Fishing Corpus Christi  -  Oct 3rd, 2008 9:32pm

After fishing for 2 days in Port Isabel, I figured it would be time for some different scenery, and so my dad and I headed east to Corpus Christi.  It was a little shocking to be honest.  After having spent the last few days in a somewhat small vacation town, I was a little unprepared for the very touristy and chain driven city.

I probably would have found the town a little more to my liking had the fishing been better, but even though the weather had improved a little - fishing was really tough.

We met our guide, Mike Angel, at Clem's just after 7am.  The mosquitoes at the dock nearly ate me alive before we could get to the water.  Once in the bay though, the water was dead calm and we were treated to a double sunrise over a few juvenile redfish.  Unfortunately that was about all there would be besides a few scattered small trout for the rest of the day.

The original plan was to head out to the oil rigs and fish the big water for Snapper, Kings and Ling.  Unfortunately, 5ft swells were just too much for Mike's boat.  Props to him though for journeying all the way up to Baffin Bay in search of the Reds.  We traveled a looooong way and fished hard from 7am till almost 5pm.  We as well as everyone else we saw were using live shrimp and bait fish behind big "chugging" bobbers.  The technique involved yanking the bobber forward every few seconds to make it look and sound like a feeding fish.  An interesting contrast to Port Isabel where we exclusively fished with artificial lures the day before.

Fish or no fish, there were still some amazing sites out on the water.  Over the years a few people have been allowed to build what I could best describe as fishing shacks on strips of land created from dredging dirt.  Barges stormed up and down the channel from Corpus headed towards Mexico, and the water was filled with wild life.  We saw huge turtles, schools of jumping mullet, and all manner of birds.

Sun baked and wind worn, we finally made it back to Clem's "whupped".  We weren't alone though as the high waters left over from the recent storms had made it tough for everyone.  We added a few more trout to the cooler, said our thanks to Mike and schlepped back to the hotel.  There is definitely a big redfish with my name on it out there somewhere, but it will have to wait for another day.