Month: January 2019

Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a great holiday break and we’d like to wish you Happy 2019!  Ralph and I were able to get out fishing 4 or 5 times over the break and man, was that nice.  At the end of the year, the water was still in the lower 50’s and we found some typical schools of redfish that were an absolute blast.  This time of year can be epic fishing when you find the fish.  We found the 14-17 inch redfish that seem to be everywhere in all creeks right now, but also a bunch of 27+ inch fish.  I even got my personal best inshore redfish…34.25″.   As I have said before in past posts, make sure you give a red 1 or 2 seconds to eat this time of year before setting the hook.  

Great winter large trout bite! If you haven’t tried the Z-Man 4″ Scented Jerk ShadZ yet, they have been super effective for us.

I don’t know about you but the cold weather in late November / early December had me very concerned about another trout kill.  But, we had this nice warming trend in early January and this has brought the water temps up to near 60F at the end of the first week of January.  I think its safe to say the trout will be just fine this year.  Traditionally our water temps reach their lowest by the 2nd week of January – per the last 10 years or so of trends.  Whew!  You know, timing is everything…

Solid and healthy late Winter trout

So anyway, the coolest thing about this warming trend is that it brought on a great big trout bite, but also a topwater bite.  In January.  Crazy stuff.  My first fish of 2019 was actually a topwater trout.  I had three fish on top and one was a true gator.  I lost it just as I was about to net it. I was solo fishing and, well I fumbled and bumbled my way toward landing that fish but unfortunately I had it by the lip and not a solid part of the mouth.

First of 2019 – Topwater Trout! The Rapala SkitterV is a great plug that has become my go-to.

As I write, we have had another cold snap and maybe the topwater fun is over for now.  Oh well!

In other news:

  • We are very close to officially launching a new product – we will have announcements on all our media when we are ready. 
  • We have set up a space for hosting seminars and clubs at our shop.  We hope to host several during the year.  We are kicking it off by hosting the Summerville Saltwater Anglers fishing club on Wed, January 16. 
  • Z-Man has picked up our TexasEye product for their product line for this year.  This is really exciting and we can’t wait to see how it is received when distributed to a wider audience.

See you on the water!