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Guys I've been working on this for several years now. So many of us have wanted something that would help them avoid reefs in West and Chocolate and give them the ability to fish reefs in those areas, as well, as give more options in Galveston Bay for deep reefs for catching trout and shallow reefs for catching redfish. Introducing REEF RECON Galveston 2018.
More Details, Coverage Area, Benefits, and FAQ's here:
REEF RECON for Lowrance or Simrad Chartplotters or a Garmin Handheld GPS
The Full Story:
When I first envisioned what could be done to support anglers in catching more speckled trout and redfish, I came up with an idea. This was before the videos, before the lure, and before what TroutSupport.com is today. The technology for the project was just starting to become available at the time but I didn’t have the funds to do it. That was in 2006; fast forward to today and here’s what I’ve done with the funds that you’ve so graciously entrusted me.
It has cost fuel, software, hardware, geographic information system education from my undergrad and graduate degrees, and a commitment to do what it takes to get it done and that meant a lot of TIME. Not just a couple hours after a weekend trip here or there. I mean it took months and months and months of on the water time behind the wheel idling around the bay. This meant not going fishing hardly at all. In fact… while everyone was killing it in East Bay Oyster reefs the last several years while the floods had Trinity and Upper Galveston Bay too fresh… I was side scanning oyster reefs day in and day out; most days of the last several summers I launched at daylight only to return to the ramp some 14 hours later at dusk. That’s how big my commitment was to you to get it done.
Let’s talk about the state of Galveston Bays Oyster Reefs. The drought of nearly 8 years allowed high salinity predators to come in and decimate a large portion of the reefs in the bay. Between Ike and the drought we lost nearly 85% of the reefs that existed before Ike. The oyster predators and disease during the high salinity period knocked out almost all live oyster from West Bay and even Lower Chocolate, 2/3rd of Jones, and 2/3rds of Bastrop Bay. In many areas only the high crests of the reefs are still there and then dropping down from there its' all hash and mud. (hash is the fine bits of shell left after the shells fall apart in high salinity). That said, you still don't want to hit the damned things LOL. There is still good hard substrate around north deer out to 5-6 feet. That's hard shell and that will collect spat. Confederate has a mix of solidified or calcified hash and some scattered hard shell for substrate. All of this will come back with spat and regrow good oyster. ALL of these areas were side scanned and I made a map for overlay onto Lowrance and Simrad Chartplotters. There is a file for Garmin Handhelds.
Then the rain started… 3 solid years of high rainfall amounts was at first welcomed because it killed off the oysters predators but it kept raining and raining. The upper bays were completely fresh all the way to Smith Point in Galveston and all of Chocolate was fresh as well for almost 3 years. While this helped the oysters in some areas, the upper bay’s oysters in Trinity Bay, Upper Galveston, and even some in Chocolate DIED due to fresh water. However, the substrate was still there and some areas began to recover with substrate collecting oyster spat during brief moderate salinity periods. Then came Harvey… the storm surge did not hit Galveston but the run-off from nearly 60inches of rain over a weeks time did more than make the bays fresh. The sediment laden runoff also pushed more sediment out of the rivers into the bays covering some large areas of reef in Trinity Bay. In Trinity Bay several hundred acres of oyster shell is now covered with 1-2 inches of mud. The good news is that the majority of well pad reefs did not get covered due to their relief from the bottom. I was forced to remove huge areas of reef from the mapped area and I updated the file to what it is today. There is still a lot of very good Oyster substrate left in the bays both West, Chocolate, Carancahua, Greens, Jones, Moses, and deep reefs as well. The deep reefs in west will need more time to recover but west is seasonal anyway and the better deep reefs are in East and Galveston.
Galveston Bay contains a huge amount of oyster substrate even after the drought and the floods, including both the natural and man made rock pile oyster substrate. Both are beginning to collect oyster spat where salinities are suitable. There is a ton of oyster outside the PVC pile areas and there are many man made reefs, the whereabouts of have been long forgotten and there are no buoys left to mark them. ALL these are in the REEF RECON Oyster Reef Overlay.
I present to you REEF RECON ™ - Galveston Bay 2018.
Go here to find out More if you have a Lowrance or Simrad Chartplotter or a Garmin Handheld GPS
All of Galveston Bays 2018 reefs are color coded whether they are
The File overlays your Lowrance or Simrad Chartplotter base map or third party map to give you the shape of the reef.
See the information and detail of the mapping here
Unfortunately Garmin does not currently support the technology we are using; we are going to work on a 'work around' but do not currently supply a file for Garmin Chartplottters.
