Mac Mather and I took a short trip to Mustang Island a few days ago. The plan was to cruise around in the zodiac and look for jacks, king mackerel, or maybe tarpon. However, the wind was-a-blowin'. We abandoned that idea and agreed to check out one of my usual redfish haunts. Nothing on the grass flats or sand, but we found fish in the mangroves. In four hours, and in about a foot or less of water, we caught sixteen redfish and a two black drum. Then we began to loose the preferred angle of sunlight for sight casting. We headed toward the Packery Chanel jetties for any justification to launch the zodiac. There was none. I settled for casting a sinking line on the eight weight, and managed to play a few ladyfish. The only photos we ended up taking where of a different kind of lady altogether. Well, would you have rather seen another redfish portrait? Besides, this was Mustang Island.
The next morning Mac and I got off to a slow start. It might have been the good food and cocktails at the Seafood & Spaghetti Works restaurant in Port Aransas, or just that we're getting old. I'm sure that it was restaurant. Again, we agreed to fish the same shallow water as the day before. This time of year the preferred angle of sunlight begins around 9 or 10 in the morning. So, first we enjoyed a good Mexican food breakfast and then headed out. The tide was a little higher than the evening before and the fish were not in their assigned seats. It was a slower start but we won a few tug-of-wars before we had to get on the road. The last battle, and on the sand part of the flat, was with a large ladyfish. If you're ever fly fishing for redfish and you see one of these, cast at it! kind of funny that we never launched the zodiac after draging it 175 miles down there. The only disapointment of the trip was that I slacked on the fishing photography, but it was still a great trip. No fish (or bikini ladies on horseback) kept, just admired and released.
