Spring Time – Port A Fishing

Spring time fishing is really my favorite time of the year to fish.  The weather is cool in the mornings and it warms up to the mid 80’s as highs for the day.  Another thing that turns on the fishing is the presence of bait fish for our game fish.  Mother Nature, as she always does, brings in a shrimp migration and Mullet run just in time.  The game fish are really hungry, they are coming out of the Winter cold weather with very little baitfish in the water for them to forage on.  They are hungry and ready for a change. 

 Tony D, my main cameraman and I targeted some of the protected water where fishermen rarely fish.  Without exception, every place I fished required casting into the wind.  Most anglers never cast into the wind, especially with a bait caster.  The reason I choose to do this is because these waters are rarely fished by local anglers.  They always anchor their boats or drift an area and cast in a NW direction since the wind is predominately out of the SE. I threw a throw net and caught my large Pony Mullet and I had live shrimp on board.  I used the mullet and maid cut bait and positioned that bait in sandy zones while I worked my spinning rod with the live shrimp and fished tight to structure.

All in all, I caught 12 nice Redfish and 3 Black Drum.  It was a smoking fishing day in Port Aransas Texas.   We make a really great fishing show in HD with our new Sony Z7U cameras.  Watch for it on your television later this year.

 Anglers Note:

The key to today’s success was targeting strike zones and covering water.  I moved to probable 15 anchoring points to fish.  The moves kept me close to structure and I did not stay there long if the perch were stealing my bait quickly and I was not catching Reds or Drum.  My moves were about 50 feet sometimes.  I was looking for strike zones.  These are transitions in bottom type.  As an example of what I call strike zones, the change from a grassy zone to a sandy zone or a grassy zone to a drop off into deeper water.

These changes in bottom type will hold bait fish and the game fish will forage these areas in search of food.  Work the transitions and you will catch more fish.

I used 30 lb braded line and I rigged Carolina Style with a 30 lb mono leader, an egg weight up the line and a swivel to hold the egg wait away from the size 5 Mustad Croaker style hook. 

Thanks for your time today and I’ll see you,……………. Outdoors !! 

Dave