH. Television and the written word has seemingly “increased long range shooting” from 300 yards of yesteryear to a current of 1000 yards plus. My numbers stack up with yours - in 50 plus years of hunting the longest shot I ever made was 325 yards. I guesstimate my average range for a whitetail deer during my lifetime has been just under a hundred yards.

Lloyd CageVia Email

Thanks, pardner, for the kind words. There is one thing you can be sure of: When you read my columns in Texas Fish & Game, you will be reading what I believe to be the unvarnished truth. I may be wrong on occa-sion, but I will never be untruthful.

Thanks again, and good hunting. Steve LaMascus

i aBSoLuteLY, aGRee with eveRYthinG You had to say in that piece. Not only the bad image aspect, but the technical aspects of it as well.

I am by no means a trained expert in long range shooting but at the age of 45 and having started at the age of 6, I have done a good bit of shooting.

My Grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a career army officer and a WWII veteran. He retired as a Colonel in 1968 and managed the Rod & Gun Club at Fort Hood.

Near the end of WWII, as they were sweeping across Germany his unit came upon a Luftwaffe airfield, which had a small armory. In it he found several pre-war manu-facture Mauser 98s, still wrapped in cosmo-line, never having been fired. He managed to get 4 of them home after the war ended.

In 1960, he was stationed in Germany again. He’d always planned on making

hunting rifles out of those, so he had his brother ship 3 of them to him. One was lost in shipping, but he had a German gunsmith build hunting rifles from the barreled action of 1 and rebarreled the other. One he left in the 8x57 JS caliber and the other is 30-06. These are much better quality than any “sporterized” Mausers I’ve ever seen, with pretty nice Monte Carlo stocks. Not awesome wood, but the shape is right on. He told me he paid the gunsmith 2 boxes of cigars, a bottle of Rye Whiskey and $80.

When I was 14, my Grandfather started letting me use the 8x57 to deer hunt and that went on into my 20s when one day he told me I could have it. I was so enamored with that rifle and still am. For many years I was a one rifle man, until I took up elk hunting and bought a Sako L691 in 300 Wby. That Mauser gave me the bug and I learned all I could about ballistics and shooting.

I keep the Sako calibrated at 300 yards. With 180 grain Nosler Partitions, which have a BC of .474 and a MV at around 3,200 fps, Its tragectory is flat enough that it’s about 4 3/4 inches high at its peak, well within reasonable limits. It only drops about 9 inches at 400 yards, so it’s point blank out to 350 and you can keep it on the hair (not have to elevate above the critter’s back) out to 400. I killed my first bull at 468 yards, but had not and never have since attempted anything beyond 300 yards. The bull only made it 70 yards and when we field dressed it, only about 2/3 of the heart remained.

You’re right about all of the variables and what can and does go wrong and I’ve done enough hunting and shooting to get it and I don’t like the ideas that these shows put in people’s heads. Unless you’re a very experienced shooter, 150 yards should be your limit and even experienced shooters shouldn’t attempt longer shots than 300 yards unless conditions are optimum and then 350 yards is pushing ethical limits.

John TaylorVia Email

Pride in our Pigsthe hoG PRoBLem in texaS iS not funnY. They are a threat to most wildlife we call game birds and game animals in this State. If you have to deal with them on a daily basis, its no laugh-ing matter. Pike pokes fun with his PLAN, but the only plan that I have seen that comes close to making since is the article on POISON. You cannot control Feral Hogs with bullets. Please don’t make this problem a joke. It is not going away unless we have a plan that will protect our native wildlife.

Larry McNielVia Email

GReat aRticLe. You have taken LemonS and made lemonade. Great plan. Maybe you need to think about getting proper work set up your own LLC and do it as a business. Just food for thought. Have a geat day.

Michael LanningVia Email

i waS RecentLY in YouR State. decided to try hunting hogs. Non-resident license, $375.00, plus $175.00 per hog at any place I tried to get to hunt. Kind of pricey to hunt vermin. So drove up to Oklahoma, $175.00 for non-resident and $250.00 per day of hunting anywhere I tried to go, so still pricey for a vermin unless you have a lot of expendable income, of which most people I know do not. So as of yet I am still unable to convince any of my friends to try hog hunting in your fair state.

Thanks for listening to my complaints.

Gene SchwickerathVia Email

Send your comments to:

Editor, Texas Fish & Game1745 Greens RdHouston TX 77032Email: [email protected]


Letters to the editor

Letters.indd 8 3/5/12 11:42 AM


Letters.indd 9 3/2/12 3:46 PM

www.flexyourmossberg.com

Husband and Wife Win NWTF AwardHATs oFF To DAle AND KiTTy BouNDs. Through the years the East Texas couple has dedicated countless hours of their time towards various wildlife conservation projects and worked tirelessly to preserve our hunting heritage for future generations through their volunteer efforts with the National Wild Turkey Federation.

Their efforts were recently recognized on the national level, when they were presented with the C.B. McCleod Award during the NWTF’s National Convention and Sports Show held in Nashville, Tenn. The prestigious award is presented annually to a NWTF volunteer who has logged a lifetime of dedication to wildlife conservation.

A former videographer with the U.S. Forest Service, Dale Bounds was a key player in forming the Pineywoods Chapter

of NWTF in the late 1980s. He has since served nearly a decade as president of the organization’s Texas State

Chapter and ramrodded NWTF programs that cater to youth and handicap hunt-ers.

Kitty Bounds has been equally instrumental those

programs. Additionally, she organized the first-ever NWTF Women in the Outdoors event in Texas.

Big Bags CatChes&


The TF G Report&

michaela Rendon, age 11, with her father Mike Rendon and her 41-inch Redfish caught and released off Port O’Connor last August. Her mom, Andrea, says it was a great way for Michaela to learn the value of Catch and Release.

Bryan Wright, 15, of Houston, caught this 42 inch Jack Crevalle on the Galveston beach using a live finger mullet on 15 pound test line. Bryan worked the fish down the beach for about 40 minutes, fol-lowed by his brother Evan and his father shouting encouragement.

Mitchell Chambers and Samantha Cooney with a 14.1-pound largemouth bass caught out of a 3 acre private tank near Smithville.

LARGEMOutH BASS

Smithville

RedFiSh

Port O’Connor

JACk CREvALLE

Galveston

Dale and kitty Bounds of Lufkin recently received the C.B. McCleod Award at the National Wild turkey Federation’s National convention held in Nashville, tennessee.

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TFGReport.indd 10 3/8/12 9:14 AM

QDMA Opposes Expansion of Captive Deer Breeding“ThErE ArE nO BEnEfiTs fOr DEEr hunTErs in the growth of the captive deer-breeding industry--only risks.”

That is the assessment of Kip Adams, a certified wildlife biologist and Director of Education & Outreach for the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA).

QDMA is urging hunters in seven states to oppose the expansion of the deer-breeding industry, which QDMA perceives as a grow-ing threat to wild deer and the deer-hunting heritage. Legislation designed to loosen or dismantle regulatory barriers to white-tailed deer breeding and farming is being con-sidered in Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.

“It is QDMA’s mission to protect the future of white-tailed deer and our hunting heritage, and we oppose anything that puts those at risk,” said Adams.

In opposing the proliferation of “deer breeding,” QDMA is referring to captive deer facilities where controlled, artificial breeding technology is used primarily to pro-duce whitetail bucks with enormous, often grotesque antlers – an industry that includes sales of semen, artificially impregnated does, and live bucks to other breeders or to captive deer shooting facilities. Current estimates suggest there are nearly 10,000 deer breed-ing operations in North America, and the number is growing as the industry pushes to expand into areas where it was historically not legal.

“Some argue this is an innocent endeavor with no negative impacts to wild deer or the everyday deer hunter. As CEO of North America’s leading whitetail conservation organization, I emphatically and unapolo-getically disagree,” said Brian Murphy, QDMA’s Chief Executive Officer. “Not only does this industry undermine the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation in which wildlife is a public resource, it also threatens the health of wild deer and the public’s perception of hunting.”

The distribution map of chronic wasting disease (CWD) – a fatal disease of deer and elk – suggests the disease likely arrived in

several new states through transportation of live deer, either legally or illegally, and not through natural deer movements. Legalizing deer breeding in new areas increases the incentive for illegal transportation of untested animals at a time when these human-aided movements must be stopped. Transporting any captive whitetails is risky, as there is no acceptable and practical live-animal test for CWD. Once CWD appears in wild deer in a new area, slowing the spread of the

disease requires costly investigation, testing and surveillance efforts for many years and often requires drastic reductions in deer populations. There is currently no known way to decontaminate an environment once CWD is present.

In more than 40 states, regulatory author-ity over captive deer facilities is held by state agriculture agencies, or shared between agriculture and wildlife agencies. QDMA recommends that wildlife agencies have sole


www.abugarcia.com


responsibility because they have more expe-rience with wildlife species and wildlife disease issues, and they fully understand what is at stake with regard to transmission of diseases like CWD to free-ranging deer.

“QDMA’s current effort is to halt expan-sion of the deer-breeding industry,” said Adams. “We also want sole jurisdiction for existing facilities to remain with or be reas-signed to state wildlife agencies. Considering the implications for our hunting heritage, we can’t afford to allow this industry to expand. The ramifications of being wrong are simply too great.”

Outlook Promising for Spring TurkeyDeSPiTe lingering Dry cOnDiTiOnS in SOme parts of Texas, prospects for this year’s spring turkey season remain promising, thanks to a carryover of mature gobblers, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists.

Rio Grande spring turkey hunting sea-son in the 54-county South Zone runs March 17-April 29 with special youth-only weekends set for March 10–11 and May 5–6. In the 101 counties comprising the North Zone, the season opens March 31 and runs through May 13 with special youth-only weekends set for March 24–25 and May 19–20.

“We had phenomenal production in 2010, which means there should be plenty of two-year-old birds out there,” said Jason Hardin, TPWD turkey program leader. “Last yearTexashunters harvested the few-est birds on record, which can be attributed mainly to the drought. That also means greater carryover of mature birds.”

Hardin expects hunters this spring will get plenty of gobbling activity from the 2010 year class and barring any late wet cold fronts, productivity and survival prospects are favorable this spring.

“Our biggest concern is having wet cold fronts once the hens are on the nest,” he explained. “If we can get poults on the ground and then in the trees, survival increases dramatically.”

Hardin said he’s not concerned about the

overall health of turkey populations going into the spring hunting season thanks to some timely winter rainfall.

“Parts of the state are greening up with a lot of forbs so the birds should be in good condition going into the breeding season,” he noted. “If we can stay green for a couple more weeks we’ll be in good shape.”

Hunters are reminded several regulation changes take effect for the 2012 season. TPWD closed spring turkey hunting in the following 15 East Texas counties in response to low populations and harvest numbers: Cherokee, Delta, Gregg, Hardin,Houston, Hunt,Liberty,Montgomery, Rains, Rusk, San Jacinto,Shelby, Smith,TylerandWalker.

Closing spring turkey seasons in these counties will enable biologists to reassess Eastern turkey restoration efforts in areas having suitable habitat, restock sites and pro-vide brood stock protection. The agency’s goal is to reopen hunting once the Eastern turkey populations in the affected counties are capable of sustaining harvest.

Also effective for the 2012 season, TPWD is delaying spring Eastern turkey hunting in the remaining 28 counties having an open season by two weeks, to run from April 15-May 14. Biologists say the delay gives hens time to begin nesting prior to the season opening.

Also new this season, hunters may har-vest gobblers and bearded hens during the spring season in counties having a bag limit of four turkeys. Hunting is for gobblers only during the spring season in all other counties.

All harvested Eastern turkeys must be taken to a check station within 24 hours. To find the check station nearest you, contact a TPWD field office or call (800) 792-1112.

Top 10 invasive Species Threats to Hunting & Fishing WilDliFe FOrever recenTly annOunceD iTS list of the “TOP 10″ Invasive Species Threats to Hunting & Fishing.” That list includes:

1. ZeBra & Quagga muSSelS for devastat-ing the food chain, reducing fish popula-

tions; destroying spawning habitat; encrust-ing boats and docks, and wreaking havoc on equipment and on fishing.

2. aSian carP for taking over rivers and streams, replacing sport fish populations; impeding navigation and causing injury, even possible death, to boaters on the waters.

3. canaDa THiSTle for choking out native prairie grasses and plants; providing no food value; driving deer, wild turkeys and other wildlife out of traditional habitat.

4. HyDrilla for limiting access for boating, fishing and waterfowl hunting; dense beds destroying sport fish spawning grounds; out competing native plants and, once mature, degrading fishing.

5. BucKTHOrn for killing hardwood for-ests; eliminating native mast producing trees important to deer and turkey; choking wood-land travel corridors and decreasing overall productive habitat.

6. rOcK SnOT – DiDymO for smothering food sources for trout and salmon; covering spawning habitat and insect life with ooze; wreaking havoc on fishing and access to fishable waters.

7. emeralD aSH BOrer for destroying 100 million ash trees, creating loss of habitat and fire zones imperiling wildlife, humans and property. At stake, 7.5 billion trees.

8. WHirling DiSeaSe for killing trout and salmon. When an infected fish’s death occurs, millions of parasitic spores release back into the water, which are virtually indestructible surviving for up to 30 years to kill again.

9. Feral HOgS for wanton destruction of habitat; consumption of acorns and mast denying essential food from deer, wild turkey and quail; eating eggs of ground nesting birds; killing fawns and maliciously uproot-ing riparian areas.

10. PurPle lOOSeSTriFe for eliminating productive fish and wildlife habitat to the tune of 500,000 acres of wetlands annually; offering no food value; reducing waterfowl nesting and fish nursery areas.

TF g report&



www.nauticstarboats.com

Flounder Q & A

Interest In Flounder FIshIng Is At An all-time high.

I am blessed to communicate with more flounder fishermen than probably

anyone on the planet through this magazine, its website and my Flounder Revolution® and Flatfish University ™ projects.

Since I get questions on flounder on a daily basis, many of which are repeated, I thought it would be fun to answer them in this format. If you have further questions after reading email me and I will answer on my blog at fishgame.com April 10.

Q: Is the 5 flounder bag limit in Texas and two per person limit in November

actually helping flounder?

A: Without question. Since those regula-tions were put into place two years ago,

the numbers according to random samplings are the highest since 1998. If you restrict harvest in particular during the spawning period or the migration to spawning you cannot help but increase numbers. Whether you agree with the regulation or not, the con-servation impact is being felt in a big way.

Q: I caught a flounder that was part white and part brown. Someone told

me it was a piebald and that it had prob-ably been stocked by the state. Is this true?

A: Well, a fish with that coloration would definitely be considered a piebald but

there is no way to tell if it was a state stocked fish. Texas only started stocking flounder (in very limited numbers) two years ago and every few years someone would send me a photo of a piebald flounder so they have been around longer than the stocking program.

Q: Do you think the state record in Texas will ever be broken?

A: Yes. Herbert Endicott in the Sabine Lake area caught Texas’ state record

flounder in 1976 and the fish weighed 13 pounds. With the flounder fishery on an upswing and more fish getting a chance to reach their maximum potential, the odds of producing a fish that is larger than the current record is out there. I held a fish in my own hands in 2009 that was 11 ounces bigger than the state record. It was one of the brood fish at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas and while the fish lived part of its life in captivity, it was nine pounds when caught and in a couple of years grew to maximum proportions. The potential is definitely out there.

Q: What are your top three favorite floun-der lures?

A: Wow, this is a tough one because I use many during the course of the year. My

favorite variety are without a doubt curltail grubs and I have lots of different ones over the years. Now, my most frequently used curltails are the 3-inch pink Meeny from Mr. Twister and the Gulp! 4-inch Swimming Mullet in smoke color. I caught most of my flounder this fall on a 2.5-inch clear/silver flake/black back Sassy Shad. Other good ones are the 2-inch smoke colored grubs from Southern Pro, a company that chiefly produces crappie lures.

Q: Could halibut, a flounder’s much larger close cousin live in Texas waters?

A: They might be able to live for a while but probably could not reproduce

well since they are adjusted to cold water. Halibut are my dream fish, since they can get several hundred pounds.

The world record weighed 459 pounds and was caught in 1996 by angler Jack Tragis in Alaskan waters. Can you imagine the “thump” that fish gave when it struck?

Q: Does color really make a difference when using lures for flounder?

A: In the fall run when the fish are pouring through the passes and into the Gulf

not necessarily. However, in most cases it can make a huge difference. I catch flounder 12 months of the year in water ranging from muddy to gin clear and have found they will not take colors like hot pink when water is super clear but require them to even look at

a lure in stained waters.My rule of thumb is the clearer the water,

the more natural the lure color. The murkier the water, the more obtrusive. I have used one color and got zero bites and switched and immediately got hit in the same location. Color matters.

Q: Are mud minnows or finger mullet bet-ter live bait for flounder?

A: I personally like mud minnows but some swear by finger mullet. Flounder

will devour both but in truth I rarely use either. I caught somewhere in the neighbor-hood of 400 flounder this year and only caught three of those on live bait. Of course one was a monster that hit a nine-inch long live mullet but that is another story for another day.

Q: What exactly is Flatfish University™ and Flounder Revolution® about?

A: Flatfish University ™ is my highly detailed, very specific clinics that are

limited to a small number of people per session. They are intensive learning sessions about flounder fishing and are sponsored by Mr. Twister. At the time of this writing the next class on the books will be held at Bass Pro Shops in Pearland Sat. April 21 and will deal specifically about flounder fishing in bayous, marsh and river systems. Go to www.flatfishuniversity.com for more information.

Flounder Revolution® is my conserva-tion movement highlighted by a monthly replica tournament (March-Nov.) that pro-motes anglers releasing flounder 20 inches or more. The largest fish each month gets a pair of Costa Sunglasses as well as a replica of their catch provided The Fish Mount Store and funded by the Coastal Conservation Association. We also have a First Flounder project that gives kids certificates of recogni-tion for their catches. For more information go to www.flounderrevolution.com.


Chester’s notes

by Chester moore | TF&G Executive Editor

Catch Chester on the radio Fridays, 6pmon 560 KLVI Beaumont, (www.klvi.com)

Email him at [email protected]

ChesterNotes.indd 14 3/6/12 2:51 PM

http://www.flatfishuniversity.com

http://www.flounderrevolution.com

http://www.klvi.com


ChesterNotes.indd 15 3/8/12 9:17 AM

www.daiwa.com

Cranky

They’re someTimes Called idioT BaiTs. This is because just about anybody can chunk one out and reel it in —a no-brainer for catching fish in suitable

water. In more correct circles, they’re com-monly known as lipless crankbaits.

The first I recall were the Heddon Sonic and the Pico Perch in the mid- to late-’50s.

Actually, the early sub-surface, flat-sided plugs were not designated as “lipless crank-baits” because nobody back then knew what a crankbait was. Fred Young hadn’t carved a Big O yet.

Several sinking plugs with dished metal lips were available, such as the Heddon River Runt, but they lacked the jive and fish-killing juju of the true crankbaits.

And at least two early products from Texas, the Hellbender by Whopper Stopper of Sherman and the Bomber by Bomber Bait Company of Gainesville, were floating/deep-diving plugs. But the concept in each was reversed, with a wide, flat metal tail providing the dig and wobble. They often were used when trolling open water for bass or white bass (usually with a small trailer jig) in the deep, rocky reservoirs of North Texas.

The original floating/shallow-diving crankbait was the Big O, hand-carved from balsa in 1972 by Fred Young of Oak Ridge, Tenn. His stubby fat creation with its short, wide plastic lip became an overnight monster on the fledgling BASS tournament circuit.

The Big O spawned the hysteria of the “alphabet plugs” that eventually became known as crankbaits. This, no doubt, is because the alphabet ran out of letters.

But I digress. The early lipless crankbaits perhaps are

better identified as swimming baits and, to reiterate, two early ones that stood out were the Heddon Sonic and the Pico Perch.

The compact, fast-sinking Sonic (with a sweeping shark-type dorsal fin reminiscent of the car tail fins of the era) was a radical departure from traditional elongated surface

and near-surface plugs, but being backed by the venerable Heddon Lure Co. gave it a measure of credibility. Still, Sonics didn’t exactly fly off the tackle shelves.

The Pico Perch was manufactured by Padre Island Bait Co. of Corpus Christi. The acronym was shortened to Pico.

The wide-sided Pico Perch looked a bit awkward but the slanting face with its flat edge (to impart a tight wobble) probably was the superior design; it’s enough to say that Heddon blatantly issued a knock-off, the Bayou Boogie.

But, I stray again. Being a kid and a rookie, I failed to take

the early swimming baits seriously. This was due to the urban ponds I was forced to fish in and around Houston. The weed-choked venues were not suitable for the swimming plug concept.

You need an open-water racetrack for these sinking, fluttering plugs with twin sets of exposed trebles to really work without repeatedly snagging or fouling.

I was much more comfortable dawdling around the coontail pockets and edges with traditional floating Heddon bass lures such as the Tiny Torpedo, Chugger Spook and Lucky 13. Not to mention the Arbogast topwater plugs from the Fred Arbogast Company of Akron, OH. That lineup included the Hula Popper and the Jitterbug.

Then, during the early ‘60s, the Rapala Original Floating Minnow from Finland hit the market, and the hand-carved balsa floater/shallow diver with its bright foil finish set a new standard. It made the old Heddon and Arbogast plugs look dated and lame.

The slim “airy” balsa Rapala was a bitch (pardon my Finnish) to cast, but if you hit anywhere near a log jam or weed bed, shal-low bass just crushed it. I submit it was the first “superbait.”

But it wasn’t a good open-water sub-sur-face offering—no sink rate beyond two feet.

The sinking swimming baits filled that niche. The Pico Perch, being a Texas product, probably out-sold the Sonic in local markets. It was a legitimate choice in relatively open water and along with

the Heddon Sonic/Bayou Boogie helped anglers reach suspended fish.

But all were a bit lacking. The concept was valid but something, maybe eye appeal, was missing. Remember, lures catch fisher-men as well as fish.

The first true swimming bait to hit a bona fide home run was the Hot Spot, manufac-tured by Cotton Cordell, of Hot Springs, Ark. The streamlined flat-sided lure was constructed of hard plastic and carried the proven concept of the slanted face. It looked good, cast well, and caught fish—lots of fish. It still does.

Cordell’s Hot Spot is celebrating its 50th anniversary but the lure really took off during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Not coincidentally, the popularity followed the impoundment of new reservoirs all across the South and Southwest. The original Hot Spot’s profile closely imitated a 2 1/2- to 3-inch threadfin shad —the primary forage for bass in the new lakes.

The Hot Spot’s success was followed by numerous other swimming baits, notably the Bomber Pinfish.

But the all-time champion swimming bait was—is—the Rat-L-Trap, by Bill Lewis Lures of Alexandria, La. It was introduced during the ‘70s and is claimed by the com-pany to be the biggest-selling lure of all time.

The Rat-L-Trap resembles, well, the original Hot Spot with the addition of a subtle dorsal fin (shades of the old Sonic) and a hollow rattle chamber. And it’s OK to call it a “lipless crankbait” since it gained popularity following the introduction of the original lipped crankbait, the Big O.

But, by whatever name or brand, it’s hard to fish a swimming bait wrong, assuming you can keep the fluttering retrieve above cling-ing vegetation. The huge trump is the ability to cover a lot of open water at a rapid tempo while presenting an attractive offering.

For idiots and experts alike, the swim-ming baits just might be the greatest lures ever made.


Email Joe Doggett [email protected]

doggett at large

by Joe Doggett | TF&G Senior Contributing Editor

Doggett.indd 16 3/5/12 10:49 AM


Doggett.indd 17 3/5/12 10:49 AM

www.fishandgamegear.com

Pike on the Edge

by Doug Pike | TF&G Senior Contributing Editor

Thank Your Lucky Lone Star

A Long TimE Ago in A SPAcE fAr AwAY, i filled an entire column with nothing but one-line acknowledgements of things that made me glad and proud

to be an outdoors-loving Texan. Since then, my passion for this state and its resources only has grown. Here, without referencing the original and something for everyone, is my revised list.

Huge bass and lots of them. Improving numbers of pintails. A wildlife and fisheries department that listens to its constituents. Snook expanding their range northward. More than 100 state parks. Birding oppor-tunities that are the envy of states and nations worldwide.

A state full of folks who, almost unani-mously, dislike wild hogs. Texas ranchers who have rebuilt herds of animals either extinct or nearly so in their native habitats around the world. Neighborhood ponds that hold more fish than most people realize. Just enough winter to let you wear your heavy coat but not enough to make you buy a snow shovel.

Big trout on topwaters. Big trout on topwaters. Big trout on topwaters.

Little trout (the rainbow variety) on dry flies in the Guadalupe river. The sound of air over wings as two dozen teal bank sharply over the decoys. Any Texas sunrise or sunset.

The Big Bend, which is big enough to swallow a couple of northeastern states. A governor who, when a coyote threatened his daughter’s puppy, drew his sidearm and eliminated the threat.

Hundreds of volunteers who have removed nearly 30,000 abandoned crab traps from Texas bays during the past 11

years. Thousands of volunteers who annu-ally remove trash – left by people who usu-ally aren’t Texans - from our beaches and lakeshores.

Never being more than a short drive, no matter where you live or happen to be, from the country. Mosquitoes. Yes, mosquitoes, because they minimize crowding at a couple of favorite walk-in fishing spots.

King mackerel driving you crazy with their short strikes. King mackerel on the line when you start hiding the hook deeper in the bait. King mackerel on plugs.

Seeing and hearing 30,000 snow geese lift off a roost at once. Convincing a single, old blue goose to lock its wings and hang over a rag spread.

More than 100 state parks, every one of which has something unique to offer its visitors. A coastline that spans hundreds of miles and is open to the public, end to end. Springtime crappie jigging with a cane pole, from a float tube.

Enough squirrels in the woods to warm the barrel of a .22 and fill a skillet. A tre-mendous variety of snakes, most of which won’t hurt you. (Learn which are which.)

Kayak fishing for anything, anywhere, anytime. Climbing a tree to get your bear-ings. Climbing a tree just for fun.

Red snapper fishing, even though federal mismanagement has left us with a two-fish limit during a coffee break of a season. Great quail hunting – presuming a mild, not too wet spring and summer. Bluegills the size of dinner plates, and no shortage of them.

The respect country kids have for guns, their parents and their teachers. The first time you draw an arrow on a deer and noth-ing goes wrong.

Watching a wake bulge behind a top-water plug just before the bass hits the gas and strikes. Stalking whitetails in the woods and finding out you’re not as stealthy as you thought. Learning to surf on waves that don’t punish you for beginners’ mistakes. Having the confidence to paddle into sum-mertime storm swells.

The jolting result of a perfect cast to a rolling tarpon. Cooking Texas-sized steaks

over a wood fire in deer camp. Tying a fly, then using it the next morning to catch a tailing redfish.

Flipping creek-side rocks with kids to see what’s beneath them. Black bears now in two corners of the state. No confirmed Bigfoot sightings, but lots of people who are absolutely, positively certain they exist.

Wading Baffin Bay in late-winter, catch-ing monster trout, and realizing you and your friends are only people you’ve seen all day. Following a set of animal tracks just to see where they go.

No really big mountains, but some beau-tiful and challenging climbs if that excites you. Opening day of dove season, whether you actually hunt or just hang around the trucks to eat barbecue and tell stories.

Poking a flashlight through the flap and realizing it’s only a raccoon making that noise outside the tent. Standing waist-deep in clear surf and filling out a limit of 3-pound trout. The glint of sunlight off antlers, after hours of waiting, at the edge of a sendero.

Catching catfish on bait that smells gosh-awful horrible but really works. Throwing away the towel on which you wiped the excess catfish bait from your hands.

Mallards and wood ducks fighting for air space between the limbs in a flooded river bottom. Not being able to lift a water bottle, despite being parched, after a three-hour fight with a blue marlin. Dove hunting around a stock tank – just you, your dad, and your dog.

A grape-sized bobber dancing, bouncing, and then slipping deliberately beneath the surface. Helping a guy rock his boat off a sand bar. Or having someone show up to help you do the same. Actually hitting an escaping goose with that third shot.

There is so much more to Texas, of course, so many more opportunities to enjoy this state’s unmatched resources. Add to this list, or start your own.


Email Doug Pike [email protected]

Pike on the Edge

Pike.indd 18 3/5/12 10:50 AM


Pike.indd 19 3/5/12 10:50 AM

www.costadelmar.com

Alright, i better write this while i’m still seething. I am so angry my blood boils, my eyes are bloodshot, I twitch, turning beet red, lips pursed so tight

it hurts, fuming, seeing red, snarling, fore-head furrowed deeply with a full body scowl to scare the devil himself. Did I mention that I am really, really angry?

The first word in this piece is alright. Well, nothing is all right, I assure you. Anything but.

Being that I fancy myself Mr. Cocked Locked and absolutely ready to ROCK, Captain Detail, Mr. Smarty Pants Know it all master of all things shoot, hunt, ambush sniper world, it is with great pain, humility and consternation that I am compelled to share with you how Mr. Murphy can sneak into our psyche no matter how dialed in, pre-pared or attentive we may otherwise dedicate ourselves to be.

Personally, at this point in time, I suck.Okay, in the real world of meaningful pri-

orities like God, family, health, country and freedom, my painful evening on deerstand last night doesn’t really qualify as all that upsetting. We miss. Get over it. Yet here I am, head hung and forlorn like little Teddy just lost his favorite puppy dog.

Here’s how it unraveled; Throttling onward nonstop with much gusto for my truly inspiring 2011-2012 hunting season, I had a wonderful meeting with my SpiritWild Ranch hunters as the rain poured down on our little chunk of Texas hunting heaven. Everyone was excited to be at our special camp with the barometer and temperature plunging, making for some optimal critter encounter conditions.

Master guide Paul Wilson organized the guys to head out for their killer blinds, and I decided to return to my Ranch King portable tucked into a nice jungle of cedars

and tangled blowdowns on the edge of the big hay field.

With rain pelting my snug little coop, I smacked away on my laptop writing more invigorating celebrations of our beloved hunting lifestyle, not really expecting shooter beasts to arrive in the pouring rain.

