Where to fish?

[rfishing]

We will be coming out of Jamica Beach. Forecast calls for west wind all weekend. Any suggestions with a west wind? We have not fish this area before. Thank you.

[TTU Wader]

Winds will be light so anywhere is fair game. North shoreline seems to always be productive in about 2 to 3 feet of water.

[Robalo]

I hope ya got a map! Watch out for the dredging operations east and west of Jamaica Beach. Watch out for Shell Island and Caranchua Reef (both west and north respectively). As far as where to go, that's tough to say and is wind dependent. San Luis Pass Area (8-10 miles west) is good flats, but heck to run if ya don't know the area-ya can be in 3-5' of water and then 6", so I'd be very careful about that area for a newbie. Try some south shoreline coves that are protected. Not knowing what you're running or using for bait (lures or live) makes a little dif also. Get on Google Earth, scroll around some and look for coves. Watch for rays if wading and watch for those dang jetski idjits-they tend to run all over and don't give a hoot about others.

Check out the map page here also.

It just depends on what you want to target and how ya fish. Shell Island can be good-it is an island that on a good high tide is a few inches underwater-seen quite a few boats run aground hard on it, but is a oyster reef/shell and sand and wading/anchoring is OK there, but DO NOT intrude on others-one fella here fishes it often and another here came in on him and screwed up his fishing, so he did a few circles around the other guys and waved but I think only 1 finger worked! Watch out if trying to go into intracoastal-lots of spoil/shallow plus some rip rap in places. I'd get a map, study it hard and maybe follow some other similar type boat (ya don't wanna follow a 16' trans cat with a 20' deep v-I think ya know why) and stay about 1/4 mile behind them. Sea Isle has the West End Marina and they have bait and gas-only gas in West Bay other than Harborwalk near Tiki. Watch for J.B. PD-they enforce the NO WAKE zone in canals-forward speed only, not 5 mph, maybe 3 mph and they have boats and like touristas. GW also-make sure ya got all the stuff ya spota have-about 2 months ago I towed in a family at dark-they had a 8 yo and 10 yo-no vests and USCG Helo was gonna lift em and leave their boat-they had a 3# mushroom anchor and when I asked why their azzend was into waves and where's anchor, they proudly help up that anchor and it wouldn't have held a jetski mushless a 18' bowrider and they were almost sunk and drifting deeper.

Please be careful, study a map (like a Hotspot map) and the Map Page here and be safe and watch out for idiots that aint watching where they're going or what they doing-just like driving in Alief!!

I have a 20' Skeeter baypro-red/white w/150 yammie-if ya see me wave and yell "Robalo" and I'll try and show ya some spots-too hard to splain here. If ya see a 18' Flatscat anchored-stay away-he's fishing and he'll run circles around ya (Ha Ha Kenny).

[Oleander Kayaker]

Excellent summary. This is a good post to sticky somewhere.

[kenny]

Is there a regulation somewhere that says you have to have an anchor?

[Fisher_Of_Men]

Thanks Robalo,

RFishing and I will be hangin' with my brother who has rented a house in Jamaica Beach. I did pickup a HotSpot (Post Ike) from Academy today. We will be in a Carolina Skiff 258DLV with a 150 Suzuki on the back. I am somewhat familiar with Caranchua Reef, and the path back to the causeway, I am unfamiliar with the path to SLP. We just like to fish so not lookin' for the personal honey holes. We like to fish the shell with live bait, so we will probably concentrate on that to start. The house we are staying at has lights underwater at the dock so we will definitely try that too.
If we see your boat we will definitely shout out. The address of the house we are staying is 16706 Kingston Way.

Thanks again...

[imhammer]

Sleep during the day while everyone else is on the water and fish the lights at night. You can troll the channels and find lots of fish in there at times.

[Robalo]

Hey FoM:

I think you're close to me. Shell Island is a good place to soak a few shrimpies-on SW side of it is where I do that-piggies work well there also. If ya wanna go to Sea isle, turn left at end of channel at END of Houses, not out in bay at end of channel in bay, look for the point of land south of Shell Island and make a straight shot towards the right of that point-stay about 150 yards north of that point of grass (has a piling by it), then Shell Island is on your immediate right-you should be in 3-5' of water there are no more obstructions in the bay to west except close to San Luis and the sunken shrimp boat near the west end of West bay which is on your hot spot map.

I attached a Google Earth pic with path marked out to try and help you get safely to Sea isle-please be careful and watch your depthfinder, watch out for the dredge, geotubes and Shell island and Snake island (Snake is by Sea Isle).

Good fishing to you.

Kenny:

Nope anchor aint required but should be!!

[Fisher_Of_Men]

Thanks Robalo,

Excellent info.. I have been studying the map and I believe we can do this. I'm always very careful when in a new area. We hope to catch some fish but we also enjoy just being on the water...

Thanks again...

[Robalo]

Hope to see yall-my GF just had major neck surgery, so likely am very limited on time on the water. Good luck!!

[plugger]

Robalo spent some time and effort to give you some good information. tip of the hat to ya, Robalo !

[Fisher_Of_Men]

Robalo,

Thanks for all the good info. It was great meeting and chatting with you. On Sunday we made the trip to the canal spot with the pier. We anchored just outside by the pier and started to fish. While fishing, this big blue boat with three outboards pull out and stopped right in front of us, then he just nailed the throttles and kicked up about a four foot wake. We were done then. I guess he didn't like us fishing there. We made the trip towards the pass and found the markers leading into Cold Pass. I took it kinda slow and while trailing the poles I spied a spot with tons of bait on my sonar. There is one pole that sits in about eleven feet of water. We anchored and dropped the big rods with cut croaker. We had two hookups. RFishing had the first hookup, which snapped his 80lb braid like sewing thread. I had the second hookup which nearly spooled my huge Okuma Convector 55L with a 20-50lb rod, before the line just snapped. I have caught 5' sharks, 100+lb Stingrays, big jacks, nothing like this. We have no idea what we got into to other then our reels were out matched. The runs were so hard and fast there was just no turning these fish. We are just guessing maybe BIG sharks.. We called it quits about 2pm. Water in the bay was still crappy..
Thanks again for all the info.

[imhammer]

Thanks for the report. Glad you had some fun!

[Robalo]

That was BS on that 35' Proline. He was jerking ya. They have a $200k boat they leave in the water, trip 300 Verados and they putt out in front of Jamaica Beach and swim-they also have 2 other boats, so I guess they have more money than sense!!