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Galveston Ship Channel - 9/30/12
Today I targeted flounder and mangrove snapper in the Galveston Ship Channel. Was hoping that the winds would eventually turn and be out of a more northerly direction, but it stayed a brutal northwest all day. So, I took my time and didn't get on the water until 10:00 AM. I kayaked along the north shoreline of the ship channel and tried to locate somewhat protected waters around bulkheads and concrete mooring dolphins.
Decided to cast net a couple dozen finger mullet since I would be fishing for mangrove snapper. Kept my fishing setup simple using just a carolina rig, with 1/4 oz bullet weight, 40 lb mono leader, and #8 size VMC treble hooks. Anchored up in about 10 feet of water next to structure and just bottom fished the bait vertically. The first drop resulted in a 13" mangrove snapper which I kept. Thought it was going to be good action, but the next few snapper I caught were smaller than my liking, so they were released. A few big ones took my bait into some structure and hung me up on a few occasions and it started to aggravate me, LOL. So, I switched tactics and targeted some flatties.
Paddled over to a swallow area (~2 feet) with kind of a trashy bottom in some spots (i.e. car tires, old pilings, etc) and anchored up. Switched over to the red and white H&H curly tail grubs tipped with fresh dead finger mullet and jigged the area. Kept hopping the bait over bottom structure and occasionally got snagged, but that's were the fish were. Had to let the fish hold onto and swallow the bait for a while since the tipped finger mullet were decent sized ones. Ended up with a limit of flounder in about 30 minutes.
Hopefully next weekend will be sunny, as it seems that is when I catch the most quantity and quality inshore mangrove snapper.
Decided to cast net a couple dozen finger mullet since I would be fishing for mangrove snapper. Kept my fishing setup simple using just a carolina rig, with 1/4 oz bullet weight, 40 lb mono leader, and #8 size VMC treble hooks. Anchored up in about 10 feet of water next to structure and just bottom fished the bait vertically. The first drop resulted in a 13" mangrove snapper which I kept. Thought it was going to be good action, but the next few snapper I caught were smaller than my liking, so they were released. A few big ones took my bait into some structure and hung me up on a few occasions and it started to aggravate me, LOL. So, I switched tactics and targeted some flatties.
Paddled over to a swallow area (~2 feet) with kind of a trashy bottom in some spots (i.e. car tires, old pilings, etc) and anchored up. Switched over to the red and white H&H curly tail grubs tipped with fresh dead finger mullet and jigged the area. Kept hopping the bait over bottom structure and occasionally got snagged, but that's were the fish were. Had to let the fish hold onto and swallow the bait for a while since the tipped finger mullet were decent sized ones. Ended up with a limit of flounder in about 30 minutes.
Hopefully next weekend will be sunny, as it seems that is when I catch the most quantity and quality inshore mangrove snapper.
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