Next thing I know, a highly desirable, elusive “Alberta” whitetail 10 point is smack dab in front of me eating corn at the Hang Em High feeder before it even went off. YIKES!

I’ve never had a shot at this particular buck that looks like he belongs in the forests of Alberta, Canada, and I was about to implode with excitement at the opportunity before me.

I carefully turned on the SpiritWild vid-cam, silently set down my laptop, reached for my bow, then zoomed in on the trophy beast.

He was joined by his girlfriend, then out of nowhere, a spotted axis doe poked her head out of the scrub into my little clearing.

Axis! Axis deer are so incredibly elusive on SpiritWild Ranch that we are lucky to get a quick glimpse at them but few times each year. I knew that if a doe was here, the herd must be close behind.

One by one, the majestic Chital deer emerged, including monster stag after mon-ster stag, right there in front of me, within 20 yards. I captured all their antics as they jockeyed for position until the biggest bad-dest buck went broadside.

Like a million times before, I picked a spot, gracefully drew back my arrow, and let er rip for a gimme trophy of a lifetime.

And ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the embarrassing NumbNut of The Year Award goes to, (drumroll) Teeeeeddddd Nuuuuuugent!!

My orange Lumenok told no lie as it

zinged six inches under the huge stags bris-ket. At about 18 yards ya all!

I’m here to tell you I was supremely aghast. With my Robin Hood sniper arrow routine going so beautifully all season, how can this possibly be?

As the sickness in my stomach began to subside, I nocked an arrow in the garage, took aim at the Big Green target at 15 yards and sent two arrows touching each other, SIX INCHES LOW!

I cradle and protect my bow with tender loving care each and every day. How the sights could have gotten that far off from one day to the next will forever be a mystery. But since I have written and raved about it so many times over the years, I may want to obey my own rules of bowhunting and take a “feel” shot before each hunt, and I think I shall.

It’s not only an archery thing, but as we all know, each year somebody at many camps somewhere will experience the heart-break of a bad shot for inexplicable reasons. Inexplicable that is until we admit that we all know things can go wrong, so we really oughtta plan on them and do everything in our power to keep them from happening.

Under most conditions, there will be an opportunity to take that pre-hunt test shot with both bow and or gun so we can be certain everything is tight, sighted in and in order before that long awaited moment of truth on the beast.

Mr. Murphy is a predator, an indiscrimi-nate, soulless, uncaring predator, and as his prey, we best be aware that he is ubiquitous, so check, check and double check, then check again to keep the punk at bay.

I’m on my way to my stand now, and I just took a shot to be sure I am ready. I am ready, and vow to always be ready forevermore.


Email Ted Nugent [email protected]

ted’s texaswild

by Ted Nugent | TF&G Editor-at-Large

Check, Check, Double Check, Check Again

Nugent.indd 20 3/5/12 10:51 AM


T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | 21

Killed With Kindness

Friends oF AnimAls, According to its own website, is a “non-profit, interna-tional animal advocacy organization,” which “works to cultivate a respectful

view of nonhuman animals, free-living and domestic.” The group’s stated goal is “to free animals from cruelty and institutional-ized exploitation around the world.”

So you would think Friends of Animals would be happy to work with other groups and individuals who want to save animal specie from extinction, especially groups who already have a proven, successful track record in that area. Not so much.

FoA’s president, Priscilla Feral, was fea-tured in a “60 Minutes” program recently about exotic game hunting in Texas. Feral represented what you’d call the “opposition” to the hunting of exotic game animals on private ranches, or anywhere else, for that matter. She thinks it’s wrong to hunt animals at all, anywhere, at any time, regardless of the situation.

To be clear, the issue here is not “canned hunts,” in which fair chase methods are absent. Those do exist, but most exotic game ranches offer ethical hunting opportunities, with no guaranteed kill. Feral believes that killing an animal, no matter the difficulty of the hunt, is wrong.

Feral is clearly aware that the scimitar-horned oryx is almost extinct in its native Africa, since she has been involved in creat-ing a preserve in Senegal to help them out. But while there aren’t many of the oryx left in Africa, there are anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 of them alive and well, living on private ranches in the U.S., where they are hunted as a game animal.

Feral is opposed to these ranches, of

course, even though African preserves have proven largely ineffective. When asked if she’d rather the animals went extinct, or were kept alive and continued to thrive because of hunting, her answer was that it would be better if they didn’t exist at all.

The truth is, without the financial incen-tive hunting provides, the scimitar-horned oryx, and some other specie that have been brought back from the brink of extinction on

Texas hunting ranches, would be gone for-ever. Some exotics have been reintroduced into their native lands using stock raised in the U.S., and there are quite a few groups with greater numbers in Texas than where they originated.

Money drives the train, and without hunt-ing there is no money. David Bamburger knows that. He doesn’t like hunting, but he is realistic enough to admit that without it, there would be no reason for ranchers to stock their ranches with exotic game.

During the late 1970s, when the scimitar-horned oryx was just about to exhale its last gasp, Bamberger offered to save them. He was sent almost every one of the animals left in the world, and brought them back from the edge of the abyss. Without Bamberger’s help, that species, and possibly some others, would be history.

Bamberger was interviewed during the “60 Minutes” program, and pointed out that if the only incentive to save animals from extinction was altruism, they are doomed. He doesn’t allow hunting on his property, but has helped to stock many ranches with exotics for the express purpose of hunting.

Take away the ranchers’ ability to make money, and the market will dry up overnight.

Exotic game hunting is a billion dollar industry in Texas, and creates over 14,000 jobs. Still, Feral believes hunting these animals is “ludicrous” and “immoral” and “obscene,” and that no one is entitled to hunt them. She just doesn’t seem to get it, doesn’t understand that hunting is good for exotic game animals as a whole.

Neither does U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who, together with U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), sponsored a bill, which will soon go into effect. This bill makes it illegal to hunt the scimitar-horned oryx and some other specie in the United States without a federal permit.

The Sportsmanship in Hunting Act of 2011, or H.R. 2210, which has been touted as a great victory by the Humane Society of the United States, is worded to make all exotic game hunting sound as if the animals are shot while held in pens the size of your living room. In fact, most of these hunts take place on hundreds of acres, and the hunters often go home empty-handed. But then, politicians rarely allow truth to get in the way of passing a juicy piece of legislation.

Cohen and Sherman are, no offense, about a sharp as a couple of croquet balls. What they have done is negated the effect of thirty years of conservation efforts, by David Bamberger and others, and signed the death certificates for these animals.

The value of the scimitar-horned oryx has already dropped by half. Within ten years there will be virtually none of them left in America, and shortly thereafter they will probably disappear forever. There is just no reason for them to survive without hunting. And they won’t.

And that’s the problem. These idiots, with the best of intentions, have paved the road to extinction for animals they are sin-cerely trying to help.

Email Kendal Hemphill [email protected]

commentary

by Kendal hemphill | TF&G Political Commentator

To be clear, the issue here is not ‘canned hunts.’

“

“

Commentary.indd 21 3/5/12 10:53 AM



All-day channel cat strategies that will help extend your

effective fishing well into theafternoon

by matt williams

Photo: US FiSh & WildliFe Service

Fea2-ChannelCat.indd 22 3/7/12 9:46 AM




I’ve often wondered why channel cats rank so far down the hit list. They are abundant statewide, fun to catch and usually more cooperative from one day to the next than the other two put together. Plus, chan-nel cat are protected by liberal limits and they make for some outstanding table fare.

Here’s an angler’s guide of tips to help you become more proficient at catching ol’ whiskers:

Slip Cork and HookThis is as simple as it gets. The slip cork

keeps the bait elevated off the bottom while at the same time acting as a reliable signpost to let you know when a fish takes the bait. You can adjust the slip cork to target differ-ent water depths quickly and easily by slid-

ing a bobber stop or piece of rubber band up or down the main line.

The slip cork set-up can be used in combination with a variety of baits - live, dead or prepared - for targeting channel cat around rocks, retaining walls, boat docks or anywhere else they live.

Lake Fork fishing guide Gary Paris likes to make use of the slip cork rig in a variety of situations. One of his favorites is to drift prepared punch or stink baits over submerged creek beds or channel ledges in water ranging 2-8 feet deep.

The guide prefers to tie or anchor the boat upwind from channel swings or straight-aways whenever possible. “This allows the wind to work for you,” Paris said. “The wind keeps the cork and bait away from the boat. Plus, it carries the scent of the punch

bait down the straightaway or into the creek bend. This will attract fish from distance.”

Paris always uses a treble hook (No. 4) in combination with his punch bait. He adds a split shot sinker just above the hook to keep the bait down and make the cork standing erect.

Cormorant RoostsFlocks of double-crested cormorants

migrate to Texas lakes each fall and winter. They spend part of their time dining on shad and other succulent forage. The rest is spent lounging on stumps and standing timber, where they periodically relieve their clogged bowels over the course of the day.

While most of the birds head back north in late spring, there are some resident popu-lations on a few Texas lakes. Fork is among them.

Channel and blue cat like to gather beneath roost trees to pick off the high pro-

THE LORDLY LARGEMOUTH MIGHT BE America’s fish. But here in Texas, there are armies of fans helplessly devoted to the lowly channel cat. The fol-lowing is so strong that Ictalurus punctatus won third in a Texas Parks and Wildlife angler popularity vote behind largemouth bass and crappie.

Channel and blue cats are attract-ed to the poop dropped by loung-ing cormorants.

Photos: Bigstock; Larry hodge

Fea2-ChannelCat.indd 24 3/2/12 3:17 PM

www.visitcameronparish.org

www.louisianatravel.com

tein cormorant poop when it goes splat on the surface. Anglers have learned they can get their line stretched by tossing various baits around the roost trees to simulate the droppings.

Paris and Cedar Creek fishing guide Jason Barber are most fond of chicken giz-zards, mainly because the meat is tough and hard to get off the hook. The bait also makes a nice “splat” when it hits the surface. Both guides prefer to use no weight in combina-tion with a heavy-duty worm hook, braided line and a stiff rod.

“It’s real important to approach the roost trees very quietly to avoid spooking the fish,”

Paris said. “I like to stay 30-40 feet away when I make my casts and I try to land the bait as tight to the stump or tree possible.”

Another way to score around roosts is to anchor upwind and cast a Carolina style rig to the fringes using punch bait, chicken liver, night crawlers or shrimp. A slip cork rig also can be effective in this situation.

Baiting a HoleCatfish are one big olfactory gland. They

will feed by sight. But most often they go where their noses lead them.

One of the best ways to insure some suc-cess with channel cat is to chum a hole or two using soured maize, chicken scratch or milo. Bagged range cubes intended for feed-ing cattle also work well.

The idea behind chumming is to ignite a feeding frenzy and concentrate the fish into a specific spot. For best results, secure the boat so it doesn’t move and scatter some soured grain up down one side of the boat. A coffee

can or two will usu-ally get the job done.

Drop a glob of stink bait or earthworm into a swarm of catfish and bites are just about guaranteed. Most of the fish caught over baited holes will range 1-3 pounds, but bigger fish will show up on occasion.

Lake Palestine guide Ricky Vandergriff likes to keep several spots baited, even when he isn’t fishing them. He says it is good insurance, because it trains the channel cats


Chuming with soured maize, chicken scratch or milo can ignite a catfish feeding frenzy and concentrate the fish in a specific area.


www.strikeking.com


to hang close to the areas.“Channel cats are just like bunch of

dogs,” he said. “Once you start feeding them on regular basis, you can’t hardly run them off.”

Chumming will work just about any-where, but tends to be most effective in areas with some sort of defined bottom contour change nearby. Vandergriff likes to bait

on main lake or secondary points close to a channel drain or slough. Timber flats adjacent to a creek or river channel also can be good.

Bait DoctorChannel cat are generally pretty coopera-

tive once you push their button, but some-

times it may be necessary to throw them a change up. One of Vandergriff’s favorite tricks is to alter the pale color of shrimp and chicken hearts by soaking them in chartreuse Dip-N-Dye.

“It makes the bait glow beneath the sur-face, plus it gives it a garlic flavor and scent,” Vandergriff said.

Prior to dying the shrimp, Vandergriff will remove the shell and soak the soft bod-ies in salt water for 2-3 days. This increases their firmness and makes it harder to rob the baits off the hook.

Where the Wind BlowsWind churns up waves that press zoo-

plankton and other microorganisms against the shoreline. This lures in bream, shad, minnows and other forage, which in turn attracts larger predators.

Any windy shoreline can be good, but wind-blown points can be particularly attrac-tive to channel cats. Points cluttered with logjams, stumps or scattered vegetation can be especially good.

A Carolina style rig is ideal for bottom fishing these types of places. Using a short leader (12 inches) will help detect subtle bites.

Another key ingredient to the Carolina rig is a two-inch Comal cork in chartreuse, red or pink. Pegged about three inches above the hook, the cork will float the bait slightly off the bottom and adds some color beneath the surface.

channel catfish spawn in late spring or early summer when water tem-peratures reach 75°F. Males select nest sites which are normally dark secluded areas such as cavities in drift piles, logs, undercut banks, rocks, cans, etc. Males guard the nest, and may actually eat some of the eggs if they are disturbed. The eggs, if not devoured, typically hatch in about a week. Fry remain in the nest, under the guardianship of the male, for about another week. In clear water, young fish appear to be much more sus-ceptible to predation and survival rates

during the first year of life are much lower. Channel catfish less than 4 inches in length feed primarily on small insects. Adults are largely omnivorous, feeding on insects, mollusks, crustaceans, fish, and even some plant material. Channel catfish in Texas reach sexual maturity in 3-6 years. Most are mature by the time they reach 12 inches in length.

Channel catfish are most abundant in large streams with low or moderate current.

Channel catfish are native to North America east of the Rockies from south-

ern Canada, south into northeastern Mexico, and east of the Appalachians with the exception of much of the coastal plain north of Florida. The species has been widely introduced in other areas as far west as California. Today channel catfish range throughout Texas, how-ever, it is believed that the species was not native to the upper Rio Grande and Pecos basins.

Channel catfish in excess of 36 pounds have been landed in Texas waters. The North American record stands at 58 pounds.

—Texas Parks & Wildlife

channel cat Profile



www.mustad.no


www.yakimabiat.com

28 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® Photo: Chester Moore

Success (and Sob) Storiesfrom CCA’s Million-Dollar

Coastal Tournament

by calixto gonzales

Fea 4-TaggedReds.indd 28 3/2/12 3:24 PM



PhotoS: CCA tEXAS

Then one bright May morning he was wading a back bay in Port Mansfield’s famed East Cut and spotted a tailing red-fish. He laid his gold Red Ripper directly in front of the fish’s path and the spottail obliged by zipping forward and nailing the shiny offering. Five minutes later, he slipped his wade net under the fish. That’s when he noticed the CCA tag in its shoulder.

“I started thinking about the truck and

the boat,” Ameling recounted. “I was an accountant, so I began figuring out in my head how much the IRS was going to hit me for the prize value. I figured I’d sell my old truck and boat to pay that off and ride in style on the highway and on the water.”

Then the cold, slimy tailfin of Reality slapped Ameling right in the face.

The date he caught the redfish was May 25th, a full three days before the tournament officially started.

“Well,” Ameling said with a shrug, “he still tasted good on the half-shell.”

The Hunt for Red Gold

Near misses like Amelings are part of the mystique of the Coastal Conservation Association’s annual Star Angler’s Rodeo. Certainly, the most coveted category is the tagged redfish division. Sixty redfish with special CCA tags are released into Coastal waters between Port Isabel and Port Arthur. As CCA Rodeo rules state, the first five qualified anglers (that is, mem-bers in good standing of CCA or it’s youth

organization—New Tide—who are over six years of age at the time of the competi-tion) to bring in a

tagged redfish that he/or she caught by non-commercial hook and line (although casting of said hook and line and netting by another

MIKE AMELING DIDN’T KNOW whether to laugh or cry. For years he had renewed his Coastal Conservation membership with an eye towards winning one of the STAR Tournament categories and the grand prize that went with it. Since retirement from teaching high school math, he’d average 150 days per year on Lower Laguna Madre, with occasional forays to Baffin Bay and Port Aransas, and he’d always caught plenty of speckled trout and redfish; some of the trout were real bruisers, too. Certainly he would eventually score a win-ner. The law of averages was on his side, right?

David Holt, caught the first tagged red-fish of the 2011 tournament on June 2 and registered it at Roy’s Bait & Tackle in Corpus Christi.


www.bombersaltwatergrade.com

is permitted) wins a new Ford F-150 “Texas Edition” pickup truck and Haynie 23 Bigfoot with a Mercury 150 Optimax and Coastline Trailer. The next five redfish turned in with a tag earn the lucky anglers the Haynie Bigfoot.

The Angler’s Rodeo has served as a boon for CCA membership. Roughly 40,000 anglers participate in the tourna-ment annually, which means that there are that many active CCA members annually. Several members join—and stay—specifi-cally for the tournament.

“I can say that I renew every year for that truck and boat,” said Gene “Scooter”

Paul Resendez, 2nd Tagged Redfish caught on June 2 and turned it in at Indianola Fishing Marina on West Matagorda Bay.

Fea 4-TaggedReds.indd 31 3/8/12 9:25 AM

www.bombersaltwatergrade.com

www.stormsuit.frabill.com


McGee. “Those prizes and the tournament keep me coming back.”

It may seem as a cynical way of boost-ing membership rolls; however, much like church, the important part is getting people through the door in order to work on them.

Stanford Knowles of the Cameron County Chapter of CCA pointed out that the members that join for the Rodeo still receive other membership benefits, such as Tide, the organization’s magazine, and full privileges to attend meetings.

“Members can still come to meetings and have input,” he said. “(Membership) enables them to be better informed about our goals, activities, and coastal issues. It’s a win-win scenario for all.”

2682 E. RoundbunchOrange, TX 77630(409) 886-1115

SGS Causeway3897 MLK Dr.Port Arthur, TX 77640(409) 985-4811

Sportsmans Supply5310 S Gulfway DrSabine Pass, TX 77655 (409)971-2535

Stingaree Marina1296 Stingaree RoadCrystal Beach, TX 77650(409) 684-3067

Baytown/Cove area -TBA

Marburger’s Sporting Goods1400 Bayport Blvd.Seabrook, TX 77586(281) 474-3229

Fat Boys Bait & Tackle601 Jones Lake RoadGalveston, TX 77554(409) 655-5150

GYB Bait & Tackle715 Holiday DriveGalveston, TX 77550(409) 762-3168

Surfside Marina827 Gulf RdSurfside Beach, TX 77541 (979) 230-9400

Sargent Area - TBA

Shell Food Mart4717 State Highway35 SPalacios, TX 77465(361) 972-3131

Russell’s Bait & TackleHarbor Road # 1Matagorda, TX 77457(979) 863-7620

Indianola Fishing Marina8 Bell Street(end of Hwy. 316/Ocean Drive)Indianola, TX 77979(361) 552-5350

The Fishing Center13th @ Intercoastal WaterwayPort O’Conner, TX 77982-0447(361) 983-4440

Seaworthy Marine Supply102 S. Fulton Beach Rd.Fulton, TX 78358(361) 727-9100

Woody’s Sport’s Center136 W. CotterPort Aransas, TX 78373(361) 749-5252

Roy’s Bait & Tackle7613 South Padre Island DriveCorpus Christi, TX 78412(361) 992-2960

Harbor Bait & Tackle123 W. HarborPort Mansfield, TX 78598(956) 944-2367

South Shore Bait & Tackle125 W. South Shore DrivePort Isabel, TX 78578(956) 943-1027

S.T.A.R. Weigh Stations


www.pathfinderboats.com

A Tough OutObservers marvel at the seeming extrava-

gance of the prizes offered in the tagged redfish program. Ten top-of-the-line boats and five Ford trucks are nothing to sneeze at. It should be noted, though, that there are 40,000 possible participants endeavoring to catch 10 of 60 tagged redfish among literally hundreds of thousands of reds spread over 900 miles of Texas coastline. Moreover, though some consider redfish a “dumb” fish, they are still wild critters that are not easily fooled. A goodly amount of skill, and more than a little luck, is involved.

Knowles points out that most of the tagged reds are caught in the mid and upper coasts. “Not many (are caught) in the Valley (Lower Laguna Madre),” he said. “I don’t know why.”

Catching a tagged redfish, however, doesn’t necessarily guarantee a prize. Over the years, plenty of tagged redfish get caught, but only a few qualify. 2011 saw 12 redfish caught, but only three won prizes. In 2010, for example, CCA reports that 13 tagged redfish were caught, but only six actually qualified. Of the three 2011 redfish, one was weighed in at Roy’s Bait and Tackle in Corpus Christi, a second in Port Aransas, and a third in Indianola.

The Rodeo rules are very clear in what tagged reds qualify. The redfish must be caught between the start and end dates of the tournament—this year it is from dawn, 25 May to 5 p.m. Labor Day—the tag must be intact and still attached to the fish, the fish cannot be frozen, spoiled, or mutilated, fish cannot be transferred from one angler to another, and it must be weighed in at an official CCA weigh-in station. Breaking any of these rules will disqualify the fish.

The rules, however, aren’t in place to discourage anglers from joining CCA and participating. To the contrary, the rules guarantee that anglers in the tournament are protected from not only from cheaters, but even being accused of cheating. As McGee pointed out, an angler has to go through so much to win the tournament that no one can argue his or her worthiness of the prize.

“And that keeps me coming back,” he said.

Him along with 39,999 of his closest fishing buddies.

Fea 4-TaggedReds.indd 33 3/5/12 11:47 AM

www.poerpro.com

Defensive Tactics

You can’T learn everYThing You neeD to know from a book, that is the truth. However, you can learn a great many good tidbits of information that you might

otherwise never find. I recommend reading a lot, especially if you carry a handgun and intend to use it for personal protection. You see, the truth is that you will never know how you will respond until that time comes. When you are faced with the choice of dying or fighting, many people choose to fight. However, many will turn tail and run, and be shot in the back. Well chosen books will help you prepare mentally for that sudden violent confronta-tion that you hope never comes, but for which you

are preparing.Truth: “If you are involved in a fair fight,

your tactics suck.” (Quote from Clint Smith, Thunder Ranch.)

Here is another truth: If you are ever faced with a situation where you are facing a person who appears to be intending to kill you, or at least to do you great bodily harm, you are much better off to attack than to run, or even wait for his next move. You see, most such hyenas never expect their victims to attack. They actually expect you to cower and plead for your life, or turn and run. That is what the sheep of the world do.

When faced with a sheep dog, especially one who carries a gun and is trained to use it very well, they simply don’t know what to do. If you attack, you may have a couple of seconds to do the job while they are shocked at your response. That couple of seconds can save your life.

Also, be aggressive! Don’t do it halfway. If you attack, attack with every fiber of your being, with every ounce of your strength, and keep attacking until he is no longer a threat. If you are doing it with your fists and feet, keep at it until you are physically unable to do it any longer. If you are using a gun, keep at it until you are absolutely certain that the threat is no longer a threat. I repeat, be aggressive.

When you decide to make your move, try to be deceptive. If you are right handed, raise your left hand and scream, “Oh, my God, don’t hurt me,” as you go for your

Books You Need to

ReadOVER THE LAST CENTURY or

so there have been a lot of books writ-ten on the subject of self-defense. These books range from the ridiculous to the indispensable. I doubt that you will ever really “need” to read the books written on the various martial arts, such as Kung Fu and Jujitsu, but if you do read them you will probably be more prepared for conflict than if you had not. However, since we are talking primarily about the self-defense firearm in this department, we will ignore the hand-to-hand books and go to those I feel really are the best on the subject of gunfighting.

The best book I have ever read on the subject of gunfighting and self-defense is the book by former Navy SEAL, Don Mann, titled “The Modern Day Gunslinger: Defensive Tactical Handgun Training.”

Don Mann covers every aspect of the art and science of gunfighting; he tells of tactics, weapons, and preparedness. Everything in the book is real-life and

useful, because Mann has been there, done that, and worn out a dozen of the tee shirts in actual combat. Mann has given us a text book on the subject of gunfighting and self-defense that is based on his very real experience. If you carry a gun and are serious about being able to use it in a life-on-the-line situation, read this book. Better yet, buy the book and read it several times a year, and then practice what it says. It might save your life.

Another great book is “Principles of Personal Defense,” by Jeff Cooper, a retired combat marine who has also been there and done that. He is one of the best at putting in writing the tactics that will allow you to react properly to a sudden violent threat and save your own life. In the foreword it says, “ Principles of Personal Defense is the fighting man’s

TexasDepartmentof Defense

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| Self Defense |

| Concealed Carry |

| Tactical |

by Steve Lamascus

Continued on page 37 u

DeptOfDef.indd 34 3/7/12 9:30 AM


gun. Misdirect the hyena. Take out your wallet—always carry your wallet in your weak side pocket—fumble with it and drop it at arms length to your weak side. If you are

carrying something, toss it at his eyes before you begin your draw. A man will invariably flinch if something is thrown at his face, and he will usually try to fend it of with his strong

hand. If his strong hand is holding a gun, you just got your break. However, for this to make a difference you will have had to have practiced with your gun to the point where

Whether defending with fist or firearm, attack aggressively and do not stop until the threat has been neutralized.


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www.atncorp.com


you can draw it and hit the target with it in less than 2 seconds from a cold start. If you can’t do that, anything else above is only going to get you killed.

Know everything you can possibly know about everything around you. In other words, be alert.

When you walk up to your car, have the keys in your hand, but not your gun hand. Do not walk up to the door of your car, stop, reach into your pocket and fumble for your keys with your arms full of packages. This type of action is tantamount to an engraved invitation to an armed robber. It also puts

you at about as much of a disadvantage as possible. It makes you a sheep, waiting to be

sheared.Instead be a

sheepdog. Do not be caught in

Condition White – ever. If you are walk-ing along the San Antonio River Walk with your wife or girlfriend, be in condition yellow. Do not let your loved one block your draw. Get used to sitting or standing with your back to a wall, facing the most likely danger zone. Know what and who is around you, including what is behind you. Pick out the possible dangers -- dark areas, people standing around in places that people shouldn’t stand around in; the same face you have seen several times that seems to pop up every time you turn around. It may be completely innocent and coincidental, but anything suspicious deserves a mental Post-It Note to keep an eye open should it be seen

Texas Department of Defense

Try to be a sheep dog, not one of the sheep.

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www.shotlock.com

again. Never let anyone sneak up behind you when you are isolated. This is exactly what the bad guys do. If you see someone suspicious walking up to you—or very con-spicuously not walking precisely toward you, but always getting closer—when you are alone, make it known to them that you are aware of their presence. “Hey, guys. Know

the difference between a sheep and a sheep-dog?” If there are several of them, make it known that you are armed and prepared to fight. “My Glock says that this is a really bad idea.”

Most importantly, you always need to be the designated driver. If you are drinking, leave the gun at home. Too many mistakes

have been made and blamed on alcohol. I have seen and heard of drunk cops making some inconceivably boneheaded decisions. If you carry a gun, especially if you are a law enforcement officer, do not drink!

guide to mental conditioning – plain and simple. And there is no better work on the subject – period.”

Since mental preparedness is the first line of defense, you really should read this book. If you have read any of my articles you will find some of the prin-ciples espoused by the late Col. Cooper in them, whether I learned them from his writings or from my own experience. Cooper, in his later life, was known as The Guru, and lived up to the name. He was one of the best and his books are all but indispensable to anyone who carries

a gun for self defense.One of my personal heroes is the

late U.S. Border Patrol, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, ret., Bill Jordan. Bill was a giant of a man and the fastest man with a six-gun that ever trod the banks of the Rio Grande. He was in multiple gunfights and knew whereof he spoke on the subject of self-defense. His book, “No Second Place Winner,” is still one of the finest treatises on the subject of gunfighting.

I had the privilege of meeting Bill Jordan when I was in high school in Eagle Pass, Texas, in 1968. Bill came to the school and gave a demonstration of his skill with a handgun. I was amazed at what he could do with a revolver. I tried

for the next 40 years to match his speed and accuracy and have finally decided that I do not have the physical ability to do so. However, in attempting to match his skills, and in practicing those skills regularly, I became much better than I would have been had I not met Chief Jordan and read his fine book.

When I was in the Border Patrol Academy I wrote to Bill wanting to buy his book, and he sent me a signed copy. Sometime later someone decided they needed it worse than I did and took it. I have had a real problem forgiving who-ever it was. I replaced the book, but the new one just isn’t the same.

—Steve LaMascus

t Continued from page 34

Self Defense Books


www.yamaha-motor.com/generators

38 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® Photo: John Sartin, BigStock

Fea 1-TurkeyRulesindd 38 3/2/12 3:48 PM


unlike anglers who fish for largemouth bass and saltwater fish who must go through an encyclopedia of regulations to see how large, how many and where they can fish, spring turkey hunters are blessed. Or are they?

Most of us who hunt spring turkeys know we are required to have a hunt-ing license and tag the birds after they have been shot, but does everyone really know all there is to know about Texas turkey hunting regulations?

The Laws and Regulations on Hunting Turkey in Texas, What They Mean and

Why They Exist

PART 4 OF OUR YEAR-LONG SERIES



Actually, spring turkey hunting regula-tions are very simple, but it pays to know all of them so you don’t have to pay later after you have made a mistake and violated the law.

Take a trip through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Outdoor Annual regulations booklet and you can learn a lot about what you can and cannot do to stay within the boundaries of the law.

The Rio Grande species of turkeys is the most numerous in Texas and is found basi-cally west of the Trinity River. The Eastern turkey species, once virtually eliminated by commercial hunting, unlawful hunting, and changing land use practices, have been restocked in counties as far north as Red River to extreme southeast Texas. They have done well in some counties, not so well in others.

Although Rio Grandes and Easterns appear similar in stature, the hunting regula-tions for them differ considerably, including means and methods, annual limits, and when they may be hunted. Let’s begin with the “when.”

This spring’s Rio Grande turkey season in 101 North Zone counties will run March 31-May 13, with special youth-only seasons set for March 24-25 and again May 19-20.

The Rio Grande turkey season in South Zone will be March 17-April 29 in 54 counties with special youth-only seasons set for March 10-11 and May 5-6. An addi-tional eight South Texas counties will have an April 1-30 season and one-gobbler limit with no special youth seasons.

