Hunting for Reds in October
Four FATC guys – Charlie Trankler, Jim Craig, Glenn Hake & Rick Doerr decided to knock the rust off their saltwater rods last week by chasing redfish (reds) in Port Aransas Tx(Port A). Charlie lives outside Austin, Tx, and has done this trip multiple times, so he set it up for the other three that flew into Corpus Christi. After picking them up we drove 45 minutes to the coast to our AirBNB. It was a spacious 3 story house in the heart of Port A. It was walkable to most restaurants for dinner and less than a 5-minute drive to the marina where we met our guides each morning. After a nice dinner we settled in for our first day of fishing the next morning. We rose early to meet our guides at 7:30 after breakfast. Our lead guide was Ken Jones and runs Kenjoe Fly Fishing in Port A. Our other guide was Travis Glidden. He was picked by Kenjoe.
We fished out of 22-foot skiffs provided by the guides who also provided all the flies we used and additional leader and tippet material. Each of our daily trips were booked for 8 hours of fishing. We had an extra foot or so of tide which made the fishing a little trickier than normal but with a little coaching from the guides we caught some nice reds and a few black drum.
Rick got the most fish on day one. One thing we talked about back at our house is how the reds seem to stay on once they are hooked and put up a good fight for our 8 wt. rods. We had dinner that night at a local Mexican restaurant and then enjoyed a cocktail on our top deck patio of our rental.
Day 2 we all switched partners and captains as well. We rode north up the coast for about an hour to try to find some shallower water and give the sun a chance to come out. It is very helpful to have a bright sun when you are sight-fishing reds. We ran into a few schools and landed some reds, but it seems that today was Jim’s day to out fish us for the most caught. The high tide was still with us, but the captains did a good job of putting us on fish. We enjoyed a good dinner that evening at the Blue Water Cowboy just down the street from where we stayed.
Our final day came, and we decided to keep a few fish for our dinner. As we came to the marina, a shrimp trawler was selling fresh live shrimp from the docks which we took advantage of for our dinner as well. Charlie had brought all the fixings for a blackened redfish dinner that we all enjoyed that evening. The next morning, we headed to the airport to drop Jim and Glenn off, and Rick rented a car to drive to San Antonio and Charlie drove home. The trip was a success, but the high tide probably limited the fish sighting a bit. When fishing in the ocean the weather will always throw you a curve or two and you learn to adjust to mother nature.
