Before the cold front, fishing was “blind man’s bluff” as we went from traditional sight fishing and being able to locate fish visually to “guessing where they were”. There was so much water piled up in the bay, a solid Spring Tide. 

 

Fast moving Black Drum pushed all the way to the sand dunes on Matagorda Island according to Capt. Kris Kelley working the area by airboat and the Redfish were right there with them.  Black Drum are much different than Redfish when it comes to shallow water comfort. As tides and water levels rise, Black Drum will shoot up into areas traditionally too shallow for them. Redfish will be ever present and pretty much stick regardless of tide fluctuations. However, Black Drum will leave the area entirely when they sense a slight water level decrease. 

 

Fishing Blind

 

I stuck close to fish that we had been working over. Forget about seeing any signs of them, the water was pushed up and overcast conditions weren’t helping anything. I talked to Kris early and he said he was fishing blind working traditional haunts on high water and had only seen a couple of “signs of fish” in several miles of marsh. Scattered was the “word”. We dumped about a foot of water with the cold front that came through late Friday afternoon and have yet to regain much of it. 

 

Come home when you can. . .

 

Capt. Steve Boldt