Turning to East Texas, you will find the spring season in 28 counties will be April 15-May 14. This may seem like just a mix-ture of dates to some but it’s more than that. Rio Grande turkey hunters are allowed to shoot four turkeys per year, gobblers only or bearded hens in the spring in most counties, any sex during the fall, and other limits in a few counties. Eastern turkey hunters, on the other hand, may hunt turkeys only during the spring season and are limited to one bird per year.

Also, Rio Grande turkey hunters only are required to tag the birds they shoot with a tag from their hunting license. Eastern tur-key hunters not only are required to tag their birds but they also are required to take their birds to designated check stations within 24 hours of the kill and their birds can only be field-dressed.

For Rio Grande turkeys in counties

restricted to gobblers only and/or bearded hens, a male turkey must have one leg including the spur attached to the bird, or the bird, accompanied by a patch of skin with breast feathers and beard attached, is acceptable as proof of sex. An exception is that a receipt from a taxidermist or a signed statement from a landowner or his agent stat-ing the hunter’s name, date it was killed, the sex of the turkey and whether the bird had a beard will suffice.

There are other differences in hunting regulations for Eastern and Rio Grande tur-keys. For one, Rio Grande turkeys may be hunted with any legal firearm, including rim fire and center fire rifles, shotguns, muzzle-loaders, and bows and arrows, including crossbows.

The only weapons that can be used to hunt Eastern turkeys are shotguns and archery equipment, including crossbows. The reason Eastern turkey hunters cannot use rifles and handguns to hunt turkeys dur-ing the spring season is, in my opinion, the result of an attitude toward spring turkey hunting dating back to when it first began to gain popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. Most hunters at that time shot turkeys while hunting deer, not using calls to entice them into close range. As more hunters learned the excitement of calling turkeys, attitudes changed, not only in Texas but elsewhere. Nevertheless, no changes were made in weapons legal for Rio Grandes, just for the newer Eastern turkey regulations.

Most spring turkey hunters today prefer to go into the woods, use a call to draw the birds to within close range and shoot them with a shotgun. Others, however, prefer the “ambush” approach and shoot them from their “deer blinds” over game feeders, along trails and elsewhere. However one chooses to hunt spring turkeys is his or her own game. I like the shotgun approach and apparently others did, too, when the Eastern turkey hunting regulations were established.

Hunting is hunting, so give it all you have whatever your preference is.

Another difference in hunting regulations for the two species of turkeys is that Rio Grande turkeys may be hunted over baited areas, Eastern turkeys may not.

If you will look at your hunting license, you will find there are four tags there for turkeys, and they are listed as Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4. The ones numbered 1 and 2 can be used for turkeys taken in any county with a four-bird annual bag limit.

Tag No. 3 is for one Eastern turkey or for one Rio Grande Turkey.

Tag No. 4 is for a turkey taken in any county with a four-turkey annual bag limit or for turkey in Bastrop, Caldwell, Colorado, Fayette, Jackson, Lavaca or Milam coun-ties where the bag limit is one turkey for the spring season only.

Many other turkey hunting regulations are common sense, such as no hunting is allowed from public roads or rights of ways to public roads and no turkeys may be hunted while they are on their roosts.

Here are a few other regulations you may be interested in:

Anyone hunting turkeys, regardless of age, is required to have a Texas hunting license. A resident is a person who has lived continually within the state for six months prior to license application and can pur-chase a hunting license for $25. An Upland Game Bird Stamp Endorsement ($7) also must be purchased with that license to hunt turkeys.

A non-resident may purchase a special spring turkey hunting license for $126 with no Upland Game Bird Stamp Endorsement required.

A youth hunting license can be pur-chased by anyone under age 17 and no stamp endorsements are required. Senior citizens age 65 and older can buy a hunting license for $7 but the stamp endorsements are required to hunt turkeys and other game.

Anyone applying for a hunting license must submit their Social Security number. That is required by federal law and a hunt-ing license will not be sold to anyone who refuses to provide their Social Security number.

Also, anyone born after Sept. 2, 1971 must pass a Hunter Education Course. The minimum age for that requirement is age 9. The course costs $15. Persons age 17 or older can purchase a one-year deferral from the Hunter Safety course requirement for $10. Proof of having taken a Hunting Safety course or having purchased a defer-ral must be in the hunter’s procession while hunting but is not required to be submitted while purchasing a hunting license.



Texas Bowhunting

by Lou marullo | TF&G Bow Hunting Editor

A Day to Remember

Oh I lOve ThIs TIme Of yeAR. The DAys are a little longer. The air is a little warmer and the turkeys are sounding off every morning. April, on every

Texas calendar, should have a great big pic-ture of a beautiful Rio Grande turkey, and they are beautiful. The colors they sport set them apart from the other species out there. However, here in the great State of Texas, we are blessed to have three out of the four species of turkeys.

Last month I wrote about different equip-ment to use while bow hunting these critters. If you review my column for April, you will get a good idea of what type of broadhead to use and also different ideas on how we like to hunt turkeys with our bow. I will not bother repeating myself. I am sure that if you are serious enough to take your bow to the turkey woods, then you are diligent enough to research the knowledge you will need to harvest one of these birds.

I thought I would write about introducing a child to hunting. What better way for a child to learn to love the outdoors than to visit the turkey woods. I know there are some very proud Moms and Dads out there that have witnessed their child take a whitetail with a rifle, and they should be proud. But try to put yourself in a child’s mind for a moment. How exciting it is to hear a gobbler sound off in the distance. Your little hunter will learn that as you do your best to sound like a hen, that gobble is getting louder and louder and your child’s undeniable smile will get bigger and bigger. He or she will learn that the bird is looking for them and the hunters are in a great hiding place. What kid doesn’t like hide and seek?

I had the opportunity to take my little guy out to try his luck on turkeys last year. We spend the previous summer in the yard hav-ing some fun shooting our bows. He actually

got to be pretty good, if I do say so myself. He told me he would rather hunt with a bow but I decided that on the day of the hunt I would also bring along his Mossberg 20 gauge youth Bantam 500 pump action bow—I mean shotgun—just in case!

I took the time to do my scouting trips and I was confident that I knew where the birds like to roost. A scouting camera proved that the birds like to use this one field near a narrow woodlot. I traveled to the spot the day before our planned hunt and after looking around for the best location, I set up my Carnivore blind. It was getting late in the afternoon, so I decided to wait in the blind until sunset to do a little last minute scouting.

It was not long before I heard the first bird fly up to its roost. Soon, the entire flock of birds made a racket as they flew up to a safe branch and comfortable spot to spend the night. Perfect. Tomorrow morning we will have some action for sure.

By the time I finished telling my new hunting buddy about all the birds I had heard, he was so excited it was like going to bed Christmas Eve. I am not even sure he slept at all.

Morning came much too early for me, but Justin was already up and getting ready. After a small breakfast, we hopped in the truck and set out for the turkey woods. Under a blanket of darkness, we walked through the field trying to be as quiet as a field mouse. I had to laugh a little when we walked by the scouting camera. It flashed and scared my little guy clean out of his boots! I never knew he could jump that high.

We sat comfortably in the Carnivore por-table blind and enjoyed a few snacks while we waited for sunrise.

I wrote about the Carnivore blind by Ameristep last month and I really cannot say enough about it. It is perfect for turkey hunt-ing especially if you are introducing a child to this new experience. He could move about freely without any chance of being seen by those wary birds.

It did not take long before we heard the first gobble. Man, it was so close it sounded

like the bird was in the blind with us. We both looked at each other and smiled. I never knew he could have such a big smile.

I double-checked our decoy set up to and was convinced that it would fool any birds that entered the field that morning. Soon the hens were making their soft tree calls and the woods woke up to a turkey serenade.

I took my hat off and vigorously slapped it up against my leg to mimic the sound of a bird flying down. Then, I yelped with my mouth call just as quiet as I could as if to say “Hey, I’m here and everything is alright. Come join me.” The gobbler sounded off immediately. This time with a double gob-ble. Moments later the birds started to fly out of their roosts, and Justin was ready. I could see the excitement in his eyes as he waited for the first bird to walk into view. With his bow in hand, he glanced over to me as if he needed some kind of approval. I simply nodded my head and reminded him “Aim small, miss small.”

We could hear the birds walking closer to us. Looking out through the mesh on my side, I saw the first turkey. As he approached the decoys, he had absolutely no idea that he was about to have a bad day. My new hunter drew his bow back and took careful aim. The arrow flew true and the Gobbler Getter broadheads did their job.

This was a day that neither one of us would soon forget. It seemed like it was all over too soon, but the memory of that hunt would last a lifetime.

I never knew I could be so proud.Have fun and be safe out there.

Email Lou Marullo [email protected]

Bowhunting.indd 41 3/6/12 3:03 PM


The hunt was so slow that his com-panions, his dad and a family friend, had fallen asleep. That’s right, asleep, which is somewhat understandable considering what they’d seen that afternoon. Then right in front of him stood a turkey. It hadn’t gobbled, putted, purred, fanned, strutted…nothing, as it came into the calling that a

42 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® Photo:Natureguy, caNstock

RESTING WITH HIS BACK against a tree, the

hunter (who shall remain nameless to protect the inno-

cent) had been calling all day with limited success.

Actually it was zero success.

Fea5-DangTurkeys.indd 42 3/2/12 3:26 PM

few minutes ago the hunter thought he was doing for his own entertainment. Putting the bead of his shotgun on the gobbler’s head our hunter squeezed the trigger and the bird never moved. By never moved, I mean it literally never moved. Just stood there not even blinking trying to figure out what that loud noise was.

It’s hard to tell who was more stunned, the shooter or the turkey, but the gobbler regained his senses quicker and took off run-ning right in front of the hunter’s dad who was woken up by the shotgun blast just in

time to shoot the quickly escaping bird.His name is Tom, he weighs 20 pounds,

has the mental capacity of a rotten peach pit, and this spring he is going to make you look really really stupid. Dang turkeys.

Whitetails might be the premier big game species in Texas but I know many hunters who would put their deer rifle down and


byPaul Bradshaw

The maddening, frustrating,

and just plainmean thingsturkeys do to

hunters.

Fea5-DangTurkeys.indd 43 3/2/12 3:26 PM

44 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® Photo: Brenda C, BigstoCk

never hunt them again if they had to choose between turkey and deer. Why? Because honestly, deer can be boring. We sit over feeders and watch them with cameras and basically hope they come by.

Turkey, on the other hand, excite the senses. Most of the time you’re not sitting there hoping one walks by, you can hear or see them and know exactly where the turkey is and are trying to convince it to come your way with calls and decoys. Turkey hunting involves more interaction between predator and prey than just about any other form of hunting.

It’s the ultimate game of tag, and 90% of the time the turkey wins.

Mike Fisher isn’t originally from the great state of Texas (he got here as quick as he could), but we won’t hold that against him because when it comes to turkey hunting he knows his stuff. Thankfully he took the time one evening to talk turkey with me so that I could pass along to you a few tips to keep you from cussing the birds like the hunter at the beginning of this article.

“You have to understand,” Mike shared, “when you are calling a gobbler in that you are doing the exact opposite of what happens in nature. Normally, the hens go to the tom, not the other way around.”

The reverse nature of calling in gobblers is what leads to probably the most frustrating event in turkey hunting, the bird that hangs up out of range. The bird comes in, doesn’t like what it sees and refuses to cross an imaginary line just outside of shotgun range.

Years ago Mike had a turkey do this to him one morning but with a little ingenuity he still bagged the bird. He and his hunt-ing partner had been working a big tom all morning. It would come up to a small ridge 80 yards away looking for the lonesome hen that was calling, then move out and start to walk away when it couldn’t find it. This went on for a while until Mike had finally had enough. The next time it moved away Mike slipped up to the ridge and hid. When he was in place his partner called, the bird came back to the exact same spot looking for love one last time and it was game over.

It doesn’t always work out that well though. There was the time that Mike had a tom fly down from the roost and land almost in his lap, just slightly left of directly in front of him. The only problem was there was a small sapling in the way. Mike couldn’t move his gun to the left and shoot the bird just yards away. To add insult to injury, after the first bird walked off behind him another larger turkey flew off the roost and did the exact same thing. Dang turkeys.

Sometimes you have to let the birds go in order to get them later. “Don’t educate the birds,” Mike advised. “It’s a long season, so you might have to let them walk right now in order to get them later.” An old bird is a smart bird so if you let him know you’re in the woods, you just made him ten times harder to kill.

Mike put his “let him walk” theory into action a few years back to take a fat West Texas gobbler. There really are no big

trees in West Texas, but Mike had located the largest trees in the area he was hunting and sure enough they had turkeys roosting in them. Sneaking in before dark, Mike set up next to the trees, overlooking a powerline right of way, where the birds would fly down to when the sun got up. It was the perfect set-up, but someone forgot to mention it to the birds.

The sun started up and on cue a pair of gobblers pitched out of the tree and into the opening landing just out of range. Normally, a few hits with a mouth call would bring them in the few yards needed for the shot but unfortunately they landed with a bunch of hens. I don’t care how pretty you are or how seductive your calling is, you are no match for a turkey hen. So Mike just let them walk. As far as the birds knew he was never even there.

Fortunately, Mike knew where the birds were feeding and later that afternoon set up between the feeding grounds and the roost. While the birds made their way back to the roost, he sat rock solid, not making calling at all, and had the whole flock pass in front of him before he took a shot and bagged a gobbler.

Turkey can be one of the most insanely frustrating animals to hunt, making you feel like slate call toting imbecile. But just call in your first bird, just one little bird, and you might never want to hunt anything else. Dang Turkeys!

Fea5-DangTurkeys.indd 44 3/5/12 11:52 AM


Picking a Cat Fight

The Thrills oF Calling PredaTors hiT me hard as a teenager. Wayne Weems was alive then and making wooden mouth-blown game calls in my home-

town of Fort Worth. His calls eventually expanded to 45-rpm portable record players and later cassettes.

Fast forward decades later to the early 2000s when the excitement of attracting a predator in close while mimicking an injured animal led me to the mountains of Mexico at Rancho Caracol, a 5-star hunting operation that catered mainly to whitewing dove and quail hunters. When ranch owners Barry and Dean Putegnat offered me the use of their pickup truck and an electronic predator call on their ranch to see if I could call up a “big cat,” I leaped at the oppor-tunity. The Putegnats have worked with U.S. and Mexico wildlife researchers to document the presence of five species of wild cats on their huge ranch_ ocelot, bobcat, margay, jaguar and jaguarundi. They set out trail cameras at watering facilities they had constructed and waited for the results.

I went to one of the watering sites and called up a large bobcat and photographed it although the direction of the sun that morn-ing didn’t lend to a great photo. I remember the hunt well but, afterwards, learning more about jaguars, I wondered if I really wanted to call up a cat that often exceeds more than 200 pounds in size. After all, the jaguar’s name comes from the Native American name yaguar, which means “he who kills with one leap.”

My thoughts about jaguars were renewed last hunting season while eating lunch at the Wagon Wheel restaurant in the Mills County seat of Goldthwaite. The Hill Country town is one of my favorite places

to visit, shop and talk with locals, especially during the hunting seasons. It remains as one of the few towns that still display a “Welcome Hunters” banner across its main street, holds raffles on the town square with items geared towards hunters and their families, and, plain and simple, it is a very comfortable place to be a guest.

While enjoying my lunchtime meal, I turned through the local newspaper, the Goldthwaite Eagle, to an article about a spotted cat shot by three hunters in 1903. Along with the article was a photograph of the big tan and orange cat with black spots which was the last jaguar reported killed in the Hills Country area.

The saga, written by Judy Wigley of

G o l d t h w a i t e , began with two

men, Henry Morris and Homer Brown, set out to hunt raccoons, bobcats, ringtail cats, gray fox or whatever else their dogs would tree. On the way, they were joined by a young friend, John Walton.

As the story goes, the trio were armed with small caliber rifles, a shotgun and a Colt .45 revolver. Their hounds picked up a trail quickly and the chase was on. Their quarry climbed into a tree and the three hunters rushed to see what their dogs had at bay. What they saw was the biggest cat they had ever seen.

It was a huge jaguar, the third largest feline in the world behind the tiger and lion. It is the largest cat species on the

Western hemisphere and originally native to the southwestern United States, Mexico and potions of Paraguay and Argentina. It resembles a leopard with habits resembling mostly that of a tiger with a stalk-and-ambush feeding tactic.

One of the men shot at the cat but it leaped from the tree and escaped into the brush. The dogs immediately pursued it but the cat responded in defense by killing some of the dogs. Walton went for help and the big cat later attacked a horse before being shot in the shoulder with a load of buckshot. Morris eventually killed the jaguar, which was taken to Center City where local citizens came to get a close-up look at the huge spot-

ted cat estimated to weigh 200 pounds.No one knows for sure who removed

the jaguar’s pelt but it ended up in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. The Mills County Historical Museum has requested it be sent to their museum but were told by a Smithsonian representative that the hide was folded and to brittle to be moved, said Peggy Blackwell of the Mills County Historical Museum.

Nevertheless, the Mills County Historical Museum at Goldthwaite does have a blown-up framed photo of the three hunters, some of their dogs, and the huge jaguar taken by them in

1903, which she allowed me to photograph.Some historians say the last jaguars killed

in Texas were one shot in the Rio Grande Valley in 1946 and one killed in Kingsville in 1948, but those are only the last to be reported. The jaguar’s presence in Texas no doubt is history, or is it?

We now have black bears reappearing in East, Central and West Texas, there are javelinas as far north in Texas as eastern Knox County, migratory species of ducks such as the masked duck appearing outside their normal ranges, and more. No, your chances of seeing a jaguar in Texas are slim, but don’t ever say never.

Photo: BoB hood

Email Bob Hood [email protected]

hunt Texas

by Bob hood | TF&G Hunting Editor

The picture of the 1903 jaguar killed by hunters in mills County hangs in the mills County historical museum in Goldthwaite.

Hunting-Hood.indd 45 3/8/12 9:40 AM


The Dark Half

I HaD never seen anyTHIng lIke IT.

It was the first time I’ve ever night-fished the April full moon, but Captain Jimmy Martinez swore it was going to be

one of the “most awesome fishing trips of your life.” I’ve had lots of great fishing trips, and a few that were truly memorable, so my curiosity was piqued.

Martinez timed our trip to Lower Laguna Madre’s famed South Bay to coin-cide with an outgoing tide and the full moon. Fortunately for me, the full moon was on Holy Thursday this particular year, which meant I wasn’t going to have to either skip school the next morning or show up and zombie-walk through the day. Jimmy ran his blue Shallow Sport through the dark bay with expertise that I may never develop, and we arrived at our destination quickly and safely. We anchored just up-current from a spot where a series of channels cut through the ultra-shallow bay converged and the water poured off the flats into the deeper water—the famed Washing Machine.

By the time we reached the spot, the moon was rising and the outgoing tide was in full force. The powerful currents from the falling tide formed eddies and rips in the hole, and even though we had no night light I could tell there were some hefty fish in the eddies. The pops and slurps of their feeding on shrimp and baitfish thrown off the flats gave them away. We baited free-line rigs with big brown shrimp and hastily flicked them into the maelstrom.

The action was fast and intense over the next two hours, until the tide went complete-ly slack and turned the flats into a muddy parking lot. When we finally put up or rods, Captain Martinez’s fish box was loaded with near limits of trout, redfish, black drum, a flounder that hit a Mirrolure that I’d thrown out on spec, and one 7 pound mangrove

snapper. That did not include the myriad snook, small trout and two oversized redfish we’d released.

Jimmy wasn’t exaggerating with his pre-diction. It was an awesome experience, except for the two hours of cleaning fish.

Spring is most Texas Coastal anglers’ favorite season. Mild weather means a chance to start wetting lines more frequently, and the warming waters stimulate trout, redfish, flounder, and other inshore species into stretching their fins and looking for prey. Strong tides send fresh water into the bays, and bait hatches mean that there plenty of food for all. It’s a great time to fish.

Springtime anglers can find some super-lative fishing opportunities if they are willing to lose some sleep. Night fishing when the tulips bloom is a strategy that every dedi-cated saltwater fisherman should consider, especially when the moon is full.

Because of the springtime hatches of mullet, menhaden, shrimp, and other prey species, falling springtime tides tend to push more prey off flats and into dropoffs and edges than a winter tide. Predators tend to aggregate around these dropoffs to take advantage of the buffet feast that they run into. The spring tides of the full moon (by the way, spring tides do not refer to the season, but rather to the idea that the tides of the full and new moons “spring” or surge more water than neap tides) increases the flow on and off of flats and pushes even greater quantities of bait into the loving maws of these hungry beasties. The darkness of night provides greater security to gamefish from even larger predators, but the full moon still allows them to hunt by sight as well as smell and vibration. The combination makes for hellacious nighttime action.

The kicker is that anglers don’t need to purchase or rig lights to attract fish to an area at night (although it couldn’t hurt). The fish are already concentrated and on the feed.

The best areas for a springtime night trip are those with good water flow and a clear dropoff that will aggregate the game-fish. Hannah’s Reef in Galveston Bay is an excellent nighttime spot, especially for

wade fishermen who will find stability in the shell and sand bottom, and good fish holding structure on the points of the reef. South Bay, the Land Cut, the Humble Channel, and Baffin Bay are also good night spots (although the latter can be a bit hairy because of the super shallow areas and the hidden rocks; anglers who are bold enough to night fish Baffin would do well to go with someone who knows the bay intimately or otherwise set up before dark and fish until dawn). Guts and points as well as reefs are good spots to focus on because of their effect on current and flow.

A good bet is to visit a prospective night fishing spot during the daytime and observe how water flows off or around the area. Mark where eddies and breaks form, because those are areas that will hold bait and fish. When you return at night, you have a better idea of where to target your casts for maximum effectiveness.

As for tackle, obviously live bait is deadly effective, especially a live shrimp or small finger mullet. When fishing flats near shore-lines, a live mud minnow will often outfish any other bait. Rig bait on a free-line rig. If the current is a little stronger than expected, put a #3 split shot 10 inches above your bait to get it down into the water column.

Of course, if you want to save the trouble of using bait, there are a plethora of lures that work well at night.The DOA Shrimp is a great choice. Toss the ¼ ounce sized lure onto the flats and let the current take it into the eddies. A twitch from the rod tip com-pletes the illusion. The glow pattern is the best choice, followed by glow/pink. Gulp! Shrimp in glow are also deadly.

Some anglers have tried using topwaters at night. There is something about hearing a loud, unseen splash or chug and feeling your rod almost pulled from your hands that can be addictive.

So much so, it could cause some fisher-men’s sleep cycles to be disrupted!


Email Cal Gonzales [email protected]

Texas saltwater

by Calixto Gonzales | TF&G Saltwater Editor

Saltwater.indd 46 3/6/12 3:04 PM


Saltwater.indd 47 3/5/12 10:58 AM

www.fishgame.com/newsletter.htm

Operation Buckbrush

Lake FOrk is arguaBLy the greatest Texas bass lake of all time. But let’s face the facts. Time is catching up with the 27,000-acre reservoir near

Quitman. While the lake still kicks out its share of wallhangers, it just ain’t what it used to be. Not even close.

One of the main reasons is the shift in habitat dynamics that have taken place there over the last 27 years. Early on, Fork was a jungle of cover that was almost impenetrable in places. The maze of trees and brush served as the ultimate playground and nurs-ery for bass to thrive, and the ideal setting for anglers to soak their baits.

Much of that cover has since deterio-rated and the fishing quality has gradually changed because of it. Thus the reasoning behind an aggressive habitat enhancement project put in motion last fall by Texas Parks and Wildlife inland fisheries staff and ambitious members of the Lake Fork Sportsman’s Association.

Armed with shovels, gloves and hopeful attitudes, the men teamed up and got their hands dirty as they launched what may be one of the most viable efforts of its kind ever attempted on a public water body in Texas.

I say viable, because this habitat enhance-ment project actually has a legitimate chance working — with a little help from Mother Nature, of course. I call it the project “Operation Buckbrush.”

Buckbrush is a slang term anglers some-times use in reference to buttonbush, a woody shrub that can survive when flooded by several feet of water for long periods of time.

Once established, buttonbush is highly prolific. The plant provides excellent cover for bass, crappie and various forage species. It can be very beneficial during the spring months, when spawning activity takes place.

Furthermore, buttonbush provides anglers with a challenging jungle of shallow cover where they can pitch, flip and drop their lures.

While buckbrush is already established on many lakes across East Texas, it is most beneficial for fish on water bodies that are prone to fluctuate several feet from one year to the next. As water levels drop, the plant is able colonize on the dry ground. The new growth provides additional cover for the fish as the lake refills, while also serving as

a breeding ground for tiny microorganisms that substantiate the aquatic food chain.

Bottomline: It’s great for the fishery and great for fishing.

Countless anglers have often wondered what it might be like if such a dynamic ever came to exist at Lake Fork. With any luck, they may begin finding out within the next few years.

On Nov. 30, several TPWD staffers and nearly three dozen Lake Fork vol-

unteers “salted” the lake with about 400 buttonbushes. The two-year-old plants were purchased using LFSA and TPWD funds.

The bushes, most 3-4 feet tall, were divided and planted at several different sites in Glade and Big Caney creeks left dry by the prolonged drought. The plantings were performed at varied elevations to optimize survival and propagation with future water level changes.

This is the first time in several years Fork has dropped this low, but it won’t be the last. Increased water usage by the City of Dallas is expected to cause fluctuations up to five feet annually. Factor in natural evaporation and annual fluctuation could double that, especially in a drought situation.

Fisheries biologist Kevin Storey of Tyler says buckbrush is nothing new at Fork. Mature stands can be found all over the lake. Problem is, the woody cover is restricted to areas that are too shallow to do the fishery any good.

“There are buttonbush plants in the lake, but they are confined to the edge of the water at full pool,” explained Storey. “This is a consequence of a long history of stable water levels that have prevented the plants from spreading towards the lake. When the lake is full the existing plants are only in a few inches of water and no real benefit to aquatic habitat. The buttonbush we just put out should be in several feet of water once the lake refills, which should make them available cover for bass.”

Storey says he is hopeful the plants become established well enough in the months ahead that they will begin to spread by next year.

“When they produce seed, we are opti-mistic that these will further spread the plants,” he said. “The most noticeable impact of the plants will be felt when water levels return to normal.”

48 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® Photo: Eric EngbrEtsEn

Email Matt Williams [email protected]

texas Freshwater

by matt Williams | TF&G Freshwater Editor

Freshwater-Williams.indd 48 3/5/12 11:00 AM


Freshwater-Williams.indd 49 3/5/12 11:00 AM

www.sealyoutdoors.com


TRUE GREEN

Fighting Marsh Loss in J.D. Murphree WMAThe environMenTAL AnD econoMic ben-efits of wetlands and prairies along the Texas Gulf Coast are tremendous, and the marshlands south of Port Arthur are no exception. Coveted by anglers and hunters for their abundant wildlife, these marshes also provide floodwater storage and storm surge protection for the citizens and indus-tries of Chambers, Jefferson, and Orange

TRUE GREEN

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TRUE GREEN TRUE GREEN

Counties. Unfortunately, these coastal marshes are disintegrating.

Marsh loss is a problem for most of the Gulf Coast, but a solution recently applied in Jefferson County may serve as the model for other areas. That solution is the use of material dredged from shipping berths, canals, and waterways in a manner that benefits degraded emergent marshes.

“Millions of cubic yards are dredged for navigational purposes each year,” Ducks Unlimited Director of Conservation Programs Jerry Holden said. “Where it’s logistically possible, it makes sense to utilize that material to address coastal wetlands loss.”

Golden Pass LNG, NOAA Fisheries, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Depart-

ment agree with this perspective. When the opportunity arose to use dredged material from nearby Golden Pass LNG’s berthing facility to restore emergent marsh within the Salt Bayou Unit of the J.D. Murphree

Wildlife Management Area, the three groups enlisted the engineering and restora-tion capabilities of Ducks Unlimited.

Continued on page 52 u

photo: Ducks unlimiteD

Due to saltwater intrusion, subsidence and scouring storm surges, the Salt Bayou Unit has degraded over the years, reducing the amount of emergent veg-etation. Once areas lose their vegetation, they also lose many of their benefits to waterfowl and other wetland-associated wildlife and fish.

TrueGreen.indd 51 3/8/12 9:44 AM

www.wileyx.com

“We’ve worked with DU for many years, and we recognize their expertise in wetlands restoration,” TPWD Area

Manager for J.D. Murphree WMA Jim Sutherlin said. “This area has long been important for waterfowl, other wildlife, and fisheries, and we want to ensure that we continue to provide quality habitat.”

J.D. Murphree WMA provides impor-tant habitat for waterfowl that winter along

the Texas Gulf Coast and year-round habitat for Mottled Ducks

as well as other wildlife and fisheries. Over the past 100 years, accelerated loss of emergent coastal wetlands has reduced veg-etation, soils, and long-term resource sus-tainability within the area. Scouring surges from Hurricanes Ike and Rita further exac-erbated this trend in habitat loss.

“Storms are a natural event along the Gulf Coast, and healthy marshes should be able to recuperate from their effects. How-ever, due to various man-made changes, the marshes no longer receive sustaining sediments from upstream river flows,” DU Regional Biologist Greg Green explained.

“Now when the fertile, organic soils of the marsh are lost, the area becomes more of an open water body with diminished value to wildlife and fisheries.”

This is where dredged soil material can come to the rescue. More than 3.2 million cubic yards of material were pumped over 4 miles through a temporary pipeline from the Golden Pass LNG berth, located north of Sabine Pass along the Sabine-Neches Waterway, to designated areas within the Salt Bayou Unit last year. DU provided engineering and technical support during project design and implementation.

“The beneficial placement of dredged material on an existing marsh is similar to placing a thin layer of topsoil on a strug-gling lawn,” Green said. “You don’t pile it up in a big mound that will bury the lawn, but spread it so that grass can grow through it.”

TRUE GREEN CONTINUED...

t Continued from page 51

Murphree WMA


DU staff super-vise the place-ment of dredged materials during construction.


www.trijicon.com

When the dredge material is initially placed, it can resemble an unattractive moonscape. It doesn’t take long, however, for vegetation to reestablish itself and return the marsh to a lush and diverse environ-ment.

