Posted By Kris/ In Castaway Lodge Hunting Fishing / Monday, September 7, 2009

Scuba Steve Does The Breast Stroke

From wadefishing artificial lures to Redfishing to airboat Redfishing, it seems we’ve covered it all lately with great success. The Lodge welcomed guests from all over the State for the big weekend. Josie and Don F. came in for some badly needed R&R along with a group of New Braunsfels Rockin’ R alums for a bachelor party. Rob M was the guest of honor and he was joined by a fraternity of guests that all worked at the Rockin’ R River Rafting facility in New Braunsfels while attending college. Working the river meant a lot to the guys as they worked through school. “It was an awesome job, the best 6.5 years of my life” Drew explained. “We met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun. We were there through the floods and even helped rebuild the place after it was devastated”. With one of the “Band of Brothers” getting married, it was a special occasion.

Wendi fired up the Orange Tree Smokehouse and welcomed everyone to our best smoked Texas Bar-B-Que including Pork Ribs, Chicken, and Sausage with her legendary baked beans and potato salad. I don't think anyone had seen down home cooking like that in a very long time!

Don & Josie are “catastrophe adjusters” and they had been working seven days a week, 10 hours a day still dealing with Katrina/Rita along with Ike claims and every day “hail and windstorm” issues all over the nation. They had a great time tackling Redfish in San Antonio Bay and managed full limits on Day 1.

Airboat Redfishing

We elected to bust the airboat out for a memorable back country Redfish safari on Day 2. We worked the farthest reaches of the Matagorda Island back marsh on our new Air Ranger 20x8. I ran a trip there a couple of weeks ago and felt like it was setting up well. I was disappointed to find very few fish in the back country despite an elevated tide and good conditions. I literally saw 3 fish all day and I’m pretty sure we caught two of the three I saw and that’s covering a lot of area. We came in just short of limits but I can tell you it was slow. Size ranged from just inside the slot to a bruising 27” fish. What that means is “the best of the back country fishing is in front of us” and it is really looking healthy and fishable.

“Rockin’ R Alums” meet “Team Castaway Lodge”

The Rockin’ R alums put together three boats and Rob M wanted to have one of the boats exclusively throwing artificial lures wading. Capt. Steve Boldt did a pre-scout for the occasion and dialed in a solid game plan. Switching from hardcore bait fishing to swinging plastic can be tough. Fortunately, the pre-scout, the locations, the water, the weather and everything Steve dialed in held up. Two of the boats focused on Redfish with Capt. James Cunningham and Capt. Jake Huddleston at the helm. “We don’t want to get too far from the ice chest” was the battle cry and that was no problem. The Capt’s “Double J” managed to keep everyone coherent and bowed-up on Redfish pushing the upper end of the slot the entire outing and managed full limits. Coming off the Redfish and working Trout proved to be a little slower for the bait boats, however.

Scuba Steve Does The Breast Stroke

I was busting across the bay the other day and I noticed a boat had power poled down on an area reef and the angler had left the boat and was wade fishing. I thought “I wonder if he has an anchor out also”? In my mind, I was thinking if a boat throws a wake at the boat I bet the power pole could come dislodged off the shell taper and start drifting into the bay. The only thing that would prevent this would be to also drop an anchor. It was just a thought. . .

Steve’s game plan involved hitting an SAB reef at break light to take advantage of some Trout he had located. He eased in and dropped his Majek’s power pole on the shell and got the guests lined up on an immediate Trout bite. A boat came by and you guessed it. The power pole became dislodged and Steve started watching his Majek drifting out to sea. He immediately dropped his gear with a guest and started swimming. One of the advantages of a commercial diving background, he can swim. Now catching up with a fully adrift Majek 25’ Redfish Line is another story. Sure enough, over a quarter mile distance he caught up with it and got things under control. The moral to that story is "when in doubt, put the anchor out". If that wasn’t entertaining enough, the guests managed to catch half limits of Trout with no throwbacks before turning their attention to Redfish.

After a quick breather, Steve zoomed in on a Redfish bite and the action on fish just under the slot to well inside the slot was hot and heavy. Throwing 6” Jerk Shad Gulp’s in a variety of colors on 1/8oz Brown Tru-Loc’s was the ticket.

“Big Week”

From fishing to Alligator Hunting (season opens on the 10th) to Teal Hunting, the Castaway Lodge team is at “full throttle” this week.

“Come home to Castaway Lodge”

Capt. Kris Kelley
Castaway Lodge, Inc.
109 W. Austin
Seadrift, TX 77983
1-888-618-4868 Office
361-785-4487 Fax
361-648-3474 Cell

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