Lockjaw

  When several of my friends and family found out that Jack and I were making a last-minute run down to the Laguna Madre, I think most of them questioned our sanity. However, when the forecast shows a wind prediction of less than 5mph, you do what you have to do. The storm after all was still a day and a half from making landfall, so I was not concerned in the least about our safety.

  The short version of this story is that we had at least 20-30 shots at fish....some of them in the 40" + class. But for some reason, they were just not in the mood to eat. Cast after cast, fly after fly...nothing. These fish had lockjaw plain and simple. I feel certain it had everything to do with the approaching storm, so in a way, it was not surprising. However, I have seen redfish get this way over the years when there isn't a hurricane to be found anywhere on planet Earth. The most extreme of which happened to me on Thanksgiving day in 1998. A good friend and I were making a drift through Shamrock Cove in Corpus Christi Bay. It was a beautiful sunny but cool morning when we just happened upon a school of Redfish that numbered easily in the hundreds. It was truly an unbelievable sight. We cast and cast every different lure and fly we could think of, and the only thing we managed to bring to hand was one speckled Trout. I think the third time we drifted through that school we didn't even fish...we just wanted to witness one more time what a half an acre of Redfish in less than 2 feet of gin-clear water looks like. It was an unbelievable experience.

  Although we didn't see those kinds of numbers yesterday, it was still a beautiful day to be on the water. On the 37-mile boat ride back, the very outer cloud bands of Hurricane Beryl began to materialize over the Gulf Of Mexico. Jack and I decided that it was a good time for an early dinner that consisted of some stellar enchiladas, and then make the 3-hour drive back to the Hill Country. As I sit and write this it appears that the track of Beryl has continually shifted slightly north and is slated to make landfall DIRECTLY over my spiritual home of Powderhorn Lake. Thankfully it is likely to make landfall as a category one, and those full-time residents down there should be well prepared for a storm of this relatively low intensity.

I have include a couple of videos below, one of which shows the outer cloud band of Hurricane Beryl approaching Padre Island, and the other shows what a school of 30lb Redfish looks like when thay are NOT interested in eating a fly!

Hope you all are having a great week,

Andy