Sutherlin advises: “Our user public may find short-term inconvenience from the restoration project, but the long-term dividends for wildlife and fisheries habitat improvement are well worth it.”

Projects like this one require partners with a unified vision. “This is the diverse partnership model that DU encourages and seeks to nurture along the Gulf Coast. We feel that the future of wetlands, waterfowl, and coastal sustainability depend on it,” Holden said.

“Golden Pass LNG could have taken a more traditional route by placing the

dredge material in a containment area. The fact that they considered using the mate-rial in a positive way and encouraged their dredging contractors to do whatever was necessary to make the project work best for marsh restoration deserves much credit and attention,” Green said.

The partners have already improved 1,500 acres of emergent marsh soils, and plans are underway for similar restoration projects elsewhere on J. D. Murphree WMA.


—Staff Report «TG


From the air, you can see the 1,500-acre project area freshly supplemented with dredged material and adjacent broken marsh (foreground).


www.power-pole.com

The CoasTal ConservaTion assoCia-tion Texas recently announced a $500,000 matching grant to initiate a new push in generating the funding to open Aransas County’s Cedar Bayou and Vincent Slough. After decades of negative impacts from siltation and low water flows, an estimated $6.5M effort will be required to open the vital connection from Mesquite and Aransas Bays to the Gulf of Mexico.

“It is not often that there is an oppor-tunity to reopen a vital and iconic pass,” said Robby Byers, CCA Texas executive director. “There is still a lot of money to be raised and a lot of work to do, but CCA Texas kicked off a critical next step with

this financial support.”Cedar Bayou is a natural pass that

separates St. Joseph’s Island from Matago-rda Island. Dredging efforts date back to the 1930s, but partial efforts, siltation and misplacement of spoil materials have even-tually led to the pass and adjacent Vincent Slough being sealed.

Along with the kick-off funding, CCA Texas will partner with Aransas County in providing funds to secure a professional fundraiser to pursue the needed dollars to complete the dredging project. To date, Aransas County has already secured $500,000 in Coastal Impact Assistance Program funds for the project.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the economic and environmental future of Aransas County and the State of Texas,” said Judge C.H. Mills. “Our partnership with CCA in this important effort is a much-needed boost to push this initiative forward.”

After a protracted application and approval process, Judge Mills signed the dredging permit for Cedar Bayou and Vin-cent Slough on August 3, 2011. Although the pass has been dredged numerous times through history, this is the largest and most comprehensive effort slated to date.

“Anytime you can open a pass between the Gulf and bay, you are creating a tre-mendous benefit for the bay and the anglers who enjoy it,” said Mark Ray, CCA Texas Chairman.


CCa Takes steps to open Cedar Bayou

—Staff Report «TG


www.p-line.com



www.americanhoghunting.com


Fea 6-Trout.indd 56 3/2/12 3:31 PM


STORY AND PHOTOS BY

JOHN N. FELSHER


“I’ve fished the lake since the early 1970s and usually bring over about 70 to 100 customers each year,” said J. B. Gibson, a businessman from Spring, Texas. “I’ve caught several trout over 8 pounds. My biggest weighed about 8.5 pounds. On Thanksgiving weekend in 2010, my grand-son and I caught 25 trout over 5 pounds.”

Calcasieu Lake measures 12 miles long by nine miles wide and covers about 52,700 acres of the Calcasieu River delta. The lake sits adjacent to the Calcasieu Ship Channel, a deeper, wider and straighter version of the old Calcasieu River course. The channel cuts a swath 40 miles long, 400 feet wide and 40 feet deep from Lake Charles to the Gulf of Mexico.

The ship channel hits Calcasieu Lake at Turner’s Bay on the north end. Farther south, several openings including the Washout and Nine-Mile Cut connect the channel to the lake and bring in baitfish and predators with tides from the Gulf. At the southwest corner, West Cove extends across the channel. Reefs near Long Point and Commissary Point hold fish. Trout also hang around old rock jetties in the southern part of the lake.

“Probably about 85 percent of our clients come from Texas, mostly from the Houston area,” said Capt. Guy Stansel of Hackberry Rod and Gun (888-762-3391/ www.hack-berryrodandgun). “During a north wind, Turner’s Bay is always full of fish. In a

south wind, I fish West Cove, which has a lot of big oyster reefs. The south bank of Big Lake is another good area. The reefs off the east bank near Commissary Point have been really hot in the past few years.”

Known locally as Big Lake, the body of water solidified its reputation for giant trout between May 1997 and May 2004 when it delivered three double-digit specks to the Louisiana state record book. In addition, the lake contributed four trout to the Louisiana fly-fishing book including the 9.31-pounder state fly record caught by Capt. Jeff Poe of Big Lake Guide Service (337-598-3268/www.biglakeguideservice.com) in December 1996.

Tim Mahoney holds the official lake record with an 11.16-pounder he caught in May 2002. Anglers sometimes catch record book trout, but never submit the paperwork or officially weigh the fish. In May 2000, Stuart Roy caught and released a 32-inch trout with a 17-inch girth that some biolo-gists estimated weighed between 12.5 and 13 pounds. Although the lake hasn’t pro-duced a Top 10 all-tackle fish since 2004, John K. Mayne did add a trout to the

ABOUT 2-1/2 HOURS FROM HOUSTON and 25 miles east of the Texas-Louisiana line, Calcasieu Lake south of Lake Charles, La., attracts many Texans seeking to land giant speckled trout. Most Texans run out of Hackberry down the western shoreline on La. 27.



www.allstarrods.com

Louisiana fly-fishing book in April 2008. When Hurricane Rita devastated south-

west Louisiana in September 2005, it shut down fishing for months. The reprieve from fishing pressure helped the system. In addi-tion, the state lowered the daily trout limit on Calcasieu Lake and other southwestern Louisiana waters from 25 to 15 per day and mandated that anglers can keep no more than two speckled trout 25 inches long or longer per day.

“The fishing has been some of the best I’ve seen in the more than 30 years that I’ve been guiding,” Stansel said. “Calcasieu Lake still produces a lot of big trout, but not like it did during that phenomenal run in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The lake still produces several 8- and 9-pound trout each year and an occasional 10-pounder. One day in late December 2011, my nephew Brett caught about 40 trout, all between 4 and 7 pounds.”

Although Calcasieu anglers could land a Louisiana record speckled trout during any month, the spring typically produces the biggest fish. All three trout in the all-tackle list came in May. March produced two top 10 fish on the Fly list, while April added another.

“We’ve caught some trout over 8 pounds in the past couple years on my boat, but nothing over nine pounds in that time,” advised Capt. Erik Rue of Calcasieu Charter Service (337-598-4700, calcasieucharters.com). “May is typically one of the key times to catch big trout in Calcasieu Lake when the water warms up and the fish get really active. Topwaters are one of the best ways to catch big trout.”

Trout three pounds and larger primar-ily eat fish instead of shrimp and largely feed upon mullets, menhaden, pinfish and croakers. Topwater baits mimic baitfish, particularly mullet. For catching big trout in the spring, look for mullet schools. Watch for any frenzied action on the surface and toss topwaters into the ruckus.

“We catch a lot of fish on topwaters in the spring,” Stansel advised. “In the spring, when I’m looking for big trout I fish oyster reefs in West Cove with topwaters. A chrome and black She Dog is my favorite topwater bait. Finding baitfish is the key to catching big fish. In April, I look for mullet because pogies haven’t quite schooled up yet. Also look for good tidal movement. In the spring, I like an incoming tide, but either incoming or outgoing is good as long as it’s moving.”

Anglers also catch trophy trout on live bait. Attach a live croaker or mullet about six inches long to a circle hook and free line it over a good reef. Anglers can also rig it on a Carolina rig with a slip sinker and a long leader or dangle a live baitfish under a cork.

For trout numbers, drift the mid-lake reefs and toss 1/4-ounce jigheads tipped with plastic. Let the jighead fall to the bot-tom and hop it along the bottom. Hot colors for soft plastics include black and chartreuse, purple and chartreuse and glow with a char-

treuse tail. For area information, contact the

Southwest Louisiana Conventions and Visitors Bureau at 1-800-456-SWLA or visit www.visitlakecharles.org. Anglers who fish with a licensed charter captain can buy a three-day non-resident license for $5. For more license information, call 888-765-2602 or you can visit their website at:www.wlf.louisiana.gov/licenses/fishing.


Fea 6-Trout.indd 59 3/8/12 9:49 AM

http://www.visitlakecharles.org

http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/licenses/fishing

www.berkley-fishing.com

60 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® Photo: Jack Bissell

Grinnel, a.k.a. Bowfin, Are Gaining New Respect from Freshwater

Sport Fishermen Who Appreciate a Good Fight

by chester moore

Fea3-Grinnel.indd 60 3/2/12 3:12 PM


I LIKE MEAN FISH. BY VIRTUE of being predators most of the fish we pursue have “mean” or aggressive tendencies but there is something exciting about fish that are outright vicious.

Take the grinnel (bowfin) for example. They are as mean as they are ugly and they are really ugly.

Dwelling in everything from big rivers to tiny sloughs, they destroy other fish and fishing tack-le with extreme prejudice. While fishing near Bluebird Fish Camp on the Sabine River back in 1996 my wife Lisa had one break her rod, explode the gears in her reel and just before I could net the behemoth (this was a legitimate giant), it of course broke the line.

Yikes! My first encounters with grinnel came fishing the

gully down the street from our family home in West Orange. Fishing dead shrimp

on the bottom we would routinely catch grinnel in the 3-6 pound

class and every once in awhile we would get on a monster that would snap

our lines. Most anglers are familiar with these fish only

by chance. Grinnel more readily hit artificial lures more than any other rough fish and have spooked many bass fishermen over the years.


I will never forget my cousin Frank Moore and I fishing an area called the “Burnt Out Bridge” on the Louisiana side of the Sabine River just across from Orange.

It is absolutely loaded with grinnel and each bass fishing trip over the years has yielded several of these ugly creatures.

We were catching some bass on a black

crawworm with chartreuse pinchers but the grinnel started biting and the bass did not have a chance. I put on a topwater and told Frank, “I have never caught a grinnel on a topwater so maybe I will be able to get a bass.”

Famous last words. On the very first twitch of the plug, a

gigantic boil occurred over the plug in the tea-stained water. For a moment I thought I had on the biggest bass of my career but soon realized it was a 10-pound class grin-nel. I was upset for a second and then real-ized I would have to be crazy to complain about fighting such a powerful fish.

According to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, grinnel spawn in the late spring.

“Nests are constructed by males in shal-low, weedy areas. Vegetation and silt are removed from the nest by males and the adhesive eggs attach to any hard structure that is left, such as roots, gravel, wood, etc. Eggs hatch in 8-10 days. Males guard both incubating eggs and fry which may remain in the nest for about nine days after hatching.”

“Initially, bowfin young feed on small

Moore and his daughter Faith with a grinnel they caught in a small pond.

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www.frabill.com

invertebrates such as cladocerans (water fleas). By the time they reach about four inches in length they are primarily piscivo-rous, although crayfish can make up a substantial proportion of the diet, and frogs are also consumed. Young fish may grow as much as 12-14 inches during their first year. Bowfins tend to be found in deeper water during the day, and migrate into shallower areas used to feed at night. Their swim blad-der is used as a lung and they may be seen surfacing to renew their air supply from time to time.”

In my opinion, grinnel are one of the best fish to seek in the pursuit of getting young people hooked on fishing. Virtually every neighborhood slough, bayou and backwoods pond in the eastern half of the state is loaded with them and they will hit pretty much anything.

The best setup is dead shrimp on a Carolina rig fished on the bottom although last year I caught some big ones using Black Salty Baitfish rigged under a popping cork.

Look for areas with slow moving water and scout by watching for the fish rolling at the water’s surface. Set up for 30 minutes and if you do not get bit, move. Grinnel tend to find bait quickly when you offer it to them.

I am actually going to target big grin-nel this year and have a goal of catching a 15-pounder. I will probably do this in a par-ticular system of sloughs across from Orange in Louisiana and will be using the Black Salty Baitfish under a popping cork fishing 40-pound Spider Wire Ultra Cast with a 40-pound fluorocarbon leader. Rigged on my Abu Garcia Veritas rod with a Penn Conquer reel I can cast this with surprising precision and plan on sighting casting to grinnel rolling in the sloughs.

I will also try some lure fishing. Last year I had a monstrous one blow up on a Super Spook worked along the edge of a bank in this area. I am hunting monsters so I will only be using big plugs.

For anglers serious about lure fishing for grinnel spinnerbaits and buzzbaits seem to work great as do small chuggers like the Pop-R.

I am not the only angler who thinks grin-nel flat out rock. Check out bowfin anglers.com and you will see there is an entire com-munity of anglers who think this super strong fish are worth pursuing.

The grinnel which by the way is also known as choupique, cypress bass, dogfish and mud marlin in addition to the common

“bowfin” tag in my opinion rank with fish like South America’s payara and wahoo in the mean department.

Typically caught in the blue water of the Gulf these mackerel shaped, toothy fish hit with absolutely amazing power and speed and can spool you before you can say, “wahoo”.

Because of their beautiful markings and affinity for hitting lures, wahoo have gained a strange sort of respectable image by the blue water community. The truth is however they

are plain old meanies that are in the same category as the grinnel in the slough down the street from my house.

Admittedly, the wahoo is much finer on the grill and is definitely more attractive to look at but at the end of the day mean is mean.

And in that department grinnel are sec-ond to none.

Fea3-Grinnel.indd 63 3/8/12 10:20 AM

www.hobiefishing.com

Modern Camo

“What kind of CaMo Would you like, sir?” the salesman asked Doc.

“Oh, you know, plain old camo.”

“Formal or casual?”I didn’t think anything could surprise me

these days, but that did. “Uh, people come here to buy formal camouflage, or camou-flage for formal occasions?”

“Either. You can get a fancy shirt or jacket over there,” the salesman waved vaguely toward the north. We have several patterns to choose from for all formal occa-sions. Or you can get collared shirts to wear when you simply go out to eat for example.”

“Formal drawers?” Jerry Wayne asked.“Aisle three.”I watched Jerry Wayne leave.The salesman had a thought. “Hey,

we’re out of boxers in Real Oak.”Jerry Wayne sighed. “All right. I’ll see if

you have any sleeveless tee shirts.”“Maybe not his size,” the salesman

turned back to us. “All right. Do you want dress shirts?”

“I want to hunt,” Doc answered.Apparently, the salesman hadn’t heard

that comment in the high end store. “Most of our clients don’t…hunt.” He spat the word.

“I…do,” Doc spat back. What hap-pened to this place? It used to be an outdoor store.”

“Well it is, sir. We sell fashion outdoor clothing.”

“Like this boonie hat?” I asked, turning so they could see how it looked on my head.

The salesman stepped forward and removed it for me. He put it back on the rack. “This hat is very expensive.”

I took it down, looked at the price tag, and replaced it very carefully on the hook.

“He ain’t kidding. That isn’t a hunting hat.”

Salesman indicated a rack of clothes. “We sell very specific gear for specific outdoor engagements. For example, see that you man over there? He’s looking for climbing gear.”

The man turned and I read 14,778 printed on the back of what I would have called a windbreaker, but I’m sure had some type of catchy name such as Summit Arctic Chillblain Wind Turner.

Doc regrouped. “I just want some cam-ouflage to blend in while I’m turkey hunting this month.”

“Blend in with what?”Wrong Willie couldn’t stand being silent

any longer. “Blend into the terrain, the vegetation, the woods.”

Salesman stared.“Blend in with the understory structure,”

Willie continued, unable to help himself. “You know, the habitat, environment, eco-logical niche.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Salesman asked. “Let’s look over here.”

He ruffled through a rack and handed Doc a shirt. At least I think it was a shirt. It contained more pockets than a herd of kangaroos. There were even pockets on the sleeves, not to mention tiny pockets in the underside of the collar.”

“This is urban camouflage,” Willie said.“Right.”“There are no turkeys in urban areas.”Salesman looked us up and down. I real-

ized he was about to make a statement that would render him senseless, so I joined the conversation. “Doc is interested in more of a woodland pattern. Do you have something like that?”

Another shirt appeared.“This one is patterned after the alpine

regions of the Swiss Alps.”“Too far, and I don’t have a hunting

license for Switzerland. Maybe mesquite patterns, or even high desert? Maybe an old tiger stripe from the sixties?”

“I’ll look in the back,” Salesman said and left.

“They have this shirt,” Willie said, hold-ing up just we’d asked for.

It was a beautiful tiger stripe pattern. In keeping with modern fashion, it was properly faded. The cuffs were worn and frayed. Patches were artfully arranged on the back. The collar was rolled, abused and frayed also.

The whole thing looked as if it had been stoned washed. We were all impressed with the garment’s authenticity. Doc tried it on and was disappointed that it didn’t fit.

I slipped it on. A little big, the shirt worked perfectly. “How much do you think this is?” I asked Doc.

We looked but couldn’t find a tag. Willie went back toward the racks to see if he could locate another. We waited for a while and when Salesman didn’t return, we headed for the check out counter.

“You gonna buy that?” Doc asked. “You don’t even know how much it is, and in this store, it could be a lot.”

“I have to have it,” I said and got in line.We hadn’t been there for more than a

moment when we heard a huge uproar back toward where we’d just been. A tough, hard-looking gentleman with a long gray pony tail was giving Salesman a good chew-ing out.

“I just took off my shirt to try on another one and someone took it!” He shouted. “What kind of place is this that a man can’t even try on clothes without being robbed blind?”

I wondered that myself as I handed the shirt to Jerry Wayne and slipped out the front door with Doc and Willie. We figured Jerry would really need his new drawers after Ponytail got through with him.

“Walmart?” Doc asked. “Shoulda gone there first,” I answered,

and we waited for Jerry Wayne to appear.


Email Reavis Wortham [email protected]

open Season

by Reavis Wortham | TF&G Humor Editor

Humor-Wortham.indd 64 3/5/12 11:02 AM


The aim of this article is to give you the basics on tackle and techniques to get you started or perhaps improve your odds of catching flounder.

Location: If you cannot find fish, it is impossible to catch them so let us start with where they lurk. From late February

through early April, flounder funnel into the passes from the Gulf of Mexico to establish residence in the bays. Targeting efforts around passes linking the Gulf to bays as well as the ship channels linking bays to the lower portion of rivers is great during this time period, particularly in the early part of the spring “run” or migration. During fall the majority of the

PHOT

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I KNOW FLOUNDER. A large portion of my career has been dedicated to the pursuit of flounder and the knowledge to help other anglers (and myself) catch them. They are fascinating, fun and tasty fish that are totally different from redfish and speckled trout.

T F & G A L M A N A C T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | 65

by chester moore

FlounderBasics

ALMANAC Digital.indd 65 3/29/12 10:26 AM

flounder return to the Gulf and funnel back out through the same areas beginning in late October through early December. The big-gest migrations at this point center on cold fronts, which purge the marsh and shallow

bay systems. O n c e

the fish estab-lish themselves in the bays, the

best places to target numbers of fish are

the cuts linking marsh to bay. Concentrate your first efforts in the

mouths of cuts leading into bays from large marsh systems. Look for cuts that are wide enough and deep enough to flush lots of marsh water on tidal movements. Try the first couple of major points, eddies and the first “S” turn inside tributaries with moving water. Flounder typically haunt the edge

line of such areas. Baitfish like juvenile

menhaden, which are not yet strong enough this

time of year to fight the currents, tend

to rest in the slack water. It is very impor-tant not to overlook this predator/prey relat ionship

for flounder.

Many anglers make the mistake of looking for larger baitfish like mullet and larger menhaden to find flounder, but that is not the way to go in the spring.

Flounder are opportunists and they will go after the easiest thing to catch and during spring, which is menhaden.

Tides dictate how flounder will be feed-ing. On a fast falling tide, they move in close to the drainage in tight schools. When it is falling slowly, they might scatter out around the mouth of a specific drainage or up into the marsh. They will do the same thing dur-ing the first hour or so of an incoming tide. Then they will usually move into the cuts.

Another good area to look for spring flounder is along the main shorelines of bay systems. Attacking vast shorelines would be a waste of time and end up in dogged

66 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® T F & G A L M A N A C

hOW-TO SeCTiON

68 TexaS bOaTiNG • Get REAL | by lenny rudow

72 TexaS kayakiNG • Casting for a Cause | by greg berlocher

73 paul’S TipS • Camping Kit | by paul bradshaw

74 TexaS GuNS & Gear • 30 Cali-ber Marketing | by steve lamascus

GeariNG up SeCTiON

76 TexaS TeSTed • Biobor, Smoove Wax | by tF&g staFF

77 iNduSTry iNSider • Galveston Bay Foundation | by tF&g staFF

78 FiSh aNd Game Gear • Hot New Outdoor Gear | by tF&g staFF

FiShiNG FOreCaSTSeCTiON

80 hOTSpOTS FOCuS: upper COaST • The Action Heats Up in April | by capt. eddie hernandez

81 hOTSpOTS FOCuS: GalveS-TON • The Weather Factor | by capt. mike holmes

82 hOTSpOTS FOCuS: maTaGO-rda • Let Me Re-Introduce You to Matagorda Bay | by bink grimes

84 hOTSpOTS FOCuS: rOCkpOrT • Avoid Spring Breakdowns | by capt. mac gable

86 hOTSpOTS FOCuS: lOWer COaST • Snapper and Kings | by calixto gonzales

88 TexaS hOTSpOTS • Texas’ Hot-test Fishing Spots | by calixto gonzales, bob hood, & george knighten

96 SpOrTSmaN’S daybOOk • Tides & Prime Times | by tF&g staFF

OuTdOOr liFeSTyle SeCTiON

104 huNTiNG TaleS • Spring Turkey Basics | by bob hood

106 TexaS TaSTed • Sugar Cured Wild Turkey | by bryan slaven

108 OuTdOOr ClaSSiFied direCTOry • Guides, Gear and More | by tF&g staFF

110 TF&G phOTOS • Your Action Photos | by tF&g readers

TF&G ALMANAC Table of Contents

65 COver STOry • Flounder Basics | by chester moore

www.FishGame.com

CONTiNued ON paGe 68 u

passes and cuts are prime target areas for flounder anglers.

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TF&G ALMANAC Table of Contents


www.eagleclaw.com

Get REALA

RE you A REAL boAt LovER, oR ARE you just a wannabe? REAL boat lovers will lay on coat after coat of wax, until their pride and joy shines

so brightly it attracts moths in the moonlight. REAL boaters will change their outboard engine oil so often that they get Christmas cards from Exxon-Mobile. And REAL boaters position the trailer just so each and every time they back into the driveway, because the boat is sure as heck going to look perfect in the next Google Earth pic-ture. What about those wannabes? They couldn’t care less. Their boats look drab and dingy, and they even (shudder) defer maintenance. The worst offenders have probably also committed one of these top

10 bone-headed boat maintenance blun-ders—you REAL boaters will avoid them, at all costs.

tHE GASKEt GAFFERe-using the gaskets that seal your lower

unit and powerhead engine plugs is a huge no-no. Many of these are compression-gas-kets, which are only meant to be used once. Recycling might seem like a good idea but in this case, it could lead to leaking oil and grinding gears—use a new gasket, each and every time you replace those plugs.

StAtIC SANDINGSanding down the bottom before a fresh

paint-job is a miserable maintenance chore, and any sane person would try to speed it along. But resist the temptation to push and grind in any one particular spot as you sand; although there may be a high-point or a bump you need to get rid of, if you hold that

sander in one place for more than a second or two, you might grind your way right into the gel coat. Instead, always use light pres-sure and move that sander constantly.

HAZEMAKERWhat kind of marine moron destroys

the ability to see through his Lexan, plastic, or clear canvass windscreen? The one who uses Windex or a similar ammonia-based cleaner. That stuff is formulated for glass, and glass only. Use it on one of these other common windscreen materials, and you’ll cause them to turn yellowed, hazy, and brittle.

ALuMINuMAZING MIStAKE Is the aluminum on your boat becom-

ing pitted and discolored? Then there’s a good chance that when you wax your boat, you fail to massage your metal. Just like fiberglass and other apparently “solid” surfaces, aluminum does have tiny pores

frustration so you have to have a strat-egy. Instead of looking over eight miles of shoreline, narrow your search down to an eighth of a mile. You must eliminate water to successfully bag flounder outside of the migration periods.

The first step I take while eliminating water on a strange ecosystem is to look for a shoreline that has stands of roseau cane. Roseau cane has an intricate system that is somewhat like a smaller version of mangrove and it gives baitfish a place to linger, hide and dodge larger predators.

bAItS/LuRES: More flounder are caught on live mud minnows and finger mullet than anything else along the Gulf Coast. These baits rigged on a Carolina (fish finder) rig

are responsible for most flounder catches. This rig simply consists of an egg weight rigged above a swivel and attached to a leader that is attached to a hook. It is best dragged across the bottom slowly so slow-moving flounder get a chance to grab it.

When you feel thump or the rig simply stops moving as if it is hung, let it sit for 10-20 seconds and then set the hook. This will give the flounder a chance get the large baitfish in its mouth deep enough to make a hookset.

I prefer fishing with artificial lures for flounder and last year caught 102 in four days while using Mr. Twister’s Sassy Shad (2.5 inch) and their curl-tailed grubs.

Shad imitations and curl-tailed grubs rigged on an 1/8 or ¼-ounce jighead and tipped with a small piece of shrimp are deadly for flounder and are great fished in

the marshy areas described above although they can be just as effective at fishing drop-offs in ship channels and around boat docks and ramps where flounder congregate dur-ing the fall run.

The optimum rod for flounder fishing is one with a backbone. Flounder have a very bony mouth which is why it is hard to set a hook on them. I like to use a medium-heavy spinning rod and spool it with heavy braided line. Braid does not stretch, so using it in conjunction with a stiff rod helps penetrate the bone in a flounder’s mouth and avoids the frequent loss of fish at the boat that hap-pens when anglers fish with light rods and monofilament line.

This rig works great for both live and artificial bait although there is a difference

Cover story: flounder basiCs

t Continued froM PaGe 66

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www.xpressboats.com

and cracks—and this is where salt can crys-tallizes and cause that nasty pitting. Keep it coated with wax, however, and you’ll fill in those gaps. One note of caution: Waxed aluminum does become slippery, so you’ll want to leave steps and grab-rails wax-free.

ORBITAL OUTRAGEAn orbital buffer works wonders when

you’re waxing your hullsides, but make sure you tape over the rub-rail, or that buffer will leave ugly streaks of white where you should see shiny a black surface. If you don’t want to do a tape-job, another option is to simply stop a couple of inches below the rubrail, and do the remainder by hand. Also look out for rubber, vinyl, or plastics on vent caps, through-hulls, and other items, any of which can be discolored by wax.

FIBERGLASS FAUX PASWhen you’re repairing chips, dings, and

gouges in a fiberglass boat, one of the tough-est jobs is matching the gel coat color. But be careful—if you match it perfectly and apply that gel coat immediately, and you may actually be ruining the job. The color can change as the gel coat dries, and just what type of change occurs can be different depending on the type of gel coat, ambient temperature, and the type of pigment you’re using. So before you do your repair, mix a test-batch and allow it to harden. That way you can compare the final product with your hullsides and you’ll know exactly what kind of change to expect. Then you can adjust the coloration accordingly.

TIP-TOP TROUBLESure, well-oiled teak looks great on any

boat. But if you’re a wannabe in search of a quick fix, you’ll oil that teak while it’s still affixed to the boat. Big mistake—you’re bound to accidentally get some of the oil on the fiberglass next to the teak. And that stuff can permanently stain gel coat, and turn it a rust-orange color. Boaters who care will remove the teak from the boat, oil it up, allow it to dry, and then secure it back in place.

FAST FLUSH FAILUREMaybe you care enough about your

boat’s powerplant to flush it with freshwater after each and every use. But, do you flush it for long enough? Many boob-ish boaters mistakenly think that as soon as the water runs cool, it’s been flushing for plenty of time. Not so. In fact, the engine experts say it takes a solid five minutes before you can be sure all of those salt crystals have been washed away. This is extremely important, not only to prevent corrosion but also to pre-vent those crystals from acting as abrasives and wearing on your water pump impeller. So take your time, let that water flow for the full five, and get this maintenance chore done right.

PAINTING PAINSBottom paint belongs in just one place,

on your boat’s bottom. But wannabes might get carried away when they start rolling on this job. Two items, specifically, should always be avoided when you’re bottom

painting. The first is your fishfinder trans-ducer, which is plastic. Let that paint dry on the face of the transducer, and your fish-finder’s performance will suffer and chemi-cals in the paint may even cause permanent damage. The second item to look out for is your zincs. In order to work properly these need full exposure; cover them with paint, and they can’t do their job.

SCRUB-A-DUB-DOH!Even the seemingly simple chore of

a wash-down can cause damage to your dream-boat over time. The common issue here arises when you have a stiff-bristle brush and you use it on every inch of your boat. Stiffies will cause miniscule scratches in your gel coat and outboard cowls, espe-cially if you bear down and push as you scrub. Over time, that’ll make the shiny finish look dull and worn. Instead, these surfaces should always be scrubbed with soft bristles or a rag.

So there you have it, ten blunders you need to watch out for or your boat will be in for some serious maintenance mayhem. We know you REAL boaters will pay heed. And as for you wannabes, well, just leave the waxing to us.

E-mail Lenny Rudow at [email protected]

in how long to wait for hookset. When using curl-tailed grubs other soft

plastics, I weight 2-3 seconds if the fish hits super hard and 10-15 if I only feel pres-sure on the line or a light tap. These lures go into flounder’s mouth much easier than a live, wiggling mullet or minnow so they frequently strike with fury.

This is only the tip of the iceberg for flounder fishing. These fish are as complex as largemouth bass and if you want to get serious about pursuing them I recommend picking up my book “Flounder Fever” avail-able at fishgame.com and taking one of my Flatfish University ™ courses available at www.flatfishuniversity.com.

