Flat conditions, very little breeze, low 80s temps. My buddy Jason and I pushed off from the beach in his two Tarpon 160s a little after 6:30 Saturday morning. According to Jase’s GPS we stayed between 6 and 9 miles offshore all day, hitting various oil rigs, reefs shown on the Hot Spot map, as well as a fork lift pallet found floating out there. Two highlights of the day were Jase hooking a shark that gave him a heck of a ride before dropping the hook, and me catching a dolphin under said fork lift pallet. Since it was a little chicken dolphin, maybe 2 feet long, I let it go, but flashing beautiful colors in the near crystal clear water. Jase managed to hook another, but as we were using it to lure in others, it let go of the hook and was gone, didn’t get any more bites from dolfin for the rest of the day. I also caught 4 or 5 spadefish, of which I kept 2, 3 keeper porgies, 2 keeper lane snapper, 2 crevalle jacks, both of which I released, and 6 spanish mackerel, 2 of which I kept and smoked yesterday. Jase had a similar creel, except he kept a jack, insisting it was a pompano. We landed back on the beach a little after 4, sore, tired, and happy.
Nice story
That’s some real-deal paddling there. I’d love to join in on some of that some time, but expect I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Surely not with my 10’ and 9’ river kayaks.
- Big D
It’s pretty intense
not just physically, mentally as well. You’re out on the open ocean, and from your seated position, the horizon is only about two miles away. Since Galveston Island is very flat and low, once you’ve paddled out to the distances we were fishing, you can’t see land.
I’ve done about 5 of these kinds of trips now (I don’t do them very often because you have to pick your days, very late summer is really the only time you get those mill pond conditions that suit kayak fishing that far out) and I still am not used to the very naked exposed feeling of being out in the middle of seemingly limitless water in a tiny little boat. then when you hook a big fish, like a shark, especially, you really feel vulnerable.
I expect.
VHF radio, GPS, a locator beacon, and perhaps a SPOT would be minimal safety gear I’d think for such an excursion, even when carefully picking days.
- Big D
I couldn’t watch “Open Water” w/o
it freaking me out a little. I suspect I’d have a tough time w/ losing sight of land, safety gear or not.
YoS