12/31/2011

Instrument Navigation to the Land Cut

December has been a difficult month for fishing due to several Northern fronts moving into our area and making it difficult for the fair weather fishermen [me]. Yesterday morning on the 30th of December we had a window of opportunity to take a trip to the Land Cut for some fishing. Stopped by Clems Marina for some bait and learned that live shrimp was not available anywhere. So we picked up some live mullet and dead shrimp for the trip. Weather forecast said the morning fog would be burned off by 8:00am with south winds.

Mark, Charlie and I headed south about 7:30 in the morning only to find visibility to be about 20 to 30 feet ahead. Our GPS came in handy and aloud me to navigate by instrument and watching for the markers on the ICW. Cruising at about 30 mph I was able to determine approximately when I would see the next marker by using our GPS. As we got closer to Baffin Bay the fog became even thicker and visibility became more like about 10 feet in-front of us which forced me to reduce speed to 10 mph and losing my boat plain. Finally after getting close to rocky slough the fog became thinner and visibility aloud me to crank the boat up to about 40 mph. As we finally made it to our fishing spot at about 9:50am which made our boat ride almost 2 1/2 hours.

The fishing wasn't happening this day. The winds were coming out of the south which scatters the bait fish at the cut and the fish just were not biting. We moved around with similar results only catching a few under sized redfish.

Finally the wind gave us a break about 3:00 in the afternoon and shifted to Southeast winds. Just like clock work the fish were biting and we started to catch fish almost on every cast. And we caught about everything; redfish, black drum, speckled trout, and flounder all mostly on dead shrimp. They were all just under sized.

We had to pull up anchor and head back home while we still had daylight and left the Land Cut at 4:15pm. We made it home right at sunset. The day was a nice adventure using instrument navigation through the fog as the day turned into a sunny blue sky. Hm, Hm, Hm.

We'll get'em next time.

Dave Alexander

11/30/2011

Cooks, Cookin at the Texas Land Cut

Had a great time fishing the Land Cut with the Cooks. Elder and Sister Cook serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints enjoyed a day of fishing from their labors. I wasn't sure how the day might work out with Northeastern winds but we took a chance on it and paid off. We bundled up for the 55 minute trip to the land cut by boat. The weather was just beautiful to enjoy the great Texas outdoors.




Sister Cook caught this nice 22 inch black drum using live shrimp from Clems Marina. She sure kept a steady hand while landing this beauty on board our vessel.


Elder Cook was catching speckled trout right and left all day long. Many of these were undersized trout and released them back as soon as we caught them. Pictured above is one of the many Specks caught.

Watching where sister Cook caught her black drum, I took advantage of the same spot and landed this nice 26 inch black drum while Elder Cook was eating a sandwich. Then later Elder Cook caught a nice Speckled trout while I was eating a sandwich. There just isn't time to take a break ;o)

Great time with a lot of laughs! We were very happy with the action we had today. Northern winds can be difficult for a successful day. We felt like we were a day early for the great fishing since Thursday [next day] had expected southwest winds which are more desirable.
Dave Alexander

10/27/2011

Dolphin at the Texas Land Cut

Lamont Larson, Attorney from Denver Colorado, Visited Corpus Christi this past week with his family. It was great to see them again since it had been awhile. During their stay we planned a high adventure fishing trip with his two oldest boys to the Texas Land Cut and we had a great time. The weather was great and the wildlife show of birds feeding and dolphin swimming was an added bonus.








Lamont's boys handled a 3 hours round trip boat ride to get to the Texas Land Cut and back for a great day of fishin. Speckled trout were the catches of the day while Carter and McKay caught their biggest fish ever. The wildlife show was terrific as well with several Dolphin swimming the channel while we were fishing. We used live shrimp from Billings bait.

Dave Alexander

9/21/2011

Land Cut Trophy Speckled Trout

Now that's a Texas Land Cut Speckled Trout!

Last Friday the 16th of September we set out to fish the Texas Land Cut. Stopped by Billings Bait and picked up some piggy perch for the days fishing trip. The forecast had 20 percent chance of thunder showers with some nice cloud cover. The wind was coming out of the southeast and made for a very nice day of fishin. The birds were singing and the dolphins were dancing!

The bite was slow and tested our patience as we had occasional bites that managed to slowly fill up our live well with speckled trout. Bryan Weatherston was quite surprised with the speckled trout he managed to hook up with... she turned out to be 27 1/2 inches long and about 5 lbs. This was a new Speckled Trout record for Texas JustGoFishin trips!



Travis had a nice day of catching some nice trout for the dinner table.


Just a tremendous day to enjoy some good company, the great outdoors, and of course... Fishin.
Dave Alexander

9/20/2011

Guy Katz Speckled Trout Catch

Guy Katz sends in this pic on a recent trip to the Land Cut. Using croakers from Clems Marina he shows one of his speckled trout catches at 23 1/2 inches. It's always good when your catchen.

Dr Russell Hill Fishing the Land Cut


Great time at the Land Cut with Dr Russell Hill. This trip was last August on Monday the 22nd. Just a beautiful day to be on the water. Russell and I caught speckled trout using live shrimp. One of the most unusual catches of the day was this small Jack Crevelle. I've seen these at the Land Cut before but much bigger. lol.