We also have a lot of blogs and videos on flounder available at fishgame.com, plus

you can always email me for additional help. I am sort of an ambassador for flounder and am excited you have chosen to get involved in their pursuit and hope to be of assistance as you further interest in Texas’ flatfish.


t Continued froM PaGe 68

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http://www.flatfishuniversity.com



www.thirdstonesoft.com

Casting for a Cause

Fishermen Can make a big diFFer-ence in people’s lives. Steven Schmidt and Jim Dolan are good examples. Two regular guys with regular jobs;

both are making a big difference.Schmidt is an avid fisherman that works

for NuStar Energy in Corpus Christi. The company believes in giving back to the com-munity and Schmidt chairs a committee of co-workers that will be hosting the 5th annual Casting for a Cause Fishing Tour-nament on Friday, June 8th.

Dolan is a senior pilot for American Air-lines who ferries passengers safely around the globe in large jets. Dolan, also an avid fisherman, is the driving force behind Heroes on the Water (HOW), a group that introduces wounded veterans to kayak fishing.

I met Dolan for lunch several years back and he gave me an overview of HOW. As we noshed on fish tacos, Dolan shared his vision for the upstart organization and the challenges of balancing a full time career with his passion for helping those wounded in the line of duty. HOW’s volunteers take wounded vets kayak fishing and the freedom of paddling a kayak is often very liberating to those on crutches and in wheelchairs. Fun and fellowship are the mainstays of the program; catching a few fish along the way only adds to the enjoyment.

In many cases, the participants are in a very dark place in their lives. After a few hours on the water, it’s not uncommon for groups of soldiers to drift off to an isolated area and share their innermost thoughts with each other. In many cases, it is the first time that they’ve ever shared their trials and tribulations with another person. Volunteers are aware of this and give those preferring

solitude plenty of personal space.HOW works to restore warriors’ hearts

through kayak fishing. Their mantra: Pad-dle. Fish. Heal. Dolan gave me heart-wrenching stories of vets they helped and by the end of our meal we were both dabbing our eyes with our napkins.

Heroes on the Water was chosen as the organization’s name as they extend support to police officers, firemen, and other first responders who may have been injured in the line of duty, not just veterans. You can learn more about HOW from their website at www.heroesonthewater.org.

During our initial phone call I discov-ered that Schmidt, like me, owns both a bay boat and multiple kayaks and gravitates to the paddle craft whenever possible. This affinity for kayak fishing led him to include kayakers in the Casting for a Cause Tourna-ment. “In reality, many of those fishing from a kayak are those that can’t afford a boat,” Schmidt explained. “This tournament is about having fun and raising money for charity and we wanted to include as many people as possible,”

The Casting for a Cause Tournament will be held on Friday, June 8th. Tourna-ment headquarters is at Marker 37 on South Padre Island, just across the JFK Causeway.

Boating anglers fish in 1- 4 man teams while kayak teams fish in 1 -2 man teams. Entry fees are modest: $125 per person for those who fish from a boat and $75 per person for kayakers.

The captains’ meeting, held on Thurs-day night June 7th, has a distinct celebra-tory flavor. “The tournament is meant to be a good, fun event,” Schmidt continued. “We have a large crawfish boil and there is a lot of socializing. Individual fishermen can make new friends at the captains’ meeting and even form teams as late as Thursday night”

Sponsors have donated a treasure chest of goodies to the tournament and all will be given away as door prizes at the captains’

meeting. Last year, the tournament gave away over $10,000 worth of door prizes; the least expensive prize was $250 in value. Regardless whether Lady Luck shines on you during the prize drawing, everyone receives a gift bag and tournament T-shirt. To learn more about Casting for a Cause, you can call email Schmidt at [email protected]

All proceeds from the tournament are given to different charities. “We are pleased to report that Casting for a Cause received over $62,000 in cash donations and over $10,000 in in-kind donations last year,” Schmidt explained. “Our goal for 2012 is to raise over $100,000.” The NuStar Foundation is responsible for handling all of the money and then distributing the funds. Some of the charities supported include Boy Scouts of America, Multiple Sclerosis Soci-ety, and Heroes on the Water. Casting for a Cause is HOW’s largest single contributor. With the generous support of the NuStar Foundation, HOW has been able to launch 38 chapters across the country over the last few years and volunteers have served over 5,000 wounded veterans to date.

Last year a team travelled all the way from Michigan to fish the tournament and will do so again this year. A travelling contingent of 20 kayakers from Austin will also make a repeat trip to Corpus Christi in early June. In addition, 14 wounded vets took part in the tournament last year and the number will likely grow this year.

Schmidt and Dolan are both veterans and both love to fish. Two regular guys with regular jobs; both are making a big difference.

Greg Berlocher can be reached for question or comment at

[email protected].



http://www.heroesonthewater.org



Camping Kit

It’s that tIme of year agaIn where the weather is perfect. Not too cold, not too hot, not too rainy, not too dry. It is just right for taking the kids out for

a weekend of camping. While the major-ity of the time the level of enjoyment of a family camping trip is dependent on nature cooperating, if you don’t have the right gear with you then it doesn’t matter how nice it is outside because the trip will be a bust.

We’ll get to what you should take on every camping trip, no matter what, in just a minute but first I just want to point out that all of these items should be dedicated to camping, and only camping. You shouldn’t borrow them from your normal everyday used items because you will be sitting there trying to flip pancakes over the fire wondering where your spatula is and remember that it’s in the drawer at the house. Go ahead and spend a few extra dollars to buy camping specific gear, and then store it in a large plastic tub replenish-ing anything used after each trip.

The first thing in every camping kit should be a cast iron skillet. Find one at a camping store, garage sale, steal one from your mom but find one and dedicate it “the camping skillet.” Yes, they weigh more than a modern skillet, but you can use them to cook just about anything from cornbread to frying fish. We use ours for every meal throughout a day starting with eggs and ending with fajitas. Just clean it with some warm water after each use then give it a light coating of vegetable oil and it’s ready for the next meal. A good 10 inch skillet should handle anything you throw in it.

Keep some old silverware and cooking utensils (forks, spoons, knives, spatula, and ladle) in the camping kit too so your wife

doesn’t get mad when you borrow hers (and ruin or lose it). Hit up a garage sale and you can find some pretty cheap.

The second item every camping kit should have is rope and not just four or five feet of it. I mean 100 feet or more of parachute cord (paracord). The uses for paracord are endless. The majority of the time we use ours as a clothes line

because when you take kids camping they swim, fall in puddles, or get rained on every time. When not strung between trees drying tow-els, the rope can be used to lash loads down in the back of the truck or be used to tie up the ends of a tarp for a shelter.

A camping trip isn’t complete without a campfire (it has the word camp right in it so you know the two go hand in hand) so the camping kit must have a way to start a fire. Preferably it should have three or four ways to start a fire just in case some of them don’t work. Throw a couple packs of waterproof matches in the kit. If you can’t find water-proof then take some standard strike any-where kitchen matches and dip the ends in melted wax. When it hardens, the matches are waterproof. Take along a butane lighter

and magnesium fire starting striker too

just in case the

matches get wet. For easy

fire starting, take some lint out of the lint

catcher on your clothes dryer and put it in a plastic

bag to carry with you. The lint will take a spark and catch fire quickly.

One item you cannot go camping without is a roll of trash bags. Don’t get the small household ones that rip if you sneeze on them and only hold a few gal-lons. Buy the large (55 gallon) industrial strength

bags. Their main purpose around camp is for trash since

you want your campsite to be cleaner when you leave than

it was when you arrived but the bags will become invaluable when it

rains. They can be used to keep just about everything dry and even turn into emergency ponchos if you’re really desperate.

The last camping kit item we’ll go over is lighting. At a minimum there needs to be one flashlight per camper and a couple lanterns since at least half the time camping is in the dark. Make sure there is at least one headlamp in the pack, a few LED lights for close up work, and one spotlight to check the things that go bump in the night.

E-mail Paul Bradshaw at [email protected]


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30 Caliber Marketing

I have spent Most of My wrItIng career trying to combat the pie-in-the-sky propaganda of the more cartoonish claims about our guns, cartridges, and

hunting and shooting gear. Sometimes I have succeeded, but mostly my efforts have been akin to pounding in the side of a battle-ship with my bare hands. Still, I try, and will continue to try to bring some semblance of sanity to the subject. So, here goes again.

In 1892 the .30-40 Krag cartridge was chosen by the U.S. Army to replace the .45-70. Thus the .30-40 became the first American smokeless powder cartridge (No, the .30-30 was the first smokeless sport-ing cartridge). Although the .30-40 was a .30 caliber (.308”) it was at the time considered a small bore. The ballistics of the new cartridge were pretty impressive when compared to the old black powder cartridges. The Hodgdon website shows a 180-grain bullet at up to 2450 feet per second. Compare this to the .45-70, which fired a 405-grain lead bullet at about 1400 feet per second. The actual difference in effective range was tremendous. The .45-70 dropped over 2 feet at 200 yards when sighted in for 100; the new .30-40, on the other hand, shooting a 180-grain round nose bullet, only dropped about 6 inches at 200 yards when sighted for 100. The shooters of the day quickly figured out that it was much easier to hit an animal at long range with the smaller, faster .30-40. And the smaller, faster bullet killed just as well as the big, slow slug, maybe even better.

Now, the line of progression from the .30-40 patriarch is pretty much as follows:

1895-.30-30 Winchester1903- .30-03

1906-.30-061920-.300 Savage1925-.300 H&H Magnum1944-.300 Weatherby Magnum1963-.300 Winchester Magnum1999-.300 Remington Ultra-Magnum2001-.300 Winchester Short Magnum2007-.300 Ruger Compact Magnum

Now there are many other very good car-tridges that fit somewhere in this genealogy, but these serve to demonstrate my point. That being, since the invention of the .30-40 Krag, the actual increase in the power and efficiency of the various .30 caliber car-

tridges has been less than stellar, since t h e .30-06 was

introduced in 1906 it has been all but stagnant, and it has been absolutely stagnant since the 1944 birth of the .300 Weatherby. The truth is that barring some miraculous breakthrough in chemistry, leading to a new type of rifle propellant, we have gone just about as far as we can go.

When Roy Weatherby blew out the .300 H&H Magnum to make the .300 Weatherby, he reached just about the limit of what can be done with the .30 caliber. A careful handloader can, in most rifles, push the .300 Weatherby to somewhere around 3300 feet per second with 180-grain bullets. To better that velocity in a larger case takes more and more powder, higher and higher

pressures, and runs head on into the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Another example of our stagnation is the .220 Swift. The Swift was introduced in 1935. It gave a 48-grain bullet a muzzle velocity of 4140 feet per second. It is – still, today, in 2012 – the fastest factory .22 caliber ever produced. Seems strange that in ¾ of a century we haven’t figured a way to better the old Swift, but there it is.

The moral of this story is simple: That even though the manufacturers tell you that the newest and best cartridges are head and shoulders above those that came earlier, the truth is somewhat different. The manufac-turers must bring out something new rela-tively frequently or their sales grow stagnant.

So they have to convince you,

the buyer, they have something new that you can’t live without.

Usually that isn’t true. Usually they have something new that has been rein-

vented from something old, or that is enough like something already on the market that it is redundant. (A look through one of P.O. Ackley’s books will really open your eyes.)

The Winchester Super Short Magnums are a perfect example. They are good car-tridges, but they are not a bit better than cartridges that are already on the market. Winchester, however, sold a trainload of them by persuading the consumer that they were the best things since sliced bread, and that they couldn’t live without one of these new wunder kinder in a ultra-light, short-action rifle. The truth is that the .25-06, .257 Roberts, .22-250, .220 Swift, 6mm Remington, .300 Winchester Magnum, 7mm Remington Magnum, and several oth-ers, are every bit as good as the WSMs and


1895 Winchester .30-.30 lever action rifle.

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WSSMs; and the ultra-light, short-action rifle is usually a detriment rather than an advantage to the shooter.

Point: While a short, light gun is great to carry, you eventually have to shoot the thing, and shooting a longer, heaver rifle is considerably easier. If you are going to be traipsing dozens of miles across the country, wearing a backpack and carrying along your camp and grub, in search of your trophy, then, possibly, an ultra-light rifle is the way to go, but at best the difference in weight is going to be something like 2 pounds. If you hunt from a box blind and seldom walk more than a half-mile, I fail to see why you need such a short, light miracle weapon. You make the decision for yourself; I made mine a long time ago.

I truly feel sorry for the marketing guys in the gun industry, some of who are dear friends of mine. They have to figure out some way to persuade the consumer to buy something he probably does not need. You see, if you have a .30-06, you really don’t need a .308. If you have a 7mm Remington Magnum, you have no need whatsoever for

a 7mm WSSM, or any other 7mm Mag-num.

If you have a 7mm Mauser, you don’t really need a .280 Remington, or any other deer caliber, since the old 7x57 is one of the finest big game cartridges ever invented – and it was introduced in 1892.

If you have a .22-250 you have no need of any of the other .22 caliber varmint rifles, especially if you reload.

And so on and so forth, ad infinitum. But the marketing guys of the gun industry – and also the research and development guys – have to figure out some way to sell guns. If they sell no new guns, they do not stay in business. So the manufacturers invent new cartridges, make claims for them that make them seem like the answer to a hunter’s prayers, and the company sells more guns and stays in business – which I am all for, since it helps to guarantee our national freedom.

Now just because we do not need any other guns or calibers really has no bearing on the subject at all for the died in the wool gun lover. I know these things, but I still

have a gun safe full of fine guns. I have, for instance, two 7mm Mausers and a 7mm Remington Magnum. I have several 30-06s, an old .30-30 Marlin, a .308 T/C Icon, and a custom-built .30-338 Winchester Magnum. I have a custom .25-06 and a Kimber .257 Roberts, and just bought a nice old Remington Model 721 in .270 Winchester. I only need one of the 7mms or one .30-06, and the .270 will do any-thing that all the others will do, but if I sat down to decide which I would sell, I would probably have a stroke before I could make the decision. Need and desire seldom go hand in hand. And who am I to damage the Wall Street ratings of our fine firearms manufacturers.

So there it is. That is the truth as I see it. Sorry if I busted your balloon. And my sin-cerest apologies to all my friends in the gun manufacturing and advertising industries. I just thought it needed to be said.

E-mail Steve LaMascus [email protected]




www.keltecweapons.com

Diesel DelightYou investeD a lot in that engine—so protect it. One way we can help keep our diesels chugging along longer is by using the proper fuel additive, and whether you’re talk-ing about an engine in a truck, a generator in the shed, or the powerplant in your boat, chances are Biobor has an additive that will extend engine life.

BioborMD is the marine formulation and it’s engineered to enhance fuel performance, increase lubricity and lower exhaust emissions. Cetane levels are raised up to three levels for easier cold starting, increased fuel lubricity and more complete combustion, while the entire fuel system is cleaned of sludge. That means fuel ignites sooner, burns longer, burns hotter and burns more com-pletely. Meanwhile, lubricity gets a boost of 12.5-percent. Added bonus: This additive also contains corrosion inhibitors, which with continued use significantly reduces fuel system corrosion, preventing costly leaks and spills. Double-added bonus: BioborMD also allows water and fuel to mix, so water is removed from the tank as the fuel is burned. That eliminates algae and bacteria problems, prevents water build-up, and reduces fuel tank and system corrosion problems. And, yes, BioborMD is safe for use in on-the-road vehicles, too.

BioborJF, on the other hand, is ideal for use in any diesel that has fungi, bacte-rial, or micro-organism issues. But it’s more than a mere microbiocide; BioborJF also contains those lubricity-boosting ingredients that are so important with today’s low sulfur fuels, and brings them up to ASTM

standards. Sludge-dispersants are also in this formulation, to help keep the fuel sys-tem clean and prevent filter clogs. In fact, this stuff is effective enough that its use is recommended by everyone from Detroit

Diesel to Caterpillar to the US Army.

So, just where does this stuff come from? Biobor has been devel-oping fuel additives for over 45 years, and currently is in use in railroads, marine diesel fuels, standby power generators, construction equipment, bulk blend-ing, bulk storage, petro-chemicals, home heating oil, diesel trucking, and RV’s world-wide. Their additives are available in eight-ounce and 16 oz.

“Easy Squeeze” containers which allow you to pre-

measure the dosage, or you can get it in quart, gallon, five gallon, and even 55 gal-lon containers. Plus, this is a home-grown company—Hammonds, the company that produces Biobor products, is located in Houston. Check out the entire Biobor line, at www.biobor.com.

get smooveYou spenD hours waxing Your boat, RV, or ATV, to protect it from the ele-ments and keep it looking good. Then after using it, you give it a scrub-down, and wash away half of that protective waxy shell. Oops. The problem is, most fiber-glass washes contain citrus or pine. These ingredients make great de-greasers but as they go to work stripping away the grime, they also strip away your coat of wax. Don’t you wish you had a cleaner that would quit stripping your wax but still get rid of the icky stuff? That’s what Smoove

is all about. This new cleaner was devel-oped by boat detailers who were sick and tired of washing away their own hard work.

The answer was to develop a wash-and-wax with a PH-balanced blend of cleaners, a synthetic emulsion ingredient and wax infused into the mix. The result? A high-foaming wash that breaks loose dirt particles, without stripping away the

waxy surface on fiberglass. The wax emulsion, meanwhile, adds extra protection to the existing wax.

To test this stuff out, I first gave my boat’s hullsides a fresh coat of paste wax. Then over the next month, I gave the boat weekly wash-downs after uses in salt

water. One thing I noticed when I started using Smoove was the smell; they call is “purplicious,” but to my nose, if left the boat smelling like grape Hubba-bubba buble-gum. Yummy. The scrub-downs went well, with plenty of suds taking off salt, road-grime from the traile-ring trips—always a toughie, after long hauls—and dried fish blood. But at the end of the month, my original wax job was still pretty darn shiny. In fact, the water still beaded up as if the wax was much fresher. And since this stuff is biodegrad-able and phosphate-free, I didn’t feel a moment’s guilt during the rinse-down.

Smoove comes in a concentrate, in quart ($18.95) and gallon ($57.95) jugs. Check it out at www.smoovewax.com.


BioBormD marine diesel performance additive.

Smoove wash for boats and RVs.

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http://www.biobor.com

http://www.smoovewax.com

One Thing Congress Agrees On: Land ConservationA COnservATiOn TAx inCenTive ChAmpi-oned by the Galveston Bay Foundation is Supported by Majorities of Both Parties in House.

Over 300 U.S. Representatives, including Galveston Bay area Representa-tives Gene Green and Pete Olson, have co-sponsored the Conservation Easement Incentive Act. H.R. 1964 which makes permanent a recently-expired tax incentive that helps organiza-tions like the Galveston Bay Foundation (“GBF”) work with landowners to conserve important natural or historic resources in our community.

“GBF is thrilled that Congressman Green and Congressman Olson have joined with so many of their colleagues to make this important conservation tool permanent,” said Bob Stokes, GBF President. “We look forward to working with them to get the bill passed.”

Landowners can retire the develop-ment rights on their land by donating a conservation easement to a land trust like GBF – keeping farm, ranch and for-est lands in productive use, protecting important fish and wildlife habitat, and conserving our scenic and historic heritage. Since the incentive expired at the end of 2011, landowners with modest incomes now receive little tax benefit from restricting what may be their family’s most valuable asset. By allowing donors to deduct a larger portion of their income over a longer period of time, H.R. 1964 will help thou-

sands of family farmers, ranchers, and for-est owners afford to conserve their land.

As an example, under permanent law, an agricultural landowner earning $50,000 a year who donates a conservation ease-

ment worth $1 million could take a total of no more than $90,000 in tax deductions. Under the expired incentive, that landown-er could have taken as much as $800,000 in tax deductions – still less than the full value of their donation, but a significant increase.

“I am a longtime supporter of Buffalo

Bayou and Galveston Bay, and efforts within the local community in Houston and Harris County to ensure that unused land is donated to provide access and open space in this region,” said Congressman Gene Green. “I’m glad the Galveston Bay Foundation is leading this initiative.”

“We are thrilled that majorities of Republicans and Democrats can agree on supporting the work of local land trusts like the Galveston Bay Foundation that are so important to their communities,” said Rand Wentworth, president of the Land Trust Alliance, which represents 1,700 land trusts nationwide. “We look forward to working with Congressman Green and Congressman Olson to restore this impor-tant conservation tool.”

The full list of 300 co-sponsors is avail-able at www.lta.org/easementincentive/cosponsors. They include the Chairman,

Ranking Democrat and 32 of 37 members of House Ways and

Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax measures. A broad

coalition of sports-men, outdoor enthusiasts, farmers,

ranchers and national conservation groups are working together to make this

incentive permanent in the 112th Congress.

The mission of the Galveston Bay Foundation is to preserve,

protect, and enhance the natu-ral resources of the Galveston Bay estuarine system and

its tributaries for present users and for posterity. The Foundation was

incorporated in 1987, and is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. GBF is located at 17330 Highway 3 in Webster, Texas. For further information, contact GBF at 281-332-3381 or visit the website at www.galvbay.org.


hR 1964 will help thousands of family farmers, ranchers and forest owners.

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http://www.lta.org/easementincentive/

http://www.galvbay.org

Produce Epic Action VideosEPIC ExPAnds Its lInE of wEArAblE adventure cameras with their new EPIC 1080. With the ability to record in stun-ning 1920x1080 High definition, the EPIC 1080 captures all the action of the hunt with sharp, high-resolution video and crisp, clear audio. The 168º wide-angle lens brings true perspective to the video, with the option of five different video reso-lution settings.

The EPIC 1080 also doubles as a still image camera with the ability to shoot 8mp images with an action setting of up to 9 sequential images. External LCD screen displays number of video files in memory, as well as battery life and resolution setting. With multiple mounting devices the EPIC

1080 is ready for any hunting adventure.

The EPIC 1080

is avail-able now.

EPIC’s specs include HD 1920x1080P digital video with full audio, five video resolutions (1080P @ 30FPS, 960P @ 30FPS, 720P @ 30FPS, 720P@ 60FPS, WVGA @ 60FPS), H.264 video compression, 8 MP still cam with 1-9 action sequence, 168-degree wide-angle lens. It accepts up to 32GB SD memory cards, has a 10 –30 second self-timer and 4X digital zoom. It also operates in upside down mode. It runs on 3 “AAA” batteries

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $199.99.

Founded in 2007, EPIC offers a variety of specialty cameras, along with a variety of accessories.

For more information, contact: Stealth Cam, LLC, 3385 Roy Orr Blvd. Grand Prairie, TX 75050, Phone: 877-269-8490, www.epicactioncam.com or email [email protected]

tenzing Hauls it All in High GearHunt lIGHt And fAst And stIll CArry everything needed with the new Tenzing TZ 2220 daypack.

The TZ 2220 is a featherweight at 4 pounds, yet offers an amazing storage capacity of more than 2,220 cubic inches. Its unique combination of materials, fea-tures and designs puts you in control of the day instead of allowing your pack to limit the capabilities.

The internal aluminum frame stay pro-vides a lightweight but sturdy structure

to this daypack that distributes the load evenly and effortlessly

from shoulders to hips. Hip supports are pad-

ded, and the pack’s back pad is channeled for air-cooled comfort.

The TZ 2220 features 11 total com-

partments and six special-ized zip pockets to allow

strategic organization of essentials and easy access to them. The pack is H2O compat-ible (2-liter) with a hydration port, and deep side pockets are especially generous with space. Two compression straps on the lower part enable additional attachments of more gear.

Four lateral compression straps help secure the load. Plus there are tie-down straps and a foldout boot to allow quick

attachment of your bow or gun centered on the pack’s back in a vertical position for hands-free hiking and climbing. A foldout rain cover for the daypack provides addi-tional protection to all contents.

Like all Tenzing packs, the TZ 2220 features advanced strength panels rein-forced with Dyneema®, considered the world’s strongest fiber that is incredibly light, for unmatched protection against rips, punctures and failures.

The TZ 2220 is available in Realtree Max-1 and Realtree AP camo patterns, and retails for $199.99. For more informa-tion visit www.TenzingOutdoors.com.


Shop for innovative, new and hard-to-find outdoor gear atwww.FishandGameGear.com

Tenzing TZ 2220 daypack

EPIC 1080 HD adventure cam

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http://www.TenzingOutdoors.com

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The Action Heats Up in April

IT’s been A long wAIT bUT AprIl HAs finally arrived and it is evident by look-ing at and listening to anglers up and down the coast. Tackle shops, and boat

ramps are full of people walking around with optimism and excitement on their faces and in their voices.

After a long winter, and being teased with hints of spring that rode into town with March, it is finally here. April could possibly be the month with the largest wel-coming committee coast wide. It marks the true beginning of spring. Southerly winds will dominate and assist strong incoming

tides in bringing pretty water deep into the far reaches of the Sabine ecosystem. Baitfish that had been hanging tight to their comrades will begin to scatter and venture throughout the system, thus opening the window of opportunity for predator fish and anglers alike.

We now have the green light to fish basi-cally anywhere we want, and to do it with confidence. Sand and grass are once again players as water temperatures below the mid 50s are no longer a factor. Mud bottoms will hold fish year ‘round but as the water continues to warm, more and more fish will follow bait to sandy flats and shorelines.

This is the first chance we’ve had in awhile to catch trout in the surf and at the jetties. Some of these yellow mouthed beau-ties will hold here for a while before making their way down the channel and into the bay.. Throwing top waters early is good choice to help locate the fish. From there you can pretty much choose your weapon.

In the lake, both the north and south revetment walls should be primed to take off in a big way. Always a popular destination, and very easily accessible for bank fisher-men, trout , reds, and flounder will begin to show up with the hordes of bait fish that utilize it for forage and protection. Again, top waters early and soft plastics like Floun-der Pounder’s CT Shad and GULP! Jerk Shad should get good results. Also, look for bird activity to increase on the south end and main lake as we progress through the month with large schools of trout and redfish beginning to consistently push pods of shrimp to the surface.

locATIon: North Revetment (Pleasure Island)

specIes: Trout, reds, flounderbAITs/lUres: Topwaters, Jerk baits, soft

plastics and live shrimpbesT TImes: Moving tides

Contact Eddie Hernandez at, [email protected]


Southerly winds will dominate

and assist strong incoming tides bringing pretty

water.

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www.yourfishingpal.com

The Weather Factor

ExpEriEncEd GulF coasT anGlErs know that weather is the single most important factor in our fishing experi-ence. While a person CAN fish in

about any weather conditions – and many do so – both the success of the effort and the total enjoyment of the trip are greatly determined by the weather. In the Galves-ton Bays, heavy rains in the Trinity River watershed are not uncommon in most years during spring. Trinity Bay and East Bay can be “washed out” by muddy, fresh water caused by the river’s flooding. When this occurs, fishermen who want to catch something other than blue cats will head to the jetties or consider fishing the surf until bay waters clear up. On calm mornings, those who can make it through the boat cut in the north jetty and work the outside bar along the beach with live shrimp and/or “shrimp tail” jigs alternated with silver spoons should find action working schools of mullet and watching for birds working smaller baitfish or shrimp. West Galveston Bay has only the run-off from Chocolate Bay to muddy the waters, and that comes from Chocolate Bayou and Hall’s Bayou, so much of the bay might not be affected. When these waters are too off-color to even target redfish, the back side of San Luis Pass usually holds clear water somewhere, and the Pass offers a Gulf outlet for careful boaters on calm days.

In drier weather conditions in West Bay, the lack of freshwater raises salinity levels, which attracts Gulf species like Jack Cre-valle and Spanish mackerel inside the pass and pushes more specks and reds back into

Chocolate Bay and various brackish water streams. This is also when the reefs in Trin-ity Bay, the Seabrook shoreline, and the shallow bays and saltwater lakes off Galves-ton Bay will be holding fish on good tides.

Wind is as much a factor in fishing efforts as rain, or lack of rain. Too much wind makes drifting difficult because it pushes the boat too fast, so a drift anchor —or just a bucket on a rope—might be nec-essary. Anchoring near a deep spot and fish-ing with weighted shrimp or sinking plugs is one good windy day tactic. Finding a spot protected from the wind by a shoreline or even a shallow reef fronting deeper water can allow top water lures to pay off on a day when their commotion would go unnoticed in more open water. Alligator Cut, where the ICW passes through Alligator point at the junction of Chocolate Bay and West Bay can be good on days like this, if there isn’t too much barge traffic. In less than gale force winds, tying off to one of the pilings on the tire reef in West Bay and drifting live

shrimp under a cork can produce and saves the trouble of watching where your drift is taking you – which can be a safety issue.

April is the beginning of spring, which can be a period when the weather is as good as it gets, but knowing how and where to fish when the weather is less than perfect can increase fishing success and enjoyment.

locaTion: Galveston Jetties, Gulf side.spEciEs: Trout, reds, flounder, panfish.BEsT BaiTs: Live shrimp, mud minnows,

finger mulletBEsT TimEs: During moving tide

Capt. Mike Holmes runs tarpon, shark, and bluewater trips on a classic 31 Bertram.

To book a trip, call 979-415-0535. Email him at [email protected].


The bank biTe



It’s offIcIally sprIng and you haven’t a clue where to fish.

Join the club.If you are like most anglers, you

probably haven’t wet a line in 2012. The majority of anglers curse the winter and save valuable vacation time for spring weather conducive to short sleeves, bikinis and bright skies. Since you haven’t fished since the fall, here are a few Matagorda starting points:

live BaitLive shrimp is the chosen natural offer-

ing in April, and be ready to catch a variety of species. I start on the north shoreline of West Matagorda Bay around Shell Island. Tides are normally above normal this time of year and speckled trout, redfish, black drum and sheepshead hang tight to the

reefs. As the name implies, Shell Island is about a mile-long piece of oyster that attracts lots of fish. There are guts, chan-nels, highs, lows and many other changing terrains that make the reef such a producer. Nearby Twin Island and Mad Island Reef are within eyesight if you need a change of scenery.

plugs and plasticsEast Matagorda Bay’s mud and shell

bottom delivers every month, weather per-mitting, and April is no exception. The west end of the bay around Raymond

Shoals is a drifter’s dream with lumps and clumps of shell that hold trout and redfish. Top producers are Bass Assassins, TTF Flats Minnows, Norton Sand Eel Jrs and Gulps under a rattling cork. Best colors are Chicken on a Chain, Opening Night, glow and salt/pepper.


