Corpusfishing.com

[stanton8]

Does anybody know a good rental property at South Padre with a boat slip. I need one that will hold 6 adults and 3 kids.

Went to Pt Mansfield for some Friday and Sat fishing. Redfish are numerous but scattered in knee deep flats. Morning weather was amazing, with not a whisper of wind before 11:00am and gin clear water. The fish aren't feeding aggressively, so we had to work for them, but no problem catching limits plus releasing several each day. Most fish were 22-24, nothing over 25, but these fish are hogs. Seems like they have been all summer. Caught a 24 on Saturday that I thought was going to be well over sized, but turned out to just be a thick shouldered fish, probably close to 7#. Got chased out of the water on Friday by a shark. Second time in 3 weeks for that fun, and in a different place this time. I guess there's just so much to eat that they don't have any reason to leave.

Things are really slow down there. The business owners are saying that the drop in trout limits coming next month is really going to hurt them. I feel badly for them, but I for one am glad that the meat haulers are going to have to take it somewhere else. Hopefully it will also help get rid of the standard bunch of yahoos who always insist on anchoring in the middle of the ICW and tossing out 15 lines for each of 20 people on their boat.

Any help with rental ideas would be appreciated.
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A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.

[bk005]

I usually use these guys to find me rentals down at SPID.


http://www.pirentals.com/

[stanton8]

Thanks for the tip. I will check them out.
_________________
A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.

[wiggles59]

I fish Port Mansfield often and am going to spend 9 days there at the end of the month...........Where are you having shark encounters....East Cut? I once saw a Lady hook a large shark while trout fishing by the wrecked barge or whatever it is where the cut comes into the bay. Port Mansfield is growing as are all coastal towns.....Maybe the new limit will help preserve what is there and keep the crowds away for a little longer.

[stanton8]

Three weeks ago the encounter was with a 7' Bull in west bay very near where it opens into the north end of Peyton Bay. That area has often held sharks, but usually small ones. There's an arroyo draining into it and the redfish along with the shark(s) were in the clouded and very fresh water. This past weekend it was in chest deep water very near the Weather Station, which is located directly east of pt Mansfield and just north of the East Cut. Specifically that location is approx 1/2-1 mile north of the east cut and about equal longitude with about the 3rd or 4th spoil island when entering that channel.

I haven't heard of any of the sharks being aggressive, and normally I am not bothered by the small 3 footers, but these two encounters were with larger fish. I was actually fishing with Capt Mike McBride when the first encounter happened. He didn't spend a lot of extra time in the water at that spot that day.

Good luck. There are redfish everywhere in the skinny water. The bite was slow, but they were there and if you'll grind it out in one spot you should do well. We noticed a lot of people would come near where we were fishing, get out and wade for 30 minutes or so, then leave w/o fish. We just stayed put and had no problems getting 5 or 6 fish apiece, but it took 3-4 hours.
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A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.

[stanton8]

This is going to be a really long report, so if you are short on time or need a bathroom break, don’t start this now. Wednesday a week ago, I guess that was July 15, I was headed with several buddies to fish in the TriCounty area CCA 2nd annual Lower Laguna Madre Showdown in Port Mansfield. The Tri County chapter is Atascosa, McMullen and one of the others that touches those two. I live in Austin, but since a bunch of those guys are my friends and fishing buddies, they let me fish in their tournaments. Actually, the reason they let me is because I will show up with 3 or 4 other guys from Austin or SA and pay our entry fee and then finish in last place, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, my boat partner and I keep the TranCat at his house in Rockport, and this year I decided that instead of taking the boat out, putting it on the trailer, driving the 800 miles to Pt Mansfield, launching…you know the drill, I would instead take a very long boat ride. FYI, its 105.46 miles from Bahia Bay to the Pt. Mansfield harbor. Having made the plan to do this, and not wanting to get into Pt Mansfield at midnight, we decided that we better get on the water pretty early. Everybody had to work on Tuesday, so I left my house in Austin on Wed morning at 4:30, got to one of the crew’s house in SA at 6:00, loaded his gear, then went to the next house by about 6:15. We off loaded all of the non essential gear, mostly clothes and headed for Rockport. The other guy would drive all of our stuff to Mansfield for us. Of course we pull into Rockport around 9:30 and its raining something like 100” an hour. We checked out the radar, saw a break coming, loaded the boat, waited for the break in the rain and hauled buns for Marker 37. Dry the whole way. Fueled up at marker 37, checked the radar, saw there was some stuff passing on shore around Baffin and decided we would eat at Snoopy’s and then go. When we left around 12:00 we could see rain ahead, but it seemed ok. Made it all the way to the north mouth of Baffin and it started raining. We had to slow down since we couldn’t see, but no lightning so we were ok. About the time we made it the Meadows (I think) the rain turned around and was blowing from the north. When that happened we were able to cruise at about 25mph in the rain but stay dry. That was odd. When we got to the mouth of the land cut the rain stopped. About a mile in the sun started shining. It was nice. We saw what seemed like about 100 porpoises in the cut. Mommas and babies everywhere. Little babies, like they were in the cut just to have them, and some big daddy porpoises following them and making ugly noises at us. It was pretty cool. Saw a few reds along the way and two huge flocks of spoonies and two huge flocks of white pelicans. Made it through the cut, then into the LLM and into Pt. Mansfield. It was pretty cool.

