Corpusfishing.com

[ovaforty]

a 50-page report titled "An
> Ecological Survey of the UpperLagunaMadre", published in 1957.
>
> The thing was hypnotizing.
>
> The UpperLagunaMadre is today considered the state's premier fishery for
>
> large speckled trout. The two most recent state-record trout, a
> 13.5-pounder
> caught in the 1970s and the current record, a 13.69-pounder caught in
> 1996,
> were taken in Baffin Bay, a lobe of the UpperLagunaMadre.
>
> But those fish can't match what anglers and biologists saw there in the
> 1950s.
>
> More on that in a minute.
>
> The report gave a brief history of the UpperLagunaMadre, then considered
> the
> Texas bay least affected by man, isolated as it was by huge ranches on
> the
> mainland and the uninhabited wilderness of Padre Island on the Gulf
> side.
>
> It long remained a seldom-visited spot because of the distances
> involved.
> The west side of Baffin Bay was more than 20 miles from the closest
> access
> point. And until after World War II, when nominally reliable outboards
> became available, few anglers were willing to risk traveling that
> distance
> into such an isolated and wild place.
>
> The document also indicated the Upper and Lower LagunaMadre had been one
>
> continuous bay until a 1919 hurricane shoved a portion of Padre Island
> into
> the bay, effectively dividing it into two parts - Upper and Lower
> Laguna.
>
> I'd never heard that.
>
> The bays remained separated until 1948, when the last link of the
> Intracoastal Waterway was completed. That barge canal, 125 feet wide and
> 12
> feet deep, cut through the sand flats and dunes left by the 1919
> hurricane,
> creating what Laguna anglers have ever since called "The Landcut."
>
> There was more intriguing information.
>
> The UpperLaguna had suffered bouts of "red water" or "bad water" from
> time
> to time prior to the 1950s. So the "brown tide" that has been hassling
> the
> UpperLaguna for most of this decade is nothing new, although most think
> it
> is.
>
> But it was the information about the Upper Laguna's fisheries that was
> most
> spellbinding.
>
> In 1956, the report said, the UpperLaguna produced a full 60 percent of
> all
> the bay fish taken from Texas waters, commercial and recreational.
>
> And often they were both. Recreational anglers were commercial anglers
> in
> disguise.
>
> The report estimated 38 percent of the total commercial catch of redfish
> and
> speckled trout taken from the UpperLaguna in 1953 was made by "sport"
> anglers who sold their catch.
>
> Despite the growing fishing pressure and the drastic changes in
> hydrology
> caused by the Intracoastal and the building of a landfill causeway
> connecting Padre Island with the mainland, the bay remained an
> incredibly
> rich and diverse ecosystem.
>
> The nets and trawls and other sampling devices used by the biologists
> showed
> fisheries that disappeared soon after.
>
> They caught sawfish - two huge ones weighing more than 100 pounds.
>
> Sawfish have been gone from all Texas bays for more than 30 years.
>
> There were heaps of tripletail in the Landcut. There were hordes of
> pompano
> everywhere in the bay each autumn.
>
> Neither are there now.
>
> There were tarpon and pipefish and other species now seldom seen in the
> Laguna.
>
> But what jumps out is the speckled trout. The huge speckled trout!
>
> "Trout to 8 and 9 pounds are abundant, and individuals to 12 pounds are
> not
> rare," the researchers reported.
>
> They backed that up with the yields from their gill nets. One net set
> along
> the KenedyCounty shoreline near the Landcut in 1954 produced three
> speckled
> trout weighing 15 pounds or more!
>
> There were several other trout taken by researchers that topped anything
> on
> record today.
>
> But the most monstrous - the most absolutely incredible speckled trout -
> was
> one they picked up in the wake of a killer freeze in 1951.
>
> That trout, found floating near Point of Rocks at the mouth of Baffin
> Bay,
> measured an unimaginable 48 inches and weighed an estimated 25 pounds!
>
> That's almost 15 inches longer and more than 11 pounds heavier than the
> current state-record speck

[ROBDOG]

Very cool... I can say there are still a few pompano in Baffin though. I was on a guided trip with Aubrey Black a few months ago, and after seeing several pomps jump I asked him if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. He said yes they were definately pomps. He said it was very rare to catch them in the bay, but on occasion they land in the boat while running and they were good eating...

[ironmanstan]

I see pomps all the time this time of year in the flats. I wonder if the commercial fishermen back then took as much fish as we dudes do now? There be alot of us. I'm not talking shrimp boats, they plow the fields underwater over and over and over. Very interesting story, especially commercial boys dressed up as dudes thats pretty cool.
_________________
I LIKE MINE FRIED.

[JLKing]

Where can someone find a copy of this report?


It would be a very interesting read.

[Purefishn]

Cool info, thanks for sharing. Love to see the article.

[The Trash Heap]

Assuming that's Ernest Simmon's An Ecological Survey of the Upper Laguna Madre, it's in Publications of the Institute of Marine Science, Volume 4, No. 2, July 1957. Should be available at UT Marine Lab in Port A, as well as in many other university libraries like TAMUCC & TAMUK. Don't know how to access it online.
_________________
The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[GoinCoastal]

[Big Ed]

Goin Coastal has it pretty good. Back in the late 60's early 70's I spent a lot of time at a cabin on the west side of the I.C. and due west of Bird Island Basin (which was inaccessable without 4WD). The trot lines were so thick that it was hard to set up a drift in many areas and there was no way a sane person would run through there at night. We seldom caught a red over about 15". Of course, although we thought of ourselves as very good fishermen, we also wouldn't have dreamed of fishing in water less than 18" deep. If we had, I feel sure we would have caught a few nice reds and some trophy trout as well. None the less, the commercials did a real number on the redfish and to some extent trout populations. I also remember some guys selling their catch. The first time I went Drum fishing in the ship channel near Pt A the guy whose boat we were in sold our catch to someone in Pt A. He only received 10 cents a pound, but of course we had over 1,000 lbs of big uglies. Unbelieveable catch for the 5 of us in that boat in only about half a day. We were actually worried that any wave would swamp the boat since we were riding so low in the water.
_________________
Big Ed
San Antonio

"A word to the wise ain't necessary. It's the stupid ones who need advice.", Bill Cosby

[Capt Mike Singleterry]

[Big Ed]

Mike,
I had forgotten about commercials using leaves as bait. As I remember that was because the Parks & Wildlife said that only "natural" bait could be used on trot lines. The purpose was to eliminate the very large number of fish needlessly lost when some folks would just abandon their trot lines but the plastic lasted so long that many fish were caught and then just left to die. Someone found out that certain types of leaves would last a long time also, although not as long as plastic. They partially bypassed the TPW ruling this way.
_________________
Big Ed
San Antonio

"A word to the wise ain't necessary. It's the stupid ones who need advice.", Bill Cosby

[robul]

enjoyed the read thanks for sharing..

[rotts101]

I used black foam it would float and move around on the bottom work very well. This was many years ago.
_________________
love to fish

[Stoner150]

When I was in high school in Kingsville(40 plus years ago), we too used oleander leaves and a small wooden button about the size of a nickle or a bit smaller. The button had a hole in it that you had to gently force over the barb. The trout and reds and drum in Baffin liked them fine . And I've sold many a fish to Naylor's Fish Market at Riviera beach for .20 lb, but they had to be gutted with an intact air bladder so they looked "full"
_________________
Wishin I was fishin!

Jeff