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let Me re-Introduce you to Matagorda Bay


www.visitmatagordacounty.com

Why more anglers don’t drift with top-waters is a mystery to me. It does take patience, but in April the persistence often pays off with heavy trout and burly redfish. Most people don’t realize it but redfish come to the surface and school in East Bay, and when you find them it’s hard to get your plug back with mangled hooks.

WadingMost waders can’t wait for April because

glass minnows begin to show in West Bay. The little anchovies are not hard to locate

– dozens of brown pelicans do it for you. Find the minnows and you will find the fish. Trout and redfish fight for a spot on flats like Cotton’s Bayou, Green’s Bayou, Middle Grounds and the Pipeline. The incoming tide is the key, so know the cur-rents and fish appropriately. Most fishers will try to mimic the silvery-white minnows with glow, pearl, salt/pepper and Opening Night plastics, but plum, black, chartreuse and avocado coax fish too.

The south shoreline of East Matagorda Bay comes alive during April due to the swollen tides. Topwaters, Corkies and Mir-

rOlures give you a shot at some of the heavi-est trout of the year. Never dispel redfish working tight to the grass because there will be a lot of them around Boiler Bayou, Kain Cove, Three Mile and Brown Cedar Flats.

Don’t be surprised if you run in to a flounder are two in the same locales. Many flatties will be moving back to the bays and a Gulp or paddletail worked gingerly along the bottom should get thumped.

Location: LCRA jetty parkSpecies: Large black drum and redfishBaits: cracked blue crabs

Capt. Bink Grimes owns and operates Sunrise Lodge on Matagorda Bay

(www.matagordasunriselodge.com).Contact him at [email protected]

the bank bite

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http://www.matagordasunriselodge.com


www.galvbay.org

Avoid Spring Break DownsI

f we were honeSt wIth ourSelveS April has not been the beginning of spring as it has in years past. As each year passes, it just seems to me that

spring is coming earlier and earlier, with mid to late March being arguably a more accurate prediction of the spring bloom, hatch and bait migration into our bay sys-tems.

One thing is for sure: April is a busy month at our favorite boat ramps and the parking lots tend to be full to overflowing with trucks and trailers of anglers shaking off the wet (we wish and hope) and cold of the Texas winter months, eager to get into the warmer southern breezes off of Mother Gulf. Living close enough to the St. Charles Bay boat ramp, my wife Lisa and I often pick up trash bags, bottles and other stuff that is left from either less than environmen-tally-conscious folks or in-a-hurry anglers who allow stuff to blow out of their boats and trucks. Suffice it to say we are close enough that we get to see it all. The good and the bad. This time of year is when we see rusty trailering skills, bad boat prepara-tion and folks fiddling with old fishing line or reels that just didn’t make it through the winter, many of which were probably stored with a good layer of salt that tends to invite grease worms and gremlins onto our favorite tackle. April is also one of the busiest months for towing services, which has included me, on occasion.

This topic fascinates me for it’s not just weekenders or the occasional angler but even hardcore gotta-wet-a-line kinds of folks who do know how to care for a boat. And yes, it even includes us guides. With the fishing season slowing in the winter months our boats don’t get the use that they do in spring, summer and fall.

My experience is that most of the prob-lems are from cracked lower units where the boat has been stored outside with water from the last fishing trip still resting in the water jackets of the unit. When water freezes (and, yes saltwater does freeze) it has more fracturing power than you can imagine and aluminum (what most, if not all, lower units are made of) doesn’t have the strength to withstand this pressure as other heavier metals do.

But I gotta say that fuel or, rather, bad fuel, is the number-one cause of most tow jobs that I have been involved in. Ethanol-laced fuel is one culprit. Leaving it idle in the fuel rails or carburetor of an outboard is almost like pouring acid water into your tank. I could write a whole article on that one issue, but do yourself a favor and just look on the internet or ask an experienced boat mechanic and you will get all you ever want to read or hear about ethanol and its effects on today’s outboard motors.

I am preaching to the choir here a little bit, for I’m as guilty as anyone and can write this article from my own—I’m ashamed to say—experience. I get busy at the end of the peak fishing season, grab my bow to hunt and just plain forget to do what I know needs to be done to my boat, motor and trailer. My boat is my friend. It is a companion on the water. It is my lifeline back home after long days fishing. I talk to her (when I’m by myself). The hum of the outboard is like music to me, so there is no need for a stereo. The fine tunes it plays are all I need for a day’s fishing. I stroke her console and thank her for getting me back through storms and rough seas. She, aside from my wife, is one of, if not my favorite,

thing. She does so much for me and all she asks in return is to be taken care of. Is a seven dollar bottle of STA-BIL too much to ask? It takes all of 30 seconds. Is discon-necting the fuel line and running the motor out of fuel that much work? Or taking an air hose and blowing the residual water off of the lower unit too intrusive on my time?

One weekend this past year there were five boats blocking the boat ramp because their trailers were in such bad shape they couldn’t load their boats. A nice project for those warmer winter days is to launch your boat, tie it up, and take some time to inspect your trailer. You can’t do this right with the boat on the trailer. Take a screw driver and poke the runners for rotted wood. A 2x4 or 2x6 costs about 4 dollars at Lowes. Replace bad runner carpet ($10.00 to $12.00 if you look around). If you are going to staple it, then glue it as well. I use SST screws and Gorilla glue. Look at your fenders and replace nuts, bolts or screws as needed. If you have leaf springs, clean them with a wire brush and treat them with a petroleum based product to hinder the rust. If you have a galvanized trailer check it for rust and wire-brush the rust off and treat the area with a cold galvanized paint (not as good as hot dip galvanized but holds up pretty well).

Jack your trailer up, pull your wheels off and inspect your bearings. They should be snug but not tight and spin without grind-ing. Take a wire brush and clean the back of your rims where they make contact with the axle and then put a thin coat of petroleum based oil or grease to keep the rust from ruining your rim (if you have aluminum wheels do it as well for they oxidize). When putting your lug nuts back on, use petroleum jelly or a best kept secret (Preparation H) as it will not wash off very easily and most of us old folks tend have a tube or two lying around. Pull your winch strap out and make sure it’s not dry-rotted. If not, treat it with WD-40 and it will last almost a lifetime. Wax your boat on those warm days and that includes the console. I know it’s a lot



of work, but divide it up in three or four days doing a section at a time. If you do this once a year your boat will keep its new boat luster.

Run your motor during the cold months if you can, allowing the water from the pisser (as we affectionately call it) to get hot before you shut it off. Make sure you drain it well and blow it out with an air hose if you can so it won’t freeze. When spring fever hits and you just gotta get that boat on the water for some hook-up action, you will feel even more energized knowing your beloved rig was well taken care of the past five months and that you don’t have to worry about being left at the boat ramp or even worse, being towed back to the ramp because you didn’t take proper care of her when old man winter was upon us.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than sitting at the ramp with a broken boat, motor or trailer after a long wait for spring. It’s nice and cold here as I write this with more cold weather on the way... don’t remember if I blew the water out of my lower unit ... gotta go!

• • •

As bait moves into our bays with prom-ise of warmer days ahead this is a good time to start visiting your local bait stands. This is also a great time to start switching colors on your lures and soft plastics.

Copano Bay - Mudd minnows on a light Carolina rig are good for reds on the sand and shell of Lap Reef. Free-lined shrimp are good for trout on the deep edges of Shell Bank Reef, as water temperatures climb. Jig the shrimp a little faster with most strikes coming as the bait drops off the edge. The new causeway construction has energized the sheep head action on the old causeway bridge with small pieces of free lined shrimp or squid being a good choice.

St. CharleS Bay – There are still some black drum hanging close to the mouth of Cavasso Creek, with peeled shrimp on a light Carolina rig the preferred bait. Soft plastics in morning glory and salt and pep-per work well for reds and trout on the north shoreline close to Twin Creeks. A few reds are just now being caught in East Pocket using Berkley Jerk shad in new penny and salt and pepper colors. One must be quiet

approaching this area and a high tide is recommended.

aranSaS Bay - Grass Island Reef is good for trout and reds using free lined live shrimp and on calm days top waters in blue and glitter gold colors. The rocks at the spoil area close to Dunham Bay are good for black drum and some nice flounder using free lined peeled shrimp or, if the wind dictates, a light Carolina rig.

CarloS Bay - On high tide the shell piles that surround Carlos Lake are good for reds using cut mullet or mud minnows. The key here is a strong moving tide through Carlos Cut as the reds ambush bait as it exits the current seeking relief in the shell. Wading Cedar Point is productive for reds and flounder using tandem jig headed grubs in white and electric chartreuse. Work the jigs slow for flounder and medium to fast for the reds.

MeSquite Bay - Beldon Dugout is good for keeper reds using jumbo shrimp on a Carolina rig. Be patient with an hour’s wait being the norm. The reds here usually move to shallow water mid-day so early morning and late afternoon is best. Wade fishing the south shoreline for reds and trout using bass assassins in electric grape and new penny colors.

ayreS Bay - Rattlesnake Island still holds a few black drum, with peeled shrimp under a silent cork the best approach. Few trout being caught at both ends of Ayres Dugout using live shrimp under a rattle cork.

The southeast shoreline just off the LBJ causeway is the place to be for bigger trout this time of year. Be careful and respectful of the new construction. Wade out about a hundred yards and if you have a north wind that’s best, allowing for long casts into the shallow water close to the bank. Top water work well here even in semi-rough water. Don’t be afraid to make noise with your lure. Preferred colors are bone/ white and silver and gold.

Here’s Wishing You Tight Lines Bent Poles and Plenty of Bait!

Contact Capt. Mac Gable at Mac Attack Guide Service,

512-809-2681, 361-790-9601


The bank biTe


www.huffmarine1955.com

Snapper and Kings

MoSt yearS, april iS the firSt month to have consistently warm weather on the South Texas Coast. There is an occasional

front that might trickle down, but they seldom stay long or cause a big chill. Every few years there is the wildcard northern that blows through and fouls everything up, but those are nowhere near the norm. In fact, these half-hearted cold fronts provide a bit of a boon to South Texas anglers because it lays down some of the strong winds that hang around long after the calendar has flipped over from March.

Offshore anglers wait for those days with baited—er, BATED—breath. When the spring winds lay down and the seas settle below 3 feet, sick days are taken, tons of ice and pounds of bait are purchased, hooks sharpened, and gas tanks filled. Anglers’ minds are filled with the echoes of screaming drags and visions of snapper and kingfish.

“You’ve gotta pick your days,” said Captain Richard Bailey (956-369-5090). “But when you have some nice seas, say 2 to 3 foot, you can make it out and get your state limit of snapper and a couple of nice kings.”

There areas of rocks and wrecks in state waters within an easy run of the East Cut in Port Mansfield that still hold good numbers of keeper sized snapper. Kingfish also begin to show up around April, as well, and gravitate to the structure. Many an angler have sent a bait down to the snapper only to suddenly have the bait take off at the speed of sound for the horizon, leaving behind a nasty bird’s nest and a bitten off leader.

The easiest rocks to reach are the Nine Fathom Rocks (26.967833, -97.303500). These rocks are loaded with 2-3 pound

red snapper this time of year, which a few pushing 10 pounds mixed in for fun. The rocks aren’t a single reef or outcropping, but a field that spans over a parking lot-sized area. Some anglers tend to motor around the rock field and mark the rocks and watch for concentrations of fish. They set up drifts up-current or, if the tidal current is very strong, anchor up and fall back over the rock and begin fishing.

If the current isn’t too strong, anglers can actually rig up with relatively light tackle. I’ve fished these rocks with heavy-action Shimano Clarus flipping rods and Calcutta 400 B reels loaded with 50 pound Power Pro. My wife is perfectly happy using her 7 ½ foot Joe Montemayor custom rod and Penn Conquer 7000, also loaded with 50 pound Power Pro. Similar rigs made by Okuma, Daiwa, and Quantum will fit the bill quite nicely.

The terminal rigging isn’t very compli-cated. Most anglers prefer using fish finder rigs (Carolina rig to freshwater fishermen) with a 2-6 ounce egg sinker (again, depend-ing on current) threaded on 60-80 pound mono or fluorocarbon leader and a 6/0 to 9/0 circle hook (as per state regulations, all bait fishing for snapper must be done with circle hooks). The slip rig is easier to control than a dropper rig, which can drag along the bottom and snag. If the current is especially strong, some switch to a knocker rig, where the sinker slides all the way down to the hook. When the rig hit’s the bottom, the fisherman will let out just a little slack to allow the bait some freedom.

The bait are the usual suspects for snap-per fishing; squid, menhaden, or other cut fish. If you are targeting some bigger fish, and there are a few out there, try netting up some live pinfish and sending one down. The big bruiser snapper seem to prefer their meals to be wiggling.

Do not ignore the chances at hooking a kingfish while you are turning your atten-tions to snapper. A couple of flat lines sent out with a whole ribbonfish on a kingfish

rig is a great idea. Use a high-capacity reel with a clicker to warn you when a king takes a swipe at your offering.

Don’t be shy about trolling large plugs or a ribbonfish while puttering around the rocks or coming in or heading out to the rocks. These kingfish are roamers and could be all over the rocks, and they will clobber a trolled broken-back. Once, as I was cruising around the Nines at no-wake speed, I put out a rod with a Strike King King Shad behind the boat. I can’t tell you how big the king was that struck the lure, because as far as I know he’s still running with my plug in his face.

Again, as a word of caution: Be sure to pick your days carefully. As tempting as it may be to time your trip just in front of a spring front to take advantage of a window of slack weather, weather systems rarely arrive exactly when planned. I’ve seen some fronts fizzle out just north of the coast, but I have also seen them get a sudden surge of energy and come in up to 24 hours early. Even within sight of the beach, the seas can suddenly turn into an ugly mess that can tax the most experienced boat handler. Check the weather forecast, and make sure that you have a relatively broad window of stable weather, leave a float plan with a friend, and make sure your radio and/or EPIRB is in working condition. Like Woodrow Call once said: Better to have ‘em and not need ‘em than to need ‘em and not have ‘em.

Besides, if the fishing is good, you want to be able to keep coming back.

location: Community Bar SpecieS: Speckled Trout, RedfishtipS: Use soft plastics in red/white,

purple/chartreuse or live shrimp under a popping cork. Fish the deep water between the shoreline and the bar.

Contact Calixto Gonzales [email protected]


The bank biTe




www.texasteamtrail.com

LOCATION: East Galveston BayHOTSPOT: The Wildlife RefugeGPS: N29 34.38054, W94 33.53382

(29.573009, -94.558897)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: Top Dogs, MirrOlure 5”

soft mullets, 51mr MirrOlures.CONTACT: Capt. George Knighten,

832-310-9146, [email protected]: Great spot for trophy trout. Can

be either wade-fished or drifted. Biggest trout will be caught wading using topwa-ter lures or suspending mullet imitation lures. Drift using jerkbaits with 1/8-ounce leadheads; work the water column up and down.

LOCATION: East Galveston BayHOTSPOT: Hanna’s ReefGPS: N29 28.617, W1 34.00002

(29.476950, -1.566667)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live shrimp or soft plastic

lures like Mirrolure’ss 5” ProvokerCONTACT: Capt. George Knighten,

832-310-9146, [email protected]: If using live shrimp, use a popping

cork set to about three feet, if using soft plastic lures, work the water column. Let the lure settle close to the bottom then pop it back up near the surface. Most strikes will occur when the lure is on the fall.

LOCATION: East Galveston BayHOTSPOT: Stephenson PointGPS: N29 32.29896, W94 41.1813

(29.538316, -94.686355)

SPECIES: redfishBEST BAITS: Bass Assassins, Top Dogs,

CorkysCONTACT: Capt. George Knighten,

832-310-9146, [email protected]: This is a great wade-fishing spot

for redfish, use topwaters early, and then switch to soft plastic or slow sinking mullet like lures. Don’t be afraid to go very shal-low, they can be with in feet of the bank.

LOCATION: East Matagorda BayHOTSPOT: Kain CoveGPS: N28 39.69348, W95 51.20364

(28.661558, -95.853394)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: topwater and suspending

mullet imitation lures like the CorkyCONTACT: Bink Grimes Outdoors, 979-

323-9789TIPS: A good wade-fishing spot for

large trout. Use topwaters like the Top Dog or Super Spook. Any mullet imitation lure can work; Corky Fat Boys or 51 series MirrOlures are good. Look for signs of feeding fish like slicks and bait.

LOCATION: East Matagorda BayHOTSPOT: Oyster FarmGPS: N28 41.51892, W95 48.07122

(28.691982, -95.801187)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live shrimp, soft plastics,

CorkysCONTACT: Capt. Tommy Counts, 281-

450-4037

TIPS: Wade or drift using live shrimp under a cork or soft plastic lures like Nor-ton Bull Minnow, or Norton Sand Eel. If wading the Corky worked very slowly is a good choice. Work the shell drop-offs and submerged ridges.

LOCATION: East Matagorda BayHOTSPOT: Three-Mile ReefGPS: N28 38.568, W95 56.229(28.6428, -95.93715)SPECIES: trout, redfishBEST BAITS: soft plastics in dark colors

with chartreuse tail; live shrimpCONTACT: Captain Jay Huitt, 979-240-

3597, [email protected]: Drift the edge of the reef to locate

good numbers of hungry trout and reds. Wedge Tails and shad baits are good choices. Black/chartreuse and plum/char-treuse patterns on a 1/4-oz. head are most productive. If the fish are moody, try live shrimp 2-1/2 feet under a popping cork.

LOCATION: Galveston JettiesHOTSPOT: Galveston JettiesGPS: N29 19.7481, W94 42.46872

(29.329135, -94.707812)SPECIES: black drumBEST BAITS: cut blue crabCONTACT: Capt. George Knighten,

832-310-9146, [email protected]: Use cut blue crab fished on the

bottom. Use a leader with a heavy weight fish out a little ways from the rocks. The channel sides of both the north and south jetties will be more productive. Best on a moving tide.

LOCATION: Trinity BayHOTSPOT: East ShorelineGPS: N29 38.16852, W94 42.68508

(29.636142, -94.711418)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: MirrOlure Provoker, Bass

Assassins, Shad body soft plasticsCONTACT: Capt. George Knighten,

832-310-9146, [email protected]


GPS COORDiNaTeS are provided in two for-mats: “Decimal Degrees” (degrees.degrees) and “Degrees and Minutes” some-times called “GPS Format” (degrees minutes.minutes). Examples (for Downtown Austin): Decimal Degrees: N30.2777, W97.7379; Degrees and Minutes: N30 16.6662, W97 44.2739. Consult your manual for information specific to your GPS device.

East Bay Specks Live the Wild Life

UPPeR GULF COaST

by Capt. GeORGe [email protected]









TIPS: Drift in 6-8ft of water throwing soft plastic lures, use 1/4-ounce leadheads. Key on slicks and watch for bait activity, either balls of shad or jumping mullet.

LOCATION: West Galveston BayHOTSPOT: Jumbile CoveGPS: N29 11.16222, W94 59.85462

(29.186037, -94.997577)SPECIES: redfishBEST BAITS: Bass Assassins, topwaters,

corky Fat BoysCONTACT: Capt. Greg Francis, 409-

939-1684, [email protected]: Can be drifted or waded. Soft

plastic lures like the Bass Assassins will work on the drift and topwater lures or slow sinking lures like the Corky Fat Boys will work when wading. Look for slicks and nervous bait to help you find the fish.

LOCATION: West Galveston BayHOTSPOT: West End FlatsGPS: N29 5.43612, W95 7.26522

(29.090602, -95.121087)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: Corkys, MirrOlures, top-

water, Bass AssassinsCONTACT: Capt. Greg Francis, 409-

939-1684, [email protected]: Great wading spot can be

accessed from the road. Be cautious of currents near the Pass. Can also be drifted using soft plastic lures. Biggest fish will be caught early morning on an incoming tide using either topwater or mullet like sus-pending baits.

LOCATION: West Galveston BayHOTSPOT: Confederate ReefGPS: N29 16.04292, W94 55.36656

(29.267382, -94.922776)SPECIES: redfishBEST BAITS: live shrimp, soft plastic

luresCONTACT: Capt. George Knighten,

832-310-9146, [email protected]: Good structure for redfish, heavy

shell with guts. Drift the deeper water or wade the ridges. Live shrimp under a pop-ping cork or soft plastic using a 1/8-ounce leadhead. You will hang up a lot if you let your bait drag the bottom but some days its worth

LOCATION: West Galveston BayHOTSPOT: Chocolate Bay

GPS: N29 11.16672, W95 7.30128 (29.186112, -95.121688)

SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live shrimp, jerkbaitsCONTACT: Capt. Greg Francis, 409-

939-1684, [email protected]: Drift over shell humps using either

live shrimp under a cork or work soft plas-tic lures. Key on areas with bait fish and watch for slicks to give away feeding fish.

LOCATION: San Antonio BayHOTSPOT: 2nd Chain ReefsGPS: N28 11.80518, W96 48.66432

(28.196753, -96.811072)SPECIES: redfishBEST BAITS: live shrimp, jerkbait, and

shad bodiesCONTACT: Capt. Ben Wells, 361-790-

8107TIPS: Can be drifted, or you can anchor

up at the tips of the shell fingers. Redfish

will be on the edges of the fingers and in the guts between the fingers of shell. Live shrimp under a cork worked close to the bottom is very effective. Throwing lures while drifting.

LOCATION: Gulf of MexicoHOTSPOT: Bob Hall Pier (bank access)GPS: N27 34.55, W97 13.07SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live finger mullet, shrimp;

soft plastics in red/white, Glitter, GlowCONTACT: Bob Hall Pier, 361-948-

8558TIPS: If the sargassum weed isn’t too

thick this April, night fishing for speckled trout can be steady. Most plank walkers use free-lined live shrimp or finger mullet, but soft plastics produce quite well, too. Try the venerable Speck Rig with two Glow worms. If you hook a fish, then bring it in slowly, another trout may hit the trail-ing lure, and then the fun really begins.

LOCATION: Aransas BayHOTSPOT: Traylor IslandGPS: N27 56.706, W97 4.437SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live croaker, perch; soft

plastics in Plum/chartreuse, Morning Glory

CONTACT: Captain Marvin Engel, 361-658-6674


Chain Reaction on San Antonio Bay

miDDLe GULF COaST

by Capt. GeORGe [email protected]







www.aquadesign.com


TIPS: Fish the outside shoreline for aggressive speckled trout. Start in shal-lower water early in the morning, and then slowly work out to deeper water as the day progresses. If you prefer lures over live bait, fish with a 1/4-ounce head so that you can aggressively work deeper water. Don’t be surprised if these fish try and take the rod from your hands. Spring has sprung.

LOCATION: Aransas BayHOTSPOT: Quarantine ShorelineGPS: N27 54.450, W97 3.490SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live finger shrimp; plastics

in Bone, chartreuse patternsCONTACT: Captain Marvin Engel, 361-

658-6674TIPS: Work the edges of deeper water

with soft plastics or live bait. April begins the steady water warm up that stretches to June, and fish start feeding more aggres-sively. Either live bait or soft plastics will work; don’t be afraid to sling a topwater early in the morning along the shoreline.

LOCATION: Corpus Christi BayHOTSPOT: Dagger IslandGPS: N27 50.032, W97 10.000SPECIES: redfish, speckled troutBEST BAITS: live bait; soft plastics

in Plum/chartreuse, Morning Glory, Limetreuse

CONTACT: Captain Marvin Engel, 361-658-6674

TIPS: Focus on the outside drop-offs of the island. Trout and redfish will be picketing the area, looking for prey to nail. A lively croaker or live shrimp is touch to beat, but soft plastics worked along the edges will produce fish, too. Again, use a larger (3/16- to 1/4-ounce) jighead to get down to where the fish are while still work-ing the lure at a good clip.

LOCATION: Upper Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: JFK CausewayGPS: N27 38.052, W97 14.773SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft plastics in Plum/char-

treuse, Rootbeer/red flake, Morning glory, Pumpkinseed/chartreuse.

CONTACT: Captain Mike Hart, 361-

985-6089, 361-449-7441, brushcountrycharters.com

TIPS: There is a reason why the Cause-way is such a popular spot with ULM locals. There are more places to fish than you would ever want. Fish the edges of cuts and depth breaks along the causeway. Topwaters are effective very early in the morning when thrown up on the shallows and fished back; you can also score with soft plastics fished on a 1/4-ounce jighead worked near the bottom at a good clip. Shad tails that give off lots of vibration are best.

LOCATION: Upper Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Emmord’s HoleGPS: N27 29.754, W97 19.970SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft plastics in Plum/char-

treuse, Rootbeer/red flake, Morning Glory, Pumpkinseed/chartreuse

CONTACT: Captain Mike Hart, 361-985-6089, 361-449-7441, brushcountrycharters.com

TIPS: Fishermen should work the edges of grasslines and drop-offs to locate prowl-ing trout. Soft plastics under a Paradise Popper are effective. If the grasslines are in deeper water, switch over to a 1/8-ounce jighead and ditch the float.

LOCATION: Upper Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: King Ranch N. of Point of

RocksGPS: N27 21.106, W96 23.433SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: soft plastics in Plum/char-

treuse, Limetreuse, Rootbeer/red flake; live shrimp

CONTACT: Captain Mike Hart, 361-985-6089, 361-449-7441, brushcountrycharters.com

TIPS: Again, look for grasslines in deep-er (4-foot) water and swim jigs along them. Darker colors are the order of the season, with plum and rootbeer patterns moving to the front of the list of lure choices. Lighter colors should work when water begins to clear later in the month. If the fish are being finicky, switch over to live shrimp under a popping cork. That may get their attention.

LOCATION: Upper Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Humble ChannelGPS: N27 39.153, W96 15.664SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: soft plastics in Plum/char-

treuse, Limetreuse, Rootbeer/red flakeCONTACT: Captain Mike Hart, 361-

985-6089, 361-449-7441, brushcountrycharters.com

TIPS: The edges of the Channel will hold some trout near deeper water, espe-cially if April gets a bit windy. Fish soft plastics on 1/8-ounce jigheads. If you are fishing in deeper water, use darker pat-terns.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Boca Chica Jetties (bank

access)GPS: N26 3.904, W97 8.738SPECIES: Mangrove snapperBEST BAITS: live shrimp, fresh shrimp,

shiners, squidCONTACT: White Sand Marina, 956-

943-943-6161TIPS: Shorebound anglers can have

as successful a fishing trip as any boating angler. The only difference is that they have to tote all their stuff up to the truck and back. Mangrove snapper start piling up around submerged rocks around the jet-ties during spring. Most are 12-13 inches long, and put up a stout fight on most tackle. Live shrimp and fresh shrimp are the best baits, but larger fish seem partial to squid chunks or menhaden (locally called shiners).

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Boca Chica Jetties (bank

access)

Mangrove & Snook at Boca Chica

LOWeR GULF COaST

by CaLixTO [email protected]




GPS: N26 3.931, W97 8.990SPECIES: snookBEST BAITS: live shrimp, live finger mul-

let; jerkbaits in Pearl, SmokeCONTACT: Captain Jimmy Martinez,

956-551-9581TIPS: Snook are year-around denizens

of the jetties, especially the deeper holes, but they are in pre-spawn mode in April, which makes them aggressive. Free-line a live mullet or large shrimp into the deep holes on the channel side of the jetty tip early in the morning. If you prefer lures, a Gulp! Jerk Shad or Slug-O in Pearl or Smoke patters rigged on a 1/4-ounce jighead is powerful medicine. Fish deep in the water column near the bottom. Don’t be surprised if you latch into a tarpon. They hang around the tip, too.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Cullen Channel.GPS: N26 15.159, W97 17.273SPECIES: flounderBEST BAITS: live shrimp, finger mullet;

soft plastics in clear/red, red/white, Pearl/red

CONTACT: Captain JJ Vasquez, 956-239-2239

TIPS: Flounder lurk around the edges of the channel that feeds into Cullen Bay, especially during high tide. Cast your bait or jig parallel to the shoreline and near deeper water. A simple split-shot rig will work, but if the tide is strong, you may want to move up to a 1/4- to 1/2-ounce barrel sinker and short leader.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Color ChangeGPS: N26 10.429, W97 12.759SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live shrimp; soft plastics in

chartreuse, Nuclear Chicken, Pumpkin-seed/chartreuse

CONTACT: Captain Jimmy Martinez, 9546-551-9581

TIPS: The Color Change marks the boundary where the grass flats of Laguna Madre link up to the deeper water near the ICW. Fish the edges of grasslines, or around weed clumps that are visible along the bottom. Fish shrimp under a popping cork, or hop soft baits along the bottom. Gulp! Shrimp in glow are absolute death in the murkier water. Use a soft touch, because a little tap could be a 20-inch-plus

mustardmouth.LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: South BayGPS: N26 1.785, W97 11.011SPECIES: redfishBEST BAITS: live shrimp, ballyhoo;

topwaters early; soft plastics in white/char-treuse, Glow/chartreuse, red/chartreuse


TIPS: Spring tides push warmer water into South Bay, and redfish really put on the feedbag. Fish parallel to boat channels (but not in them; other anglers are entitled to use them) with live shrimp under a popping cork or soft plastics. If the tide is really up, then the redfish will be moving into the small guts that cut into the man-groves along the shoreline. Topwaters are good choices then.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: South BayGPS: N26 1.785, W97 11.011SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live shrimp, ballyhoo;

topwaters early; soft plastics in white/char-treuse, glow/chartreuse, red/chartreuse


TIPS: The same influx of warmer water that gets redfish into a feeding mood has a similar effect on speckled trout. Fish further into the flats and work around sand holes with topwaters and live shrimp, The vener-able Cocahoe Minnow is another good choice, especially if the wind picks up later in the day. They can also be fished under popping corks, much like live bait.

LOCATION: Arroyo ColoradoHOTSPOT: Arroyo MouthGPS: N26 21.604, W97 20.112SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live bait, Gulp! Shrimp

in New Penny; soft plastics in red/white, New Penny, Rootbeer; topwaters

CONTACT: Captain Jimmy Martinez, 9546-551-9581

TIPS: The spoil flats around Colorado Island in the mouth of the Arroyo holds trout that are still cruising and waiting for


www.egretbaits.com


hapless prey to happen by. Topwaters will work early, but live bait is your best bet. These fish are looking for something that smells and looks natural. Gulp! baits could also work, especially early in the morning.

