bayou vista/tiki

[grown in Tx]

We put in @ louis bait camp about 8 p and went over to tiki to start there. Not allot of lights on so we didn't stay long. I found that outside of the no wake zone pylons around tiki the water is only a couple feet deep which was ok until I hit something that popped the motor up out of the water, That startled me but the scary part was coming back across Jones bay after dark. I beached the boat twice in ankle deep water in the middle of Jones bay over 100 yards away from the little islands or whatever we call them. SOOO glad I was going slow and being cautious. I found that my boat wants to float in 8 inches lol. Me and buddy had to get out and push the boat into deeper water both times. I really thought I was screwed. So after all that we made back into bayou Vista (whew I was never so happy to see train tracks). We fished marlin lane I think it was, plenty of finger mullet and pods of little minnows in the lights, we saw a couple of small trout that wasn't hungry apparently. We were off the water around 2 am with no fish but lessons learned so I guess it wasn't a complete failure. I am getting impressed with my old boat more every time I take her out. A buddy of mine beached his bay stealth a few years back in the same depth of water and we couldn't push it off, we had to call another friend to pull us out.

[H.Maier]

Back in the mid 80's when I lived in Santa Fe, I would usually launch at the DC but on occasions would go to Louis'. No chart plotters or depth finders to help with navigation but I had no problems fishing Jones bay. I think it was last year I made a trip out of Louis' and ran aground leaving Highland bayou. You're a brave soul.

[Root Canal]

Do you have a GPS on your boat?
Sure makes things easier. Especially at night.
Another thing that helps me at night is to use an adapter to
plug my Smart phone into the boat battery. This keeps your battery in the cell from running down.
Use the Satellite View and you can see
were you are.
It's very easy to misjudge distances and get turned around at night.
And YES...go slow at night.

[grown in Tx]

I have the gps on my depth finder, I thought I knew how to use the tracker on it but obviously not. I have a galaxy s5 phone but I've really messed with the gps on it. I have thought about using my garmen gps out of the truck because I've got a few years experience using that one. I'm not sure about brave, I feel kinda silly about the whole thing. But I did look at Google earth and a couple fishing maps for a while before we went so I knew that was a possibility. Running across in the daylight I was able follow the crab traps and navigate Between the pvc pipes on plane with no issues but once the sun went down with scattered clouds it was very dark even with a spotlight so slow and cautious was the only way to go

[Gilbert]

just get those light bars and light up the whole night