Summer is Here!

Mike and Jason and I shoved the skiff away from the dock with a great deal of nervous anticipation Saturday morning. This was their first opportunity to fly fish the Lower Laguna Madre and the weather was acting very cooperative! If the previous late evening's fishing was any indication, we were in for a great morning of fishing. The night before we had quietly exited one of my favorite west side back water lagoons, leaving tailing reds behind,  just before sunset. This morning we had the skiff pointed toward a closer backwater lagoon that I only visit on windless mornings, when the water depth is just right. Only a few minutes after our arrival we realized what a good morning it was going to be. After poling a shallow algae line and pushing some very large and somewhat slow moving redfish, we got off the boat and just stood still with fly rod in hand. After a few minutes of getting ourselves situated, these large reds began moving up the algae line slowly, methodically...then "bam", they would slam bait and startle us in the process. Several hookups eventually resulted in this photo. Mike landed this 29.5 inch healthy red and spooked what we both agreed was an even bigger redfish in the process.

After a great morning we quietly exited this lagoon and made our way to the sand. We were, as I suspected, a little early but still found enough redfish to make our trip to the east side worth the boat ride. We had a great time wading the shallow clear water of the sand. The redfish on the sand have been so big in recent weeks!

Satisfied, we called it a day around noon and enjoyed a relaxing boat ride back to the lodge.

Hope you can make it down here soon! Summer's here!

Capt. Randy