LOCATION: Baffin BayHOTSPOT: Center ReefGPS: N27 16.206, W97 34.362SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: soft plastics in Strawberry/

black back, Plum/chartreuse, Rootbeer/red flake, Morning Glory, Pumpkinseed/char-treuse; Corkies in Plum, dark patterns

CONTACT: Captain Mike Hart, 361-985-6089, 361-449-7441, brushcoun-trycharters.com

TIPS: Trout are going to be cruising around the rocks of areas such as Center Reef, ambushing young of the year bait. A Corky Devil is a very popular early-spring lure, especially in dark patterns. Soft plas-tics should be rigged on smaller jigheads and fished very slowly. A noisy float such as an Old Bayside Paradise Popper wouldn’t hurt, either.

LOCATION: Baffin BayHOTSPOT: Center ReefGPS: N27 16.200, W97 34.360SPECIES: redfishBEST BAITS: soft plastics in Limetreuse,

Pumpkinseed/chartreuse; Gulp! luresCONTACT: Captain Mike Hart, 361-

985-6089, 361-449-7441, brushcoun-trycharters.com

TIPS: Where there are trout, there will also be redfish. Fish soft plastics around the shallower parts of the reef. Again, the key is working your bait slowly and close to the bottom, where the fish are foraging for their prey.

LOCATION: Baffin BayHOTSPOT: Tide GaugeGPS: N27 18.248, W97 27.593SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: topwaters early; soft plas-

tics in Strawberry/black back Plum/char-treuse, Rootbeer/red flake, Morning Glory, Pumpkinseed/chartreuse

CONTACT: Captain Mike Hart, 361-985-6089, 361-449-7441, brushcoun-

trycharters.comTIPS: Work up near the shoreline early

in the morning with topwaters for trout that are hunting for breakfast. When the sun gets higher as the day continues, work the deeper guts. Fish with dark plastics with lots of tail action to get their attention. Baits with split-tails are good options.

LOCATION: Toledo Bend Res.HOTSPOT: Martinez BayouGPS: N31 20.94414, W93 40.17246

(31.349069, -93.669541)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: spinnerbaits, crankbaits,

finesse soft plasticsCONTACT: Greg Crafts,

[email protected], 936-368-7151, toledobendguide.com

TIPS: Some bass will be in a post-spawn pattern and following the creek back to deep water. They will hold on structure near the bends and points. Other bass will still be on the beds. Start shallow with spinnerbaits and finesse plastics then crankbaits.

LOCATION: Caddo LakeHOTSPOT: Ames BasinGPS: N32 42.99354, W94 6.26364

(32.716559, -94.104394)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Flukes, Senkos, swim jigsCONTACT: Paul Keith,

[email protected], 318-455-3437, caddolakefishing.com

TIPS: The bass will remain in full spawn until May. Stick with fishing the cypress trees in one to three feet of water, especially where you find hydrilla, grass and other aquatic vegetation close to them.

LOCATION: Lake ConroeHOTSPOT: Main Lake PointsGPS: N30 23.80734, W95 33.93102

(30.396789, -95.565517)SPECIES: hybrid striped bassBEST BAITS: live shad, Storm Swim

ShadCONTACT: Richard Tatsch, admin@

fishdudetx.com, 936-291-1277, fishdu-detx.com

TIPS: Hybrid stripers are beginning to school on the surface in the mornings. They will school around all main lake points with sandy bottoms. Find schools of shad and you will find hybrids. Fish the shallows early and deeper during mid-day.

LOCATION: Lake LivingstonHOTSPOT: White Rock CreekGPS: N30 58.45476, W95 20.30172

(30.974246, -95.338362)SPECIES: crappieBEST BAITS: Minnows, jigsCONTACT: David S. Cox,

[email protected], 936-291-9602, palmettoguideservice.com

TIPS: Use live minnows or black-chartreuse jigs and fish north of the marina along the cut banks, targeting any stickups, brush piles and other structure you can find. Early-morning and late-evening hours produce the largest catches.

LOCATION: Cedar Creek Res.HOTSPOT: North End PointsGPS: N32 16.54782, W96 8.10846

(32.275797, -96.135141)SPECIES: catfishBEST BAITS: Punch bait, live shad,

shrimpCONTACT: Jason Barber,

[email protected], 903-

Punch a Cat on Cedar Creek

PRaiRieS & LaKeS

by BOB [email protected]

Bass on the Bayou at Toledo Bend

PiNeY WOODS










603-2047, www.kingcreekadventures.comTIPS: Use medium action rods on

14-20-pound test line. Anchor close to the points and retaining walls using a float rig set one to three feet deep. Look for bait activity and the action should be good there.

LOCATION: Cedar Creek Res.HOTSPOT: Caney CreekGPS: N32 13.4817, W96 2.81448

(32.224695, -96.046908)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Rat-L-TrapsCONTACT: Jason Barber,

[email protected], 903-603-2047, www.kingcreekadventures.com

TIPS: Cover lots of water and make long casts with a 3/4 or 1/2-ounce Rat-L-Trap in craw, chartreuse or chrome colors. Work slow to medium retrieves until the fish let you know what they want. Use a 7-foot medium-heavy rod and 15-pound test line.

LOCATION: Fayette County Res.HOTSPOT: Dam RocksGPS: N29 54.87618, W96 43.70778

(29.914603, -96.728463)SPECIES: catfishBEST BAITS: Shad, worms, punch baitCONTACT: Weldon Kirk,

[email protected], 979-229-3103, FishTalesGuideService.com

TIPS: Anchor 50-100 feet offshore where you still are on top of the rocks com-ing off the dam. Catfish are still spawning here. Fish straight down using a set or slip bobber close to the bottom. Chum with soured maize. Use a No. 6 or 4 treble hook.

LOCATION: Gibbons Creek Res.HOTSPOT: Crappie HoleGPS: N30 36.67968, W96 3.99804

(30.611328, -96.066634)SPECIES: crappieBEST BAITS: Minnows, jigsCONTACT: Weldon Kirk,

[email protected], 979-229-3103, FishTales-GuideService.com

TIPS: Some trees are along this rocky shoreline in deep water. Fish will be around these trees as well as the underwa-ter rocks for spawning. Look for structure on sonar unit. Use minnows or chartreuse jigs with yellow or black tails. Fish different depths.

LOCATION: Lake AquillaHOTSPOT: Snake IslandGPS: N31 54.72192, W97 12.3543

(31.912032, -97.205905)SPECIES: white bassBEST BAITS: Little George, soft plastic

grub, Flea-FlyCONTACT: Randy Routh,

[email protected], 817-822-5539, teamredneck.net

TIPS: Fish the grub with a Flea-Fly tied about 12-inches above the grub. Make long casts around the edge of the island. Bounce the grub back to the boat off the bottom. When you hook a fish, let it swim around and another fish may hit the Flea Fly.

LOCATION: Lake LavonHOTSPOT: Main Lake CovesGPS: N33 5.6907, W96 26.45076

(33.094845, -96.440846)SPECIES: crappieBEST BAITS: Small minnowsCONTACT: Billy Kilpatrick,

[email protected], 214-232-7847, straightlineguide.com

TIPS: Most fish are being caught at night as they move to shallow, warmer water in the coves. The fish stage at 3-5 feet during the day and often move to 1-2 feet at night. I use a lighted bobber with a No.1 crappie hook and 1/8-ounce weight.

LOCATION: Lake LewisvilleHOTSPOT: Main Lake PointsGPS: N33 5.3223, W97 1.1673

(33.088705, -97.019455)SPECIES: catfishBEST BAITS: Secret 7 dip bait, cut or

live shadCONTACT: Bobby Kubin,

[email protected], 817-455-2894, bobby-catfishing.com

TIPS: Shad are spawning. Look for them along wind-blown points. Feeding egrets will give away their locations along shorelines. Anchor and fish fresh cut or live shad on a Carolina rig to catch a variety of species. Use punch baits for channel catfish.

LOCATION: Lake PalestineHOTSPOT: Main-Lake PocketsGPS: N32 9.15888, W95 26.7159

(32.152648, -95.445265)SPECIES: largemouth bass

BEST BAITS: Long As, spinnerbaits, Mr. Twister Comedas

CONTACT: Ricky Vandergriff, [email protected], 903-561-7299, rickysguideservice.com

TIPS: Fish the main lake pockets and backs of the creeks on the east side of the lake. Bass are in 1-5 feet of water. Gold Long As, chartreuse-white spinnerbaits and Watermelon-red Comedas work well. Fish slow.


http://www.kingcreekadventures.com


http://www.kingcreekadventures.com







www.palmerpower.com

LOCATION: Lake SomervilleHOTSPOT: Big Creek Pavilion ShoreGPS: N30 19.4715, W96 34.65198

(30.324525, -96.577533)SPECIES: catfishBEST BAITS: Shad, cut bait, punch baitCONTACT: Weldon Kirk,

[email protected], 979-229-3103, FishTales-GuideService.com

TIPS: The lake is lower than normal. Anchor away from the bank and fish toward the bank for channel cats. For larg-er blue cats, cast shad away from the bank. Use punch bait for channel cats riggged on set corks and fish with a tight line.

LOCATION: Lake TawakoniHOTSPOT: Main Lake PointsGPS: N32 49.65168, W95 57.75942

(32.827528, -95.962657)SPECIES: hybrid striped bassBEST BAITS: Strike King Redfish MagicCONTACT: Tony Parker,

[email protected], 903-348-1619, tawakonifishing.com

TIPS: Fish the main-lake points and dam riprap. Move from point to point to catch hybrids and stripers attempting to

spawn. Stay on the windy side of the lake where wave action draws them in. Use the lure with a 1/2-ounce leadhead. Retrieve it slowly.

LOCATION: Lake TexomaHOTSPOT: The IslandsGPS: N33 50.7237, W96 42.85416

(33.845395, -96.714236)SPECIES: striped bassBEST BAITS: Coho Minnows, Sassy

Shad jigsCONTACT: Bill Carey,

[email protected], 877-786-4477, striperexpress.com

TIPS: Locate stripers around the islands, flats and main lake points in 5-30 feet of water. Cast 3/4-ounce white-glow Coho minnows and chartreuse Sassy Shad jigs. At mid-month, try topwater lures and stickbaits. Some fish to 20-pounds may be caught.

LOCATION: Lake WhitneyHOTSPOT: Striper PointGPS: N31 54.65322, W97 22.81272

(31.910887, -97.380212)SPECIES: striped bassBEST BAITS: Swimbaits, live shad

CONTACT: Randy Routh, [email protected], 817-822-5539, teamredneck.net

TIPS: Big stripers are moving shallow. Start early with a chartreuse swimbait and rip it back to the boat in 3-10 feet of water. Small swimbaits and Rat-L-Traps will catch a lot of white bass. After the sun is up, anchor and fish gizzard shad near grass.

LOCATION: Richland Chambers Res.HOTSPOT: Windsock PointGPS: N31 56.42784, W96 7.1991

(31.940464, -96.119985)SPECIES: white bassBEST BAITS: Slabs, Rat-L-TrapsCONTACT: Royce and Adam Simmons,

[email protected], 903-389-4117, www.gonefishing.biz

TIPS: White bass will be on the main lake areas such as Windsock Point and Pelican Island and hybrid stripers will be holding in 15-25 feet of water off the 309 Flats. Use a silver Slab and blue-chrome Rat-L-Trap.

LOCATION: OH Ivie Res.HOTSPOT: Main Lake PointsGPS: N31 32.96094, W99 40.87092

(31.549349, -99.681182)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Plastic wormsCONTACT: Dave Caudle,

[email protected], 325-365-1020, fishinwithdave.com

TIPS: Low water conditions have limited prime spawning areas but concentrated large female bass. Any rise to 13 feet or less is holding spawning bass. Use finesse or Texas-rigged worms in dark colors. Bass also hold on the points near deep bluffs.


One Word for Ivie Bass: Plastics

PaNhaNDLe








http://www.gonefishing.biz



www.coveralls.biz


LOCATION: OH Ivie Res.HOTSPOT: River ChannelGPS: N31 34.2951, W99 42.89484

(31.571585, -99.714914)SPECIES: crappieBEST BAITS: Minnows, jigsCONTACT: Dave Caudle,

[email protected], 325-365-1020TIPS: Crappie are in the trees along the

river channel and holding close to 12 feet of water. Limits are possible on minnows and jigs. Channel catfish also are hold-ing just off the channel in 12-25 feet over baited holes and hitting cheese baits best.

LOCATION: Possum Kingdom Res.HOTSPOT: Chimney SloughGPS: N32 54.79026, W98 28.28928

(32.913171, -98.471488)SPECIES: catfishBEST BAITS: Slabs, Sassy ShadsCONTACT: Dean Heffner,

[email protected], 940-329-0036TIPS: Learn to use a cast net and catch

spawning shad early in the mornings to catch catfish and other game fish along the banks. The fish will be feeding on the shad in very shallow water. Cut shad or live shad will work.

LOCATION: Possum Kingdom Res.HOTSPOT: Chimney Slouth AreaGPS: N32 53.84766, W98 28.20168

(32.897461, -98.470028)SPECIES: white bassBEST BAITS: Rat-L-Traps, crankbaits,

live shad, Sassy ShadsCONTACT: Dean Heffner,

[email protected], 940-329-0036TIPS: White bass will be all over the

lake chasing after spawning shad, especially during the morning hours. Watch for her-ons and egrets to lead you to the action. Rat-L-Traps, crankbaits and live shad will work well.

LOCATION: Possum Kingdom Res.HOTSPOT: Cedar CreekGPS: N32 53.41956, W98 31.43058

(32.890326, -98.523843)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Spinnerbaits, jerkbaits,

Texas-rigged wormsCONTACT: Dean Heffner,

[email protected], 940-329-0036TIPS: Bass will be around the mouths

of Cedar Creek, Caddo Creek and the Brazos River either spawning or feeding on shad in shallow water. Target the creeks that have had the most recent runoffs.

LOCATION: Lake AmistadHOTSPOT: Highway 90 AreaGPS: N29 32.14098, W101 3.6096

(29.535683, -101.060160)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Jerkbaits, swimbaits, spin-

nerbaitsCONTACT: Stan Gerzsenyl,

[email protected], 830-768-3648, amistadbass.com

TIPS: Spawning bass will be in the backs of the creeks everywhere from eight to 25 feet of water. Make long casts and reel the lures slowly. The bass will be very aggressive while spawning.

LOCATION: Canyon LakeHOTSPOT: Potters CreekGPS: N29 54.1434, W98 16.6401

(29.902390, -98.277335)SPECIES: striped bassBEST BAITS: Slab spoons, striper jigsCONTACT: Steve Nixon,

[email protected], 210-573-1230, sanantoniofishingguides.com

TIPS: Fish the Potters Creek Point from the shore where it meets the river channel with jigging spoons close to the bottom. Striped bass and white bass stage on the point before moving to the main lake.

LOCATION: Canyon LakeHOTSPOT: Potters CreekGPS: N29 54.70074, W98 16.64784

(29.911679, -98.277464)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Drop-shot Picasso Shaky

Head, Créme Big Pig Crème worms, Shaky HeadsCONTACT: Kandie Candelaria,

[email protected], 210-823-2153TIPS: Fish drop-shot-Shaky Heads or

worms in Watermelon-candy or Junebug on bright days off the rocky shelves in the backs of the creek and nearby coves. Dark-er colors work best in off-color waters. Fish the backs of the creeks out to the points.

LOCATION: Falcon LakeHOTSPOT: Three FingersGPS: N26 54.80892, W99 18.74196

(26.913482, -99.312366)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Jigs, plastic wormsCONTACT: Robert Amaya,

[email protected], 956-765-1442, robertsfishntackle.com

TIPS: Fish brown or black jigs with brown trailers slowly in and around all stickups, brush and other cover in three to four feet of water along the banks, especial-ly the banks with rocks. Spinnerbaits also work well in the backs of the pockets.


Count the Bass on Three Fingers

SOUTh TexaS PLaiNS


Jerks, Swimmers & Spinners

BiG BeND


Canyon Stripers and Largemouth

hiLL COUNTRY


Find thousands of Texas Fishing Hotspots online with our TexaS LaKeS & BaYS HOTSPOT FINDER app:www.FishGame.com/hotspots

On the Web













http://www.FishGame.com/hotspots


Tides and Prime Times aPril 2012

USiNG THE PriME TiMES CalENDar

SPORTSmaN’S DaYBOOK iS SPONSOReD BY:

The following pages contain TIDE and SOLUNAR predictions for Galveston Chan-nel (29.3166° N, 94.88° W).TIDE PREDICTIONS are located in the upper white boxes on the Calendar Pages. Use the Correction Table below, which is keyed to 23 other tide stations, to adjust low and high tide times.

SOLUNAR ACTIVITY is shown in the lower color boxes of the Calendar pages. Use the SolUnar adjUSTmenT SCale below to adjust times for points east and West of Galveston Channel.

TIDE PREDICTIONS are shown in graph form, with High and low tide predictions in text immediately below.

SOLUNAR ACTIVITY data is provided to indicate major and minor feeding periods for each day, as the daily phases of the moon have varying degrees of influence on many wildlife species.

AM & PM MINOR phases occur when the moon rises and sets. These phases last 1 to 2 hours.

AM & PM MAJOR phases occur when the moon reaches its highest point overhead as well as when it is “underfoot” or at its highest point on the exact opposite side of the earth from your positoin (or literally under your feet). most days have two major Feeding Phases, each lasting about 2 hours.

PEAK DAYS: The closer the moon is to your location, the stronger the influence. FULL or NEW MOONS provide the strongest influnce of the month.

PEAK TIMES: When a Solunar Period falls within 30 minutes to an hour of sunrise or sunset, anticipate increased action. a moon rise or moon set during one of these periods will cause even greater action. If a FUll or neW moon occurs during a Solunar Period, expect the best action of the season.

T1T2

T3T4

T5T6

T7

T8

T9T10

T11T12

T13

T14T15T16

T17

T18

T19

T20

T21

T22T23

NOT TO BE USED FOr NaViGaTiON

TiDE COrrECTiON TaBlE

Add or subtract the time shown at the rightof the Tide Stations on this table (and map) to

determine the adjustment from the time shown for GALVESTON ChANNEL in the calendars.

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW Sabine Bank Lighthouse -1:46 -1:31 Sabine Pass Jetty -1:26 -1:31 Sabine Pass -1:00 -1:15 Mesquite Pt, Sab. Pass -0:04 -0:25 Galveston Bay, S. Jetty -0:39 -1:05 Port Bolivar +0:14 -0:06

KEY PLACE HIGH LOWGalveston Channel/Bays Texas City Turning Basin +0:33 +0:41 Eagle Point +3:54 +4:15 Clear Lake +6:05 +6:40 Morgans Point +10:21 +5:19 Round Pt, Trinity Bay +10:39 +5:15

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW Pt Barrow, Trinity Bay +5:48 +4:43 Gilchrist, East Bay +3:16 +4:18 Jamaica Beach, W. Bay +2:38 +3:31 Alligator Point, W. Bay +2:39 +2:33 Christmas Pt +2:32 +2:31 Galveston Pleasure Pier -1:06 -1:06

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW San Luis Pass -0.09 -0.09 Freeport harbor -0:44 -1:02 Pass Cavallo 0:00 -1:20 Aransas Pass -0:03 -1:31 Padre Island (So. End) -0:24 -1:45 Port Isabel +1:02 -0:42

T1T2T3T4T5T6

T7T8T9T10T11

T12T13T14T15T16T17

T18T19T20T21T22T23

KEYS TO USiNG THE TiDE aND SOlUNar GraPHS

12a12a 6a 12p 6p

12a12a 6a 12p 6p

AM Minor: 1:20a

AM Major: 7:32a

PM Minor: 1:45p

PM Major: 7:57p

Moon Underfoot: 9:15p

Moon Overhead: 8:50aTime Moonis at its highest Point in the Sky

SOLUNaR aCTiViTY:

Time Moon is DirectlyUnderfoot (atits peak on opposite sideof the earth)

AM/PM Timeline

MAJORFeedingPeriods(+/- 2 hrs.)

MINORFeedingPeriods(+/- 1.5 hrs.)

TiDe GRaPh:

BeST:5:30 — 7:30 AM

Yellow: Daylight

Light Blue:Nighttime

AM/PMTimeline

Blue:Rising Tide

Gold Fish:Best Time

Blue Fish:Good Time

Red Graph:Fishing Score

Green: Falling Tide

Tab: PeakFishing Period


www.fishingtackleunlimited.com

l = New Moon º = First Quarterl = Full Moon » = Last Quarter« = Best Day


NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATION

Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

GoodScore

= Peak FishingPeriod

BeST:7:45-9:40 AM

= FALLING TIDE= RISING TIDE= DAYLIGHT HOURS= NIGHTTIME HOURS

26

Low Tide: 12:40 am 0.07 ft.High Tide: 8:40 am 1.20 ft.Low Tide: 12:59 pm 0.99 ft.High Tide: 5:24 pm 1.10 ft.

27


28


29

Low Tide: 3:04 am 0.14 ft.High Tide: 12:48 pm 1.21 ft.Low Tide: 2:21 pm 1.20 ft.High Tide: 4:55 pm 1.22 ft.

º 30

Low Tide: 4:07 am 0.16 ft.High Tide: 1:46 pm 1.24 ft.

31


Apr 1


AM Minor: 8:43a

AM Major: 2:32a

PM Minor: 9:07p

PM Major: 2:55p

AM Minor: 9:36a

AM Major: 3:24a

PM Minor: 10:00p

PM Major: 3:48p

AM Minor: 10:29a

AM Major: 4:17a

PM Minor: 10:53p

PM Major: 4:41p

AM Minor: -----

AM Major: 5:09a

PM Minor: 11:22a

PM Major: 5:34p

AM Minor: 11:49a

AM Major: 6:01a

PM Minor: 12:13p

PM Major: 6:26p

AM Minor: 12:38a

AM Major: 6:50a

PM Minor: 1:03p

PM Major: 7:15p

AM Minor: 1:25a

AM Major: 7:38a

PM Minor: 1:50p

PM Major: 8:03p

Moon Underfoot: 4:00a

Moon Overhead: 5:12p

Moon Underfoot: 4:48a Moon Underfoot: 5:36a

Moon Overhead: 6:51p Moon Overhead: 7:41p Moon Overhead: 8:31p



+2.0

+1.0

0

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+2.0

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Moon Underfoot: 7:16aBeST:

12:00 — 2:00 AMBeST:

1:00 — 3:00 AMBeST:

2:00 — 4:00 AMBeST:

7:00 — 9:00 AMBeST:

11:00P — 1:00ABeST:

10:00P — 12:00ABeST:

9:00 — 11:00 PM


Tides and Prime Times for APRIL 2012MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

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12a 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 6a 12p 6p 12a 12a6a 12p 6p

Sunrise: 7:08a Set: 7:37pMoonrise: 2:34p Set: 6:14p



Sunrise: 7:12a Set: 7:35pMoonrise: 11:45a Set: 3:37p





www.rinkersboatworld.com


Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

GoodScore


BEST:7:45-9:40 AM


98 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 T E x a S F i S h & G a m E ® T F & G A L M A N A C

2

Low Tide: 7:18 am 0.21 ft.High Tide: 2:47 pm 1.24 ft.Low Tide: 8:02 pm 0.89 ft.

3

High Tide: 1:28 am 1.21 ft.Low Tide: 8:12 am 0.28 ft.High Tide: 3:04 pm 1.22 ft.Low Tide: 8:31 pm 0.67 ft.

« 4


« 5


¡ 6

High Tide: 4:56 am 1.54 ft.Low Tide: 10:43 am 0.72 ft.High Tide: 4:00 pm 1.23 ft.Low Tide: 10:34 pm -0.08 ft.

« 7


« 8

High Tide: 7:09 am 1.63 ft.Low Tide: 12:23 pm 1.09 ft.High Tide: 4:42 pm 1.31 ft.

AM Minor: 2:11a

AM Major: 8:23a

PM Minor: 2:36p

PM Major: 8:48p

AM Minor: 2:55a

AM Major: 9:08a

PM Minor: 3:20p

PM Major: 9:33p

AM Minor: 3:39a

AM Major: 9:52a

PM Minor: 4:05p

PM Major: 10:18p

AM Minor: 4:26a

AM Major: 10:39a

PM Minor: 4:52p

PM Major: -----

AM Minor: 5:16a

AM Major: 11:06a

PM Minor: 5:44p

PM Major: 11:30a

AM Minor: 6:12a

AM Major: 11:58a

PM Minor: 6:41p

PM Major: 12:27p

AM Minor: 7:15a

AM Major: 12:59a

PM Minor: 7:45p

PM Major: 1:30p

Moon Overhead: 10:59pMoon Overhead: 10:11p Moon Overhead: None Moon Overhead: 12:08a Moon Overhead: 12:46a

Moon Underfoot: 10:36a Moon Underfoot: 11:27a Moon Underfoot: 1:13p Moon Underfoot: 2:11p Moon Underfoot: 3:11p+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

feet feet

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

BEST:7:00 — 9:00 PM

BEST:8:00 — 10:00 PM

Moon Underfoot: 12:19pBEST:

2:00 — 4:00 AMBEST:

6:00 — 8:00 PMBEST:

5:00 — 7:00 PMBEST:

3:00 — 5:00 AMBEST:

2:30 — 4:30 AM


Tides and Prime Times for APRIl 2012MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

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Sunrise: 7:00a Set: 7:41pMoonrise: 10:15p Set: None







Moon Overhead: 1:42a Moon Overhead: 2:40a


www.htmknives.com

A l m A n A c T e x a S F i S h & G a m e ® A P R I l 2 0 1 2 | 99


www.fishingtackleunlimited.com


Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

GoodScore


BEST:7:45-9:40 AM


9

Low Tide: 12:14 am -0.36 ft.High Tide: 8:20 am 1.61 ft.Low Tide: 1:17 pm 1.23 ft.High Tide: 5:03 pm 1.35 ft.

10

Low Tide: 1:10 am -0.37 ft.High Tide: 9:35 am 1.57 ft.Low Tide: 2:25 pm 1.32 ft.High Tide: 5:22 pm 1.36 ft.

11

Low Tide: 2:12 am -0.30 ft.High Tide: 10:54 am 1.52 ft.

12

Low Tide: 3:20 am -0.18 ft.High Tide: 12:08 pm 1.47 ft.

» 13

Low Tide: 4:37 am -0.03 ft.High Tide: 1:04 pm 1.41 ft.Low Tide: 7:35 pm 1.12 ft.High Tide: 9:55 pm 1.15 ft.

14


15


AM Minor: 8:21a

AM Major: 2:06a

PM Minor: 8:52p

PM Major: 2:37p

AM Minor: 9:30a

AM Major: 3:14a

PM Minor: 10:00p

PM Major: 3:45p

AM Minor: 10:36a

AM Major: 4:21a

PM Minor: -----

PM Major: 4:51p

AM Minor: 11:14a

AM Major: 5:24a

PM Minor: 11:38a

PM Major: 5:52p

AM Minor: 12:10a

AM Major: 6:21a

PM Minor: 12:34p

PM Major: 6:47p

AM Minor: 12:59a

AM Major: 7:11a

PM Minor: 1:23p

PM Major: 7:35p

AM Minor: 1:44a

AM Major: 7:55a

PM Minor: 2:07p

PM Major: 8:18p

Moon Underfoot: 4:12p Moon Underfoot: 5:14p Moon Underfoot: 6:13p

Moon Overhead: 6:42a Moon Overhead: 7:37a Moon Overhead: 8:27a


Moon Overhead: 9:14a

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

feet feet

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0




Moon Underfoot: 8:02pBEST:

12:00 — 2:00 AMBEST:

2:00 — 4:00 AMBEST:

2:30 — 4:30 AMBEST:

6:00 — 8:00 AMBEST:

10:00A — 12:00PBEST:

9:30 — 11:30 PMBEST:

3:00 — 5:00 AM



TI

DE

L

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EL

ST

ID

E

LE

VE

LS

SO

LU

NA

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Sunrise: 6:52a Set: 7:45pMoonrise: 3:28a Set: 4:52a





Sunrise: 6:58a Set: 7:42pMoonrise: None Set: 1:22a

Sunrise: 6:59a Set: 7:41pMoonrise: 11:38p Set: 12:32a



www.lasaltwaterfishingcapital.com

Tides and Prime Times for aPril 2012

l = New Moon º = First Quarterl = Full Moon » = last Quarter« = Best Day


16


17


18


« 19


« 20


l 21


« 22

High Tide: 6:54 am 1.50 ft.Low Tide: 12:08 pm 1.18 ft.High Tide: 3:55 pm 1.26 ft.Low Tide: 11:33 pm 0.08 ft.

AM Minor: 2:24a

AM Major: 8:35a

PM Minor: 2:46p

PM Major: 8:57p

AM Minor: 3:02a

AM Major: 9:13a

PM Minor: 3:24p

PM Major: 9:34p

AM Minor: 3:40a

AM Major: 9:50a

PM Minor: 4:01p

PM Major: 10:11p

AM Minor: 4:18a

AM Major: 10:28a

PM Minor: 4:39p

PM Major: 10:50p

AM Minor: 4:58a

AM Major: -----

PM Minor: 5:20p

PM Major: 11:31a

AM Minor: 5:42a

AM Major: -----

PM Minor: 6:04p

PM Major: 12:16p

AM Minor: 6:29a

AM Major: 12:17a

PM Minor: 6:52p

PM Major: 12:40p

Moon Underfoot: 10:20p Moon Underfoot: None

Moon Overhead: 10:41a Moon Overhead: 11:23a Moon Overhead: 12:06p Moon Overhead: 12:49p Moon Overhead: 1:34p Moon Overhead: 2:20pMoon Overhead: 9:58a

Moon Underfoot: 1:57aMoon Underfoot: 12:27aMoon Underfoot: -12:16a+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

feet feet

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

BeST:6:00 — 8:00 PM

BeST:12:30 — 2:30 PM

BeST:1:00 — 3:00 PM

BeST:5:30 — 7:30 PM

BeST:5:00 — 7:00 PM

BeST:3:30 — 5:30 AM

BeST:2:30 — 4:30 AM


MONDaY TUESDaY WEDNESDaY THUrSDaY FriDaY SaTUrDaY SUNDaY

Ti

De

L

eV

eL

ST

iD

e

Le

Ve

LS

SO

LU

Na

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iViT

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aR

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TiV

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Moon Underfoot: -12:58a









www.waterloorods.com


Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

GoodScore


BEST:7:45-9:40 AM


102 | A P R I L 2 0 1 2 T E x a S F i S h & G a m E ® T F & G A L M A N A C

« 23

High Tide: 7:42 am 1.50 ft.Low Tide: 12:33 pm 1.24 ft.High Tide: 3:52 pm 1.29 ft.

