Had a great trip to Laguna Madre, TX last weekend. It was a very short 3 day trip. I traveled on Wednesday meeting my fishing partner in Houston for our connection to South Padre Island airport. A one hour flight from Houston and one hour drive from the Harligen airport put us on the shores of Laguna Madre.
A huge, beautiful expanse of water. Just a few miles from the Mexico border. It contains miles and miles of 2-4 foot deep flats of crystal clear saltwater. Our first day the guide ask if we were OK with a long run and exploring a new area and once we agreed he ran the boat at 35 miles per hour North for well over an hour. Nothing but flats as far as the eye could see and not another flats skiff spotted the entire run.
The first day, as is always the case with me. The weather followed me around and posed its challenges but it was much milder than my last few trips. Mostly overcast skies and scattered showers made the fishing difficult at times. A light breeze kept conditions comfortable for the Texas heat. My partner Collin, having been a trout angler in Denver his entire life spent most of the time on bow getting his casting and spotting dialed in. He quickly got his legs under him and under the guides instruction he casted, teased and hooked a fish without ever seeing the fish before the strike. We boated our first Redfish by 9 AM. The fishing was slower then the guide had hoped for but by the end of the day we had both boated several Redfish and large Speckle Trout.
The second day got of to a real bang, only 20 minutes away from the launch we pulled into a bay full of tailing Redfish as far as the eye could see. Thankful and impressed by the capabilities of the guides Hell’s Bay flats skiff we ran in at top speed in less than a foot of water and polled within casting distance in two-three inches of water. We found lots of happy and hungry to cast too. We were plagued by some heavy rain shower off and on that kept us putting and taking off our rain jackets. The showers would move quickly rain for 15-20 minutes and move out leaving a blinding Texas sun. We spend 6 of our 8 hour of fishing in a bay the size of round bay. I caught about ten reds the second day. With my partner boating half that. Back at the dock at 4 and to the airport for a 630 departure.
