I used to put together a fishing trip for all of the college buddies a few years back, but because of the growing families and other obligations it has been hard to get everyone together at the same time to keep it going so we haven’t done it for some time. Well, all the stars and planets properly aligned and everyone was back on board for the trip this year. The destination this time around was Corpus Christi , mainly due to the fact that one of the guys going had done a lot of fishing there and grew up in neighboring Rockport so we had experience on our side.
Let me preface by saying that our past excursions have not quite been all that successful. On many of the trips the only thing we had caught was a good buzz. This has mainly been due to the inclement weather we seem to attract no matter what time of year we choose. One time, Houston flooded so bad due to a tropical depression that we never even left the condo. Needless to say, the poker chips changed hands so many times during that trip that we could have given Phil Ivey a run for his money. There was a bad storm on another trip we had made to Matagorda the night before our scheduled outing with the guides and although the rain had stopped the next day, the wind was our menacing foe on that occasion. Note to self: When the guides are telling you not to go out and that you won’t catch any fish – Don’t go and save your money! Needless to say, we were the professionals that day and even though the wind and the rain had turned the water color into something you would see in a septic tank, we were determined to fish. After about an hour or two of riding around in the freezing wind trying to find some decent colored water, we were done.
So here we go again. We packed our coolers, geared up at Academy Sports and Outdoors, got our fishing licenses and headed to Corpus in search of the ever elusive cynoscion nebulosus and sciaenops ocellatus, better known as the speckled trout and redfish. After having picked a couple of the guys up at the Corpus Christi airport, we quickly checked into the condo so that we could head down the beach to do some fishing off a newly built jetty in the gulf. The jetty did not look far from where we were staying until you started to walk it with your rods and reels, tackle, nets, bait, and large cooler full of ice and beer! (gotta give Chainsaw credit here….He was a trooper with those damn coolers!)
Frustration marred the first day of fishing at the jetty. We had bought a quart of shrimp only to have them die by the time we walked the 1/2 mile down the beach! Well, we used the fresh dead shrimp and quickly found out that this was not going to work well. We got bite after bite after bite after bite after bite. You guessed it……crap fish! After about 3 ½ minutes we were out of bait and Denis held the state record for number of saltwater perch caught in that time span. He also set the record for largest saltwater perch ever caught – 4.76 inches! Good job, Bill Dance! Not only was our luck already going the way of our previous trips, but to add insult to injury, come 5:00 everyone around us started hitting the mother load! They were bringing in these huge redfish and because we didn’t have the proper bait, we were stuck watching the action. It was like we had finally found our pot of gold only to have forgotten something to carry it home. We thought about sneaking over and stealing someone’s bait casting net long enough for us to use it to get some mullet but Denis had not had enough to drink by this point so we were shut out once again.
After a long night of poker and Aaron stories we were ready to hit it again. This time we would come prepared. We knew what time the reds would start hitting so we decided to relax for a bit. A few of the guys tried the kayaking thing in the gulf while others just chilled and poured back some cold ones on the beach. Finally it was time to head back to the jetty for round two. This time, Aaron had brought his bait casting net and on the first toss we hit paydirt. We threw our lines baited with live mullet into the water and what do you know…..of course….nothing was biting. At least this time, noone was catching anything around us either. Aaron prides himself as the ultimate sportsman when it comes to fishing, thus live bait was not his forte and he was using lures. When I walked down to see how he was doing (not much better), he suggested we cut the mullet heads off and smash them with our feet so they could get good and bloody and throw the smelly carcass out there at them. Yeah, right!
I proceeded to head back to the live bait casters and relayed the info. Denis decided to heed the advice and quickly (and with way too much pleasure) sliced the mullet up, smashed the hell out of it, hooked it up and threw it out there. “Hey Spock – you ain’t gonna catch sh…” WHAM!!! No way! He got one! His line bowed over like Monica Lewinski on a cigar! With that, all of us were fighting over the knife, the mullet and a decent spot to cast on the rocks. It didn’t matter, though. We all started to hook into them. And every fish we brought in was a keeper. This time around the other fishermen on the jetty were jealous of us and that was a good thing. Thanks Schlop! That night we cooked up our fresh catch and it was awesome…a great end to a great day!
Saturday brought a possibility of disappointment as the weather outlook turned sour in anticipation of our guided trip. We left the condos at 5:30am to make the 45 minute trek over to Rockport where we were to meet the two guides. It was lightly raining the whole way and the skies looked ominous. The forecast on the Weather Channel that morning had said there would be scattered showers all day….not good. We got to the marina and although it was still sprinkling we decided to give it a go. Four of us loaded up with Capt. Bill and the other three went with Capt. Norm. We ended up at our first spot with Bill and something crazy happened. The skies somewhat parted and the rain stopped. Along with that good fortune was the presence of trout! They bit for about 45 minutes and we put 4 keepers in the box. We moved to 3 or 4 spots and had intermittent luck until we got over to St. Charles Bay and got into some reds. Capt. Bill hooked up some cracked crab on our lines and the reds sure liked those. We ended up throwing five reds in the box and more than that back in the water. Denis was again the champion of the school yard as he brought in an absurd amount of redfish children! All in all….major props to Bill and Norm for helping us have another great day.
Our good friend Rob was there to greet us when we returned and the last night consisted of some more good tales, good memories and good company. The more I think about our past trips, I have since come to a better appreciation of all the bad luck we may seem to have had. We had much better success on this trip than we may have had before (other than 1 other time), but that was only with regards to the fishing. The real reason we all do this is not to catch fish. That is simply a bonus. The real reason is the friendships that we all have. We've all had our ups and downs over the years since college and we love the families we share our lives with now. But getting together, smoking cigars, telling lies and reliving past experiences with lifelong friends is truly priceless and I'm certainly proud to be in the presence of these good pals! 'Til next time, fellas!