24


25


26


27

Low Tide: 2:18 am 0.21 ft.High Tide: 11:26 am 1.45 ft.

º 28


29


AM Minor: 7:19a

AM Major: 1:07a

PM Minor: 7:43p

PM Major: 1:31p

AM Minor: 8:12a

AM Major: 1:59a

PM Minor: 8:36p

PM Major: 2:24p

AM Minor: 9:06a

AM Major: 2:53a

PM Minor: 9:30p

PM Major: 3:18p

AM Minor: 10:00a

AM Major: 3:48a

PM Minor: 10:24p

PM Major: 4:12p

AM Minor: 10:53a

AM Major: 4:41a

PM Minor: -----

PM Major: 5:06p

AM Minor: 11:21a

AM Major: 5:33a

PM Minor: 11:45a

PM Major: 5:57p

AM Minor: 12:10a

AM Major: 6:22a

PM Minor: 12:34p

PM Major: 6:47p




Moon Overhead: 5:35p Moon Overhead: 6:24p Moon Overhead: 7:13p



+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

feet feet

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0




Moon Underfoot: 6:00aBEST:

11:00P — 1:00ABEST:

6:00 — 8:00 AMBEST:

12:00 — 2:00 AMBEST:

10:00P — 12:00ABEST:

9:00 — 11:00 PMBEST:

8:30 — 10:30 PMBEST:

8:00 — 10:00 PM



Ti

DE

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iD

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LE

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LU

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iViT

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TiV

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www.berniesboats.com

l = New Moon º = First Quarterl = Full Moon » = Last Quarter« = Best Day

30


May 1


2


3


« 4


« 5


¡ 6

High Tide: 6:20 am 1.80 ft.Low Tide: 11:33 am 1.33 ft.High Tide: 3:08 pm 1.46 ft.Low Tide: 11:07 pm -0.47 ft

AM Minor: 12:57a

AM Major: 7:09a

PM Minor: 1:21p

PM Major: 7:34p

AM Minor: 1:42a

AM Major: 7:54a

PM Minor: 2:07p

PM Major: 8:19p

AM Minor: 2:26a

AM Major: 8:39a

PM Minor: 2:51p

PM Major: 9:04p

AM Minor: 3:11a

AM Major: 9:24a

PM Minor: 3:37p

PM Major: 9:51p

AM Minor: 3:59a

AM Major: 10:13a

PM Minor: 4:27p

PM Major: 10:41p

AM Minor: 4:52a

AM Major: -----

PM Minor: 5:22p

PM Major: 11:07a

AM Minor: 5:52a

AM Major: 11:44a

PM Minor: 6:23p

PM Major: 12:08p




Moon Overhead: 11:36p Moon Overhead: None Moon Overhead: 12:21a



+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

feet feet

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0




Moon Underfoot: 11:52aBEST:

5:30 — 7:30 PMBEST:

7:00 — 9:00 PMBEST:

8:00 — 10:00 PMBEST:

4:30 — 6:30 PMBEST:

3:30 — 5:30 PMBEST:

2:00 — 4:00 AM


Tides and Prime Times for aPriL 2012MONDaY TUESDaY WEDNESDaY THUrSDaY FriDaY SaTUrDaY SUNDaY

TI

DE

L

EV

EL

ST

ID

E

LE

VE

LS

SO

LU

NA

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YS

OL

UN

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ITY









BEST:1:30 — 3:30 AM


www.planomolding.com


Tides and Prime Times APril 2012

Sunrise: 7:25a Set: 7:56pMoonrise: 6:37a Set: 7:26pAM Minor: 5:09a AM Major: 11:19aPM Minor: 5:29p PM Major: 11:39pMoon Overhead: 12:58pMoon Underfoot: 12:38a




2Low Tide: 7:18 am 0.21 ft.High Tide: 2:47 pm 1.24 ft.Low Tide: 8:02 pm 0.89 ft.

3High Tide: 1:28 am 1.21 ft.Low Tide: 8:12 am 0.28 ft.High Tide: 3:04 pm 1.22 ft.Low Tide: 8:31 pm 0.67 ft.

4 «High Tide: 2:42 am 1.32 ft.Low Tide: 9:03 am 0.39 ft.High Tide: 3:22 pm 1.21 ft.Low Tide: 9:08 pm 0.42 ft.

5«High Tide: 3:50 am 1.44 ft.Low Tide: 9:54 am 0.54 ft.High Tide: 3:41 pm 1.21 ft.Low Tide: 9:49 pm 0.15 ft.

Sunrise: 7:16a Set: 8:00pMoonrise: 11:17a Set: 12:55aAM Minor: 10:58a AM Major: 4:45aPM Minor: 11:25p PM Major: 5:11pMoon Overhead: 6:32pMoon Underfoot: 6:06a

Sunrise: 7:15a Set: 8:01pMoonrise: 12:15p Set: 1:46aAM Minor: 11:55a AM Major: 5:41aPM Minor: ----- PM Major: 6:08pMoon Overhead: 7:26pMoon Underfoot: 6:59a

Sunrise: 7:14a Set: 8:01pMoonrise: 1:18p Set: 2:33aAM Minor: 12:26a AM Major: 6:37aPM Minor: 12:50p PM Major: 7:04pMoon Overhead: 8:20pMoon Underfoot: 7:53a


9Low Tide: 12:14 am -0.36 ft.High Tide: 8:20 am 1.61 ft.Low Tide: 1:17 pm 1.23 ft.High Tide: 5:03 pm 1.35 ft.

10Low Tide: 1:10 am -0.37 ft.High Tide: 9:35 am 1.57 ft.Low Tide: 2:25 pm 1.32 ft.High Tide: 5:22 pm 1.36 ft.

11Low Tide: 2:12 am -0.30 ft.High Tide: 10:54 am 1.52 ft.

12Low Tide: 3:20 am -0.18 ft.High Tide: 12:08 pm 1.47 ft.

Sunrise: 7:08a Set: 8:05pMoonrise: 6:53p Set: 5:48aAM Minor: 4:24a AM Major: 10:37aPM Minor: 4:50p PM Major: 11:04pMoon Overhead: NoneMoon Underfoot: 12:16p

Sunrise: 7:07a Set: 8:05pMoonrise: 8:04p Set: 6:28aAM Minor: 5:14a AM Major: 11:28aPM Minor: 5:42p PM Major: 11:56pMoon Overhead: 12:44aMoon Underfoot: 1:12p







Sunrise: 7:01a Set: 8:09pMoonrise: 1:18a Set: 11:51aAM Minor: 11:27a AM Major: 5:14aPM Minor: 11:53p PM Major: 5:40pMoon Overhead: 6:33aMoon Underfoot: 6:59p

Sunrise: 7:00a Set: 8:10pMoonrise: 2:02a Set: 12:50pAM Minor: ----- AM Major: 6:08aPM Minor: 12:20p PM Major: 6:33pMoon Overhead: 7:24aMoon Underfoot: 7:48p

Sunrise: 6:59a Set: 8:11pMoonrise: 2:40a Set: 1:48pAM Minor: 12:45a AM Major: 6:56aPM Minor: 1:08p PM Major: 7:19pMoon Overhead: 8:11aMoon Underfoot: 8:34p


23«High Tide: 7:42 am 1.50 ft.Low Tide: 12:33 pm 1.24 ft.High Tide: 3:52 pm 1.29 ft.

24Low Tide: 12:09 am 0.09 ft.High Tide: 8:34 am 1.48 ft.Low Tide: 1:01 pm 1.30 ft.High Tide: 3:37 pm 1.32 ft.



MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THUrSDAY

2:30 —4:30 AM

PriME TiME

3:00 —5:00 AM

PriME TiME

5:00 —7:00 PM

PriME TiME

6:00 —8:00 PM

PriME TiME

3:00 —5:00 AM

PriME TiME

9:30 —11:30 PM

PriME TiME

10:00A —12:00P

PriME TiME

6:00 —8:00 AM

PriME TiME

3:30 —5:30 AM

PriME TiME

5:00 —7:00 PM

PriME TiME

5:30 —7:30 PM

PriME TiME

8:00 —10:00 PM

PriME TiME

8:30 —10:30 PM

PriME TiME

9:00 —11:00 PM

PriME TiME

10:00P —12:00A

PriME TiME

2:30 —4:30 AM

PriME TiME

SYMBOl KEY

l New

Moon

º First

Quarter

¡Full

Moon

» last

Quarter

«

Good DayBESTDAYS

PriME TiME


www.texastackle.com


1:30 —3:30 AM

PRIME TIME

Sunrise: 7:26a Set: 7:55pMoonrise: 6:09a Set: 6:33pAM Minor: 4:32a AM Major: 10:42aPM Minor: 4:52p PM Major: 11:02pMoon Overhead: 12:18pMoon Underfoot: None

Apr 1Low Tide: 6:19 am 0.18 ft.High Tide: 2:30 pm 1.26 ft.Low Tide: 7:59 pm 1.05 ft.High Tide: 11:56 pm 1.13 ft.


Sunrise: 7:19a Set: 7:59pMoonrise: 9:34a Set: NoneAM Minor: 9:04a AM Major: 2:52aPM Minor: 9:29p PM Major: 3:17pMoon Overhead: 4:47pMoon Underfoot: 4:22a

Sunrise: 7:18a Set: 7:59pMoonrise: 10:23a Set: 12:02aAM Minor: 10:01a AM Major: 3:48aPM Minor: 10:27p PM Major: 4:14pMoon Overhead: 5:39pMoon Underfoot: 5:13a

6 ¡High Tide: 4:56 am 1.54 ft.Low Tide: 10:43 am 0.72 ft.High Tide: 4:00 pm 1.23 ft.Low Tide: 10:34 pm -0.08 ft.

7«High Tide: 6:02 am 1.60 ft.Low Tide: 11:33 am 0.91 ft.High Tide: 4:20 pm 1.27 ft.Low Tide: 11:22 pm -0.26 ft.

8«High Tide: 7:09 am 1.63 ft.Low Tide: 12:23 pm 1.09 ft.High Tide: 4:42 pm 1.31 ft.




13»Low Tide: 4:37 am -0.03 ft.High Tide: 1:04 pm 1.41 ft.Low Tide: 7:35 pm 1.12 ft.High Tide: 9:55 pm 1.15 ft.

14Low Tide: 5:56 am 0.12 ft.High Tide: 1:43 pm 1.34 ft.Low Tide: 7:56 pm 0.97 ft.High Tide: 11:52 pm 1.14 ft.



Sunrise: 7:03a Set: 8:08pMoonrise: None Set: 9:51aAM Minor: 9:23a AM Major: 3:09aPM Minor: 9:53p PM Major: 3:38pMoon Overhead: 4:40aMoon Underfoot: 5:10p

Sunrise: 7:02a Set: 8:09pMoonrise: 12:28a Set: 10:51aAM Minor: 10:27a AM Major: 4:13aPM Minor: 10:56p PM Major: 4:42pMoon Overhead: 5:39aMoon Underfoot: 6:06p


21 lHigh Tide: 6:08 am 1.49 ft.Low Tide: 11:42 am 1.10 ft.High Tide: 3:47 pm 1.23 ft.Low Tide: 11:00 pm 0.09 ft.

22«High Tide: 6:54 am 1.50 ft.Low Tide: 12:08 pm 1.18 ft.High Tide: 3:55 pm 1.26 ft.Low Tide: 11:33 pm 0.08 ft.




Sunrise: 6:54a Set: 8:14pMoonrise: 5:09a Set: 6:14pAM Minor: 3:54a AM Major: 10:05aPM Minor: 4:15p PM Major: 10:25pMoon Overhead: 11:38aMoon Underfoot: None

27Low Tide: 2:18 am 0.21 ft.High Tide: 11:26 am 1.45 ft.

28 ºLow Tide: 3:10 am 0.27 ft.High Tide: 12:08 pm 1.43 ft.

29Low Tide: 4:10 am 0.36 ft.High Tide: 12:38 pm 1.40 ft.Low Tide: 7:47 pm 1.10 ft.High Tide: 10:03 pm 1.12 ft.


FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

2:00 —4:00 AM

PRIME TIME

7:00 —9:00 PM

PRIME TIME

8:00 —10:00 PM

PRIME TIME

2:00 —4:00 AM

PRIME TIME

12:00 —2:00 AM

PRIME TIME

2:00 —4:00 AM

PRIME TIME

2:30 —4:30 AM

PRIME TIME

6:00 —8:00 PM

PRIME TIME

12:30 —2:30 PM

PRIME TIME

1:00 —3:00 PM

PRIME TIME

11:00P —1:00A

PRIME TIME

6:00 —8:00 AM

PRIME TIME

12:00 —2:00 AM

PRIME TIME

Tides and Prime Times APRIl 2012

PLACE HIGH LOWSAbiNe bANk LigHTHOUSe(29.47° N, 93.72° W) -1:46 -1:31SAbiNe PASS JeTTy(29.65° N, 93.83° W) -1:26 -1:31SAbiNe PASS(29.73° N, 93.87°W) -1:00 -1:15MeSqUiTe PT, SAbiNe PASS(29.77° N, 93.9° W) -0:04 -0:25gALv. bAy, SO. JeTTy(29.34° N, 94.7° W) -0:39 -1:05POrT bOLivAr(29.36° N, 94.77° W) +0:14 -0:06TX CiTy TUrNiNg bASiN(29.38° N, 94.88° W) +0:33 +0:41eAgLe POiNT(29.5° N, 94.91° W) +3:54 +4:15CLeAr LAke(29.56° N, 95.06° W) +6:05 +6:40MOrgANS POiNT(29.68° N, 94.98° W) +10:21 +5:19rOUNd PT, TriNiTy bAy(29.71° N, 94.69° W) +10:39 +5:15PT. bArrOw, TriN. bAy(29.74° N, 94.83° W) +5:48 +4:43giLCHriST, e. bAy(29.52° N, 94.48° W) +3:16 +4:18JAMAiCA bCH., w. bAy(29.2° N, 94.98° W) +2:38 +3:31ALLigATOr PT., w. bAy(29.17° N, 94.13° W) +2:39 +2:33CHriSTMAS PT, CHr. bAy(29.08° N, 94.17° W) +2:32 +2:31gALv. PLeASUre Pier(29.29° N, 94.79° W) -1:06 -1:06SAN LUiS PASS(29.08° N, 95.12° W) -0.09 -0.09FreePOrT HArbOr(28.95° N, 95.31° W) -0:44 -1:02PASS CAvALLO(28.37° N, 96.4° W) 0:00 -1:20ArANSAS PASS(27.84° N, 97.05° W) -0:03 -1:31PAdre iSL.(SO. eNd)(26.07° N, 97.16° W) -0:24 -1:45POrT iSAbeL(26.06° N, 97.22° W) +1:02 -0:42

Tide STaTion CorreCTion Table

(Adjust High & Low Tide times listed in the Calendar by the amounts below for each keyed location)

NOT FOR NAVIGATION


If you never have hunted turkeys during the spring season, you have missed out on one of the most exciting times to be in the woods. It is one of the most exellerating and rewarding “vocal communications” ways to hunt wild game, much like rattling antlers to attract deer, bugling for bull elk

or calling predators and waterfowl.For many of us who have hunted tur-

keys during the spring seasons ever since they were established in Texas in the late 1960s, preparing for hunting them seems almost routine, but if there is anything missing it’s helping first-time turkey hunt-

ers learn the basics so they, too, can reap the optimum experiences of what it is all about.

Preparing for a spring turkey hunt is a year-long effort for most serious turkey hunters that intensifies as opening day nears. It begins with practicing calling.


THE WHITETAIL DEER RUT is an exciting period. The whistling wings of ducks over a blind can bring chills to hunters crouched below. However, the gobble-gobble-gobble of a tom turkey on a roost at the crack of dawn is what stirs the adrenalin of thousands of hunters on a cool spring morning.

by bob hood

Spring TurkeyBasicsPh

oto:

ygl

uzbe

r, C

anst

oCk


Like many of my hunting friends, I do it year-round, not only to stay in tune with the sounds I make but also to make sure my calls are in good shape.

There are many types of calls to choose from but the one or ones that become your favorite calls should be a personal choice, period. It doesn’t matter whether you use a box call, push-button call, diaphragm, slate, wing bone or any other type of call. What matters most is that you become comfort-able using it and that you keep it in good condition.

Many calls come with instructional CDs or DVDs and they can help a beginner learn the basics of calling. The thing to remember is that you don’t have to learn all the sounds wild turkeys make in the woods to trick a tom turkey into walking to within 30 yards or less of you. Yes, there are times when some calls work but a soft series of three to six simple, soft yelps of a turkey hen have probably resulted in more gobblers being shot in the spring than any other types of calling.

The push-button and box calls are per-haps the easiest calls to learn with but that doesn’t mean they are the least preferred by veteran turkey hunters. I have used every type of turkey call made and my favorite still is the box call. That’s just a personal prefer-ence and the call you choose should become the same for you.

The next most important thing to do prior to the season is getting your clothes and gear together. Camouflage shirts, pants, gloves, caps, face masks and anything you carry your calls, decoys and other gear in such as turkey vests, backpacks, fanny packs, etc., should be checked to make sure they are in good shape. If not, replace them so you don’t have problems with them while hunting.

The same camouflage clothing you wear during deer or duck season usually will be just fine for the spring turkey season. The key is to wear clothing that will blend in with the environment. One of my favorites is the new Cedarflage clothing made in Eldorado which works well not only in cedar country but also anywhere in a good, shaded area.

Check your clothing and other gear to make sure zippers and other types of clo-sures are in good working condition and address problems with seams and tears.

The gauge of shotgun you use for turkeys is another personal choice but most hunters

use a 12-gauge with a 20-gauge the most popular “second choice.” There are a vari-ety of shot sizes available today marketed as “turkey loads,” but No. 4. 5 and 6 shot will work well under most circumstances when you limit the range to about 30 yards.

Regardless what shot size you use, get a target and pattern your load at 30 yards or less. A good clean kill shot on a turkey can be made by aiming at the middle of the bird’s neck. Placing seven to 10 pellets in the head and neck area at that range will help insure a clean kill.

If your shotgun has a modified or improved cylinder you may want to pur-chase a tighter choke to make it more lethal on a turkey. The main thing is to pattern the loads you plan to use and become confident in them and the gun you are going to use. I shoot a single-shot M66 Ithaca 12-gauge with a 30-inch full-choke barrel and have for more than 40 years. I do so because of the confidence factor you should build into any shotgun of your choice.

The only thing I have added to my Ithaca is a fiber-optic front sight, something I highly recommend for any turkey gun. A fiber-optic sight such as the Tru-Glo or High-Viz can be adjusted, much like the sights on rifles. They work well anytime but especially during low-light conditions.

Locating turkeys and where they usu-ally travel should be fun, not a task. Most

turkeys go to roost along creeks, rivers and other streams. Try to locate their roosting places prior to the season, but be careful during your scouting so you don’t bust them. Listen from a distance for the tell-tell gobbles of tom turkeys and the clucks and purrs of hens that they often make prior to flying down from their roost, then plan where you want to set up for a hunt 200 yards or so from the roost.

If you can’t locate a roost, set up in an area where you have seen tracks and other turkey sign. Hunting the edges of fields always is a good choice because turkeys often use fields as strutting areas and to feed. Fields are especially good places to use a decoy or two because they stand out well from large distances.

The main thing to remember when you attempt to call in a gobbler is not to over-call. You want the gobbler to think there is a hen nearby and you want him to come to you. Many gobblers will “hang up” when they hear excessive calling, thinking the hen is going to come to him and not vice versa.

If you think you have chosen a good area to set up in, stay there stay as still and as hidden as possible. Patience has killed more turkeys than anything else.



www.tristatefencingcompany.com

Sugar Cured Wild Turkey

Wild Turkey Can be Cooked on the barbecue pit or in an oven, but remember that it is a very lean meat. A good cure will

allow the meat to retain its moisture while cooking.

Sugar CureMix 1 pint each of sugar and kosher

salt into 1 - 1-1/2 gallons of cold water. Place turkey in large disposable plastic bag.

Pour sugar saltwater solution over turkey. Squeeze all the air out of the bag and tie it up tight and close to the bird. Place the bag in a refrigerator or a cooler lined with plenty of ice and allow to sit in solution for 8 - 10

hours or preferably overnight.Remove bird from bag, pat dry and coat

the entire bird inside and out with vegetable spray or olive oil. Place a peeled onion in the cavity, then sprinkle the bird all over inside and out with Texas Gourmet’s Sweet Chipotle Season All and Texas Gourmet’s Riverbed Steak Seasoning.

oven instructionsPlace the bird on a rack over a baking

pan-breast side up. Place 4 layers of cheese-


Phot

o: J

im o

live


www.rodsman.com

www.texastackle.com

cloth over the breast. Place bird in pre-heated oven at 325 degrees, bake for 3-1/2 - 4 hours or until meat thermometer inserted into fleshy part of inner thigh (not touching bone) reaches 180 degrees. Remove from oven, discard the cheesecloth, and drape a piece of foil loosely over the bird and allow it 25 - 30 minutes to rest before carving. Serve with Texas Gourmet’s Black Bean Pico de Gallo and your favorite sides.

Pit InstructionsWrap the entire bird with 4 to 5 layers

of cheesecloth (this will keep out excessive smoke and allow the baste to keep the bird moist during smoking). Use about 5 lbs. of charcoal to start, then add pecan & hickory wood, or a combination of them. Preheat the pit to about 300 degrees.

Place the bird, breast side up on the pit on the far end from the firebox, baste with basting sauce every 45 minutes, smoke at 275 - 300 degrees for 5 - 6 hours or until meat thermometer inserted into fleshy part of inner thigh (not touching bone) reaches 180 degrees.

Remove from pit, and drape a piece of foil over the bird for 30-40 minutes to rest the meat. Then remove and discard the cheesecloth, carve and serve with Texas Gourmet’s Black Bean Pico de Gallo and your favorite sides.

You Will Need:1 wild turkey (domestic may be substi-

tuted) cleaned, skinned and thawed out1 large disposable plastic bag (large

enough to hold a 10 - 12 lb. turkey and 1-1/2 gallons of water)

1 basting brush Texas Gourmet’s Sweet Chipotle Sea-

son AllTexas Gourmet’s Riverbed Steak Sea-

soningCheesecloth (4 layers 10” x 10” for the

oven and 6” - 10” x 6’ for the pit)

1 pint sugar1 pint kosher saltBaste for Turkey3 sticks butter or margarine1 tsp black pepper1 cup of olive oil2 tbs crushed dried rosemary leaves2 cloves of minced garlic1 tsp dried Thyme leaves2 tbs Worcestershire sauce2 tsp honey Juice of 1/2 lemon Heat ingredients to a boil. Use this to

baste the turkey.

Email Bryan Slaven, “The Texas Gour-met,” at [email protected]

Join the texas Gourmet Fanclub on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=152165096156. come and share your favorite recipes, restaurants, and hangouts. the texas Gourmet is waiting on you!

T F & G A L M A N A C t e x a s F i s h & G a m e ® A P R I L 2 0 1 2 | 109


http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=152165096156

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=152165096156


www.fishgame.com/newsletter.htm

www.portmansfieldchamber.org


ROCKPORT

UPPeR COasT (sabine LaKe)

baFFin baY

TeXas HUnTinG

MiDDLe COasT

TeXas saLTWaTeR

TeXas saLTWaTeR

GaLVesTOn

nORTH easT TeXassOUTH TeXas

COLORaDO HUnTinG

TeXas HUnTinG

Hook and Ladder

DanielStriper Express

Guide Servce

Rockport Redrunner


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www.whiteoakoutfittersinc.com

www.kingsvilletexas.com

www.rockportredrunner.com

www.hillmanguideservice.com

www.knightengalvestonfishing.com

www.elkquest.com

www.redfishcharters.com

www.goldenhookguide.com


Lake Amistad is one of Del Rio’s main attractions, offering a wide expanse of clear, turquoise-colored water on the Texas/Mexico Border. The lake is part of the Amistad National Recreation Area managed by the National Park Service. Amistad is the Spanish word for friendship, and the international lake and dam are centered by two bronze eagles, symbolizing the strong ties between the U.S. and Mexico.

Amistad National Recreation Area offers great opportunities for boating, houseboat vacations, camping, water sports, fishing, bow hunting for deer, and bird watching.

Surrounding Del Rio is the Seminole Canyon State Park and Historical Site, Shumla School, Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center, San Felipe Springs, Val Verde Winery, Whitehead Memorial Museum, Laughlin Heritage Foundation Museum and the home of Laughlin Air Force Base.

Del Rio is a multi-cultural town with many opportunities to live, work and Play. Del Rio is one of the safest cities along the Texas/Mexico Border and Lake Amistad is among of the safest lakes for all of your recreational enjoyments. For additional information check out www.drchamber.com or call 1-800-889-8149 and see why we invite you to “Explore Del Rio – Home of Lake Amistad”.

SPOTLIGHT: DEL RIO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

LAKE AMISTAD

TEXAS FRESHWATER

CALL CAPTAIn DAvID FOR RATES AnD InFO

281.869.5518

SIGn uP FOR OuR

nEWSLETTER TO BE EnTERED TO WIn

GREAT PRIzES AS WELL AS OuR TROPHy

quEST TRIPS(SEE ADS FOR DETAILS)

CHECK OuT OuR nEW On-LInE STORE

FISHAnDGAMEGEAR.COM

TEXAS FRESHWATER

LAKE TEXOMA

TEXAS FRESHWATER

EAST TEXAS

HillmanGuide Servce

Shanna and YvetteRockport Redrunners


http://www.drchamber.com

www.drchamber.com

www.huxleybay.net

www.striperexpress.com

www.fishandgamegeaar.com


RedFiSh

Sabine LakeLayne Tucker of Beaumont caught his first redfish while fishing with his grandfather on Sabine Lake.

SpeckLed TRouT

clear LakeSharon Stogner of League City caught her personal best, this 27-1/2-inch, 6.5-pound speckled trout while fishing with her husband Kyle in Clear Lake.

RedFiSh

Sabine LakePaul Owens of Beaumont caught this 32-inch bull red at the Causeway on Sabine Lake, between Christmas and New Year’s.

caTFiSh

Brazos RiverLuke Stout caught this 50-pound yel-low cat on a jug-line in the Brazos River. Two days before, he caught a 9-pound bass on Lake Weatherford. It was the best week of fishing in his life (to date).

BLack dRum

clearcreek

Dennis McIn-tosh of Hum-ble caught this 34-inch, 19-3/4-pound black drum in Clear Creek at League City. He caught the drum on a dead shrimp sea-soned with garlic and salt.

caTFiSh

Lake ForkFive-year-old Noah Darnell caught his first catfish all by him-self at Lake Fork.

WhiTeTaiL

collinsworth countyGunner Palacios, 13, shot his first buck while hunting with his cousin Matt Needham on their land near Wellington in Collinsworth County.

WhiTeTaiL

LoveladyLane Turner shot his first big buck on the Sunday of Youth Weekend while hunt-ing with his dad on his grandmother’s ranch, the 3T Ranch, near Lovelady.

FeRaL hoG

LlanoSeven-year-old Tripp Parker’s first kill was this feral hog he took on the Waters Ranch in Llano Coun-ty. Grandpa Barney Hed-rick said when Tripp discov-ered hogs are where ham, pork chops and bacon come from, he wanted to hunt more of them.



MAIL TO: TFG PHOTOS1745 Greens Rd, Houston TX 77032NOTE: Print photos can not be returned.

EMAIL: [email protected] best results, send MED to HIGH quality JPEG digital files only, please.

No guaran-tee can be made as to when, or if, a submitted photo will be published.

BLaCK DRUm

PalaciosCliff Howard of Hempstead shows off a 36-inch, 40-pound black drum he caught at the Palacios Pier on the first night of a

long-overdue vacation last Thanksgiving.

ReDFiSh

Sabine LakeDarien Adaway of Port Neches caught this redfish, his first, while fishing on Sabine Lake with his granddad.

ReDFiSh

Brazos RiverCoulton Grissett, 13, of Sugar Land caught his first redfish in the Brazos River at Jones Creek.

BLUe CaTFiSh

Lake LivingstonJosh Dodd, 14, caught this 15-pound blue catfish at Onalaska on Lake Livingston. When the big cat hit, he experienced reel trouble and had to haul in the line by hand to landthe fish.

WhiTeTaiL

RuskSeth Hoffman, age 11, shot his first deer while hunting with volunteer sponsor Charles Dear. The hunt was donated by Rodney Newman.

WhiTeTaiL

hurst WmaTeddy Thibodeaux, 14, shot three does in one evening hunt at the Justin Hurst WMA near Freeport. He was on a TPWD youth hunt and got his deer with a Rossi .243.

FeRaL hoG

ColumbusBrian Davis shot this wild boar at 10 yards from a ground blind while night hunting near

Columbus. He used a .300

Win mag.FLoUnDeR

Sabine LakeSean Patsfield of Mauriceville caught this stringer of floun-der while he and his grandfather were fishing on Sabine Lake.

FLoUnDeR

matagordaCameron Hayes, 7 yrs old, fought and landed this 20-inch flounder on his first wade adventure in East Matagorda Bay.





www.mthoustonmarine.com

www.mthoustonmarine.com

C3_ALL.indd 3 3/5/12 5:19 PM

www.sundanceboats.com

C4_ALL.indd 4 3/5/12 5:21 PM

www.minnkotamotors.com/i-pilotsaltwater

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April 2012