More Details, Coverage Area, Benefits, and FAQ's here:
REEF RECON for Lowrance or Simrad Chartplotters or a Garmin Handheld GPS
The Full Story:
When I first envisioned what could be done to support anglers in catching more speckled trout and redfish, I came up with an idea. This was before the videos, before the lure, and before what TroutSupport.com is today. The technology for the project was just starting to become available at the time but I didn’t have the funds to do it. That was in 2006; fast forward to today and here’s what I’ve done with the funds that you’ve so graciously entrusted me.
It has cost fuel, software, hardware, geographic information system education from my undergrad and graduate degrees, and a commitment to do what it takes to get it done and that meant a lot of TIME. Not just a couple hours after a weekend trip here or there. I mean it took months and months and months of on the water time behind the wheel idling around the bay. This meant not going fishing hardly at all. In fact… while everyone was killing it in East Bay Oyster reefs the last several years while the floods had Trinity and Upper Galveston Bay too fresh… I was side scanning oyster reefs day in and day out; most days of the last several summers I launched at daylight only to return to the ramp some 14 hours later at dusk. That’s how big my commitment was to you to get it done.
Let’s talk about the state of Galveston Bays Oyster Reefs. The drought of nearly 8 years allowed high salinity predators to come in and decimate a large portion of the reefs in the bay. Between Ike and the drought we lost nearly 85% of the reefs that existed before Ike. The oyster predators and disease during the high salinity period knocked out almost all live oyster from West Bay and even Lower Chocolate, 2/3rd of Jones, and 2/3rds of Bastrop Bay. In many areas only the high crests of the reefs are still there and then dropping down from there its' all hash and mud. (hash is the fine bits of shell left after the shells fall apart in high salinity). That said, you still don't want to hit the damned things LOL. There is still good hard substrate around north deer out to 5-6 feet. That's hard shell and that will collect spat. Confederate has a mix of solidified or calcified hash and some scattered hard shell for substrate. All of this will come back with spat and regrow good oyster. ALL of these areas were side scanned and I made a map for overlay onto Lowrance and Simrad Chartplotters. There is a file for Garmin Handhelds.
Then the rain started… 3 solid years of high rainfall amounts was at first welcomed because it killed off the oysters predators but it kept raining and raining. The upper bays were completely fresh all the way to Smith Point in Galveston and all of Chocolate was fresh as well for almost 3 years. While this helped the oysters in some areas, the upper bay’s oysters in Trinity Bay, Upper Galveston, and even some in Chocolate DIED due to fresh water. However, the substrate was still there and some areas began to recover with substrate collecting oyster spat during brief moderate salinity periods. Then came Harvey… the storm surge did not hit Galveston but the run-off from nearly 60inches of rain over a weeks time did more than make the bays fresh. The sediment laden runoff also pushed more sediment out of the rivers into the bays covering some large areas of reef in Trinity Bay. In Trinity Bay several hundred acres of oyster shell is now covered with 1-2 inches of mud. The good news is that the majority of well pad reefs did not get covered due to their relief from the bottom. I was forced to remove huge areas of reef from the mapped area and I updated the file to what it is today. There is still a lot of very good Oyster substrate left in the bays both West, Chocolate, Carancahua, Greens, Jones, Moses, and deep reefs as well. The deep reefs in west will need more time to recover but west is seasonal anyway and the better deep reefs are in East and Galveston.
Galveston Bay contains a huge amount of oyster substrate even after the drought and the floods, including both the natural and man made rock pile oyster substrate. Both are beginning to collect oyster spat where salinities are suitable. There is a ton of oyster outside the PVC pile areas and there are many man made reefs, the whereabouts of have been long forgotten and there are no buoys left to mark them. ALL these are in the REEF RECON Oyster Reef Overlay.
I present to you REEF RECON ™ - Galveston Bay 2018.
Go here to find out More if you have a Lowrance or Simrad Chartplotter or a Garmin Handheld GPS
All of Galveston Bays 2018 reefs are color coded whether they are
- Shallow Dangerous Reefs
- Reefs that show at super low tides
- Deep Reefs (including all man made reefs, oyster leases, and natural reefs
- Dead reefs (degraded), or
- Scattered Reef
The File overlays your Lowrance or Simrad Chartplotter base map or third party map to give you the shape of the reef.
See the information and detail of the mapping here
Unfortunately Garmin does not currently support the technology we are using; we are going to work on a 'work around' but do not currently supply a file for Garmin Chartplottters.
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