Dave Alexander

9/19/2011

Carmen's BIG Day of Fishin

 31 3/4" Redfish 
26 1/2" Redfish
CCA had a great family even for kids Labor Day weekend. Carmen had a great day catching a couple of very nice redfish at the Flour Bluff fish hatchery. Thanks for sending in the pictures Manual!


Dave Alexander

9/17/2011

Recent Sail Boat Race over Labor Day Weekend

These are photo's of a recent sail boat race over Labor Day weekend that ended early due to heavy winds near Baffin Bay. Cesar White was at his cabin for a weekend of fishing and was kind enough to lend a hand rescuing several boat that had capsized. Manual Lara sent over pictures. The fishing was good, but not the sailing on this day.






Dave Alexander


8/20/2011

Weatherston's at the Land Cut

Conditions were terrific last Thursday for a fishing trip to the land cut. Not a cloud in the ski and a nice breeze to keep it cool. The winds were coming from the Southeast making the water current just right. Fishing was bound to be good. This trip I had the pleasure of going out with a great friend and his boy's.

Armed with live shrimp we cast our hooks in the water near the shoreline and Travis hooked up a nice 28 1/2 inch redfish. Very nice struggle as the redfish took Travis around the boat before finally landing this bull. He was just barely outside the slot so we released her help keep the estuary in good stock.
This was a new Texas JustGoFishin Trips Record.




Very interesting day as we caught several different kinds of species, redfish, speckled trout, sheepshead, and sand trout on the edible side. We also caught your usual hard head, skip jack, dog fish, and an occasional blue crab refusing to let go of bait. I wonder witch is the hard head? (catfish or crab). Anyway the fish we caught were all made in about 90 minutes as we ran out of bait. Sorry, my bad... rookie mistake. We would have easily caught much more on this day!


Just great fishing with an awesome family... from left to right in pic above: Joshua, David, Travis, and Bryan.

Dave Alexander

7/25/2011

Bouchard's at the Lant Cut

Guy and Amy Bouchard sent this photo in from a recent trip to the Land Cut. Using croaker from Clems Marina they were able to limit out on Speckled Trout.

Dave Alexander
http://tales.justgofishin.com

6/02/2011

VX-30 Bloodhounds Fishing Texas Land Cut

The VX-30 Bloodhounds came to Corpus Christi and squeezed in a fishing trip with JustGoFishin. Commander James P Borghardt, Jay Rodriguez and Shane Skopak were on a mission to observe and photograph the entry on the Space Shuttle Endeavour as it entered Earth's atmosphere for the last time on June 1st, 2011. The Bloodhounds landed in Corpus Christi after completing their mission and decided to JustGoFishin.

It was truly an honor to take these young men out fishing for a little R and R for all the great work they do in serving their country and protecting our freedom.  It was great to here there impressions of the how fast the space shuttle was moving as they manuvered into postion to observe Endeavour.


We got together at about 7:00am and headed south to the famous Texas Land Cut in hopes of a good day of fishin. We anchored up and placed some nice live shrimp from Clems Marina on our hooks to see how the day would start.
Jay Rodriguez, Dog Fish
Jay Rodriguez who had never before gone fishing caught this ugly dog fish right off the bat. Course it's usually a good sign that fish are biting. We hung in there for something more edible.
Jay Rodriguez, Speckled Trout
Jay found a nice speckled trout looking for a quick meal and landed his first "Keeper" speckled trout.

Jay Rodriguez, Pin Perch
No, Jay is not showing off the bait he was using. He actual snagged this "bait size" pin purch through the eye while thinking he had a big one! Way to go, smallest fish landed with a #2 hook!
Mark Skopak, Speckled Trout

Matt Skopak landed a nice speckled trout. Below he catches the only redfish of the day. turned out to be just short of a keeper. But the fight was fun.
Mark Skopak, Redfish

CDR James Borghardt had a great time pulling in some terrific speckled trout. I had no idea the "Borg" was on our vessel... you know... Resistance is futile, at least for these specks.
CDR James Borgherdt, Speckled Trout
JustGoFishin.com
What a terrific group of guy's working for Uncle Sam and taking a quick break to go fishin. The weather was great and just awesome to be outside catch-in a few fish.



Dave Alexander
http://tales.justgofishin.com

5/23/2011

Offshore Fishin Party with Port CC Cold Storage

Port Corpus Christi Cold Storage went on a nice offshore fishing expedition. They went out on the Scat Cat party boat at Fisherman's Warf. Taking the 10:00pm to 10:00am trip they were able to catch several Bline Snapper. They were very impressed by the deck hand service they received while fishing. This really made things simple for the novice angler. They were able to catch some of the larger red snapper but they were catch and release only.








Congratulations on a great day of fishin to: Catherine, Manuel, Joe, Diana, Irma, Steve, And Guy
Dave Alexander
dave@justgofishin.com
http://tales.justgofishin.com

5/19/2011

Just a "Little" Off Shore Fishing Trip!

Captain John Little joined some of his buddies for a "Little Offshore Fishing Trip". As you can see there is nothing little about these beauts! John's comments to us as he sent these pictures to JustGoFishin were. "Offshore fish are a helluva lot meaner than them bay fish!!"

Their fishin trip produced 4 Amber Jack, 1 Grouper, 3 Shark and a couple snapper = One heck of a fishin trip!









Dave Alexander
dave@justgofishin.com
http://tales.justgofishin.com