Now, this tournament is open to anyone, but we had managed to put 25 guys with 6 boats who all new each other into 5 condos. Its like going to deer camp, but its on the water. As is the usual drill for our trips to Pt Mansfield, since we only make it about 3 times a year, we almost always guide fish on day one and then do our own thing for the other days. Thursday morning we had everybody lined up to go, and about 6:00am most everybody was at the dock ready to go. My crew was waiting to fish with a guide we had never used before, and while everybody else was loading up to go with their guides, ours was MIA. I spoke with him on the phone the night before and several days earlier when he offered to let us cancel. I said no both times. Since he wasn’t around I called him and woke his lazy &$$ up and told him to get out of bed. To make a long story short, we fired him when he arrived at our dock. I am not going to tell you his name on this site, as much as I would like to, but if you pm me I will be glad to. Here’s where everything so far goes from having a great time to just beyond outstanding. Its raining. Imagine that. Its been raining for about 2 months, but its just drizzle, so let’s go fishing. Five of my friends who had not left the dock yet were fishing with Capt Mike McBride. I asked Capt Mike if we could tail him, and he didn’t hesitate to say yes. We took off a little late, but with 2 boats, 9 guys and 1 guide with a great attitude, something good was likely going to happen, even if it was raining. We headed out and went to West Bay. Wind blowing, slight rain, water looks like dog doo doo. Why not pile out with your raincoat on and walk around for awhile? That’s what we did. Mike and his crew headed NE, we headed SW. About the time the two groups got about 200 yds apart we hear the other group talking about a shark. We’re only mid thigh deep, so we don’t think anything of it, and then we hear them talk about small shark, three feet, laughing. Few fish are being caught, but the BS from both directions is pretty thick, so inspite of the rain, nasty water, no fish, everybody’s having a bunch of fun. Fast forward about 45 minutes and I’m standing around tying off a new jig head when one of the guys in my group, Fritz, asks one of the other guys, Barry, “hey, Barry, what’s that?”. Barry responds with “why, that’s a porpoise, no, its two, a momma and her baby.” Its about now that I open my mouth and let them know that porpoises don’t live in 24” of water. I let them know that at the same time that Barry screams “Bull Shark”. Large bull shark. He’s easily 6’ from dorsal fin to tail tip and he’s about 25 ‘ from Barry, and we have stringers. Then it really gets fun, the shark turns towards Barry and goes under water. This may have been not as bad, except that the water is all brown, the wind has 6-8” waves on the surface, and nobody knows where mr. shark went. That’s when we all learned to walk on water for the 300 or so yds back to the boat. I know many of you aren’t afraid of sharks. I am. Needless to say Capt Mike’s crew had a bunch of names for us, most of them starting with P and ending in SSIES. Funny thing was, after they called us all of those names, they wanted to leave and go somewhere else. They specifically asked for somewhere really shallow. Funny. Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We just had a good time, caught a few fish, drank a few beers, outstanding. Special thanks to Capt. Mike. This is a man who loves what he does and it shows in his attitude. The rest of the weekend was mostly uneventful, but a ton of fun. There were approx 15 boats in the tourney and a little money was raised for CCA. We ate, we drank, we fished, played cards and even slept just a little. Now here comes the really cool part. I had to drive the boat back to Rockapulco on Sunday, and since I work in the oilfield, and the oilfield called and said I had to work on Sunday night, I had to get back early. For 2 solid months its been nothing but rain and wind, but at sunrise on Sunday morning it was so still that the LLM was a mirror. One of those days where the water and the sky are the same, and one of those days where you run over a bunch of fish, but the water is silver and you can’t see them. Wow!!! Now on a day like that you would expect a million boats. Not this day. Between Mansfield and the cut, one boat. In the cut, two boats. Baffin Bay I saw 4 boats. I could see a couple of boats way off in the distance in the Graveyard. Maybe 2 more boats before I got to Marker 37, then only 3 or 4 more all the way into Rockapulco. Along the way and during our stay in Mansfield we saw nelgi, turkey, deer, coyotes (the animal kind), birds, fish, very large sharks and all kinds of other stuff. Hands down the best boat ride I have ever been on and no doubt a very memorable week on Texas’ Upper and Lower Laguna Madres.
_________________
A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.