Running Up The Padre - Laguna Madre Fly Fishers: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

After getting over the fact I had finally made the Port Mansfield Cut, and the fact the water was perfect but completely void of gamefish, I decided to get back to the largest visible group about five-hundred yards back down the beach.

It was difficult to know if the truck carrying the food would be staying there or I would have to chase it one direction or the other, but by the time I reached them I knew that was the summit for that group, and there was plenty of food left. Note – I think the guys at LMFFA would benefit greatly with some kind of radio communication for this event. It would serve as a good safety measure, and to keep the group a bit tighter.

As we ate and fished, occasionally some of the “contestants” would drift southward looking for tarpon signs. Shane sighted one, but it was too far offshore and too random to really drop the sandwich and pick up the ten weight. The handwriting was on the wall.

We turned around and started the journey back. It was going to be a bit more interesting as the tide was taking away the hard sand little by little. The sun had moved further west, and with the benefit of modern polarized sunglasses, it was like being on the submarine at Disneyland.

With only a breeze gusting to ten, the bait looked to be flying through green air. There simply weren’t any dark shadows chasing, and only occasional hints of blowups. Also visible was this brownish algae-looking substance that came in patches that completely masked the aquarium from time-to-time. There is a science and ecology to this fishing every bit as critical as a caddis hatch in the Rockies. I have thrown this observation out to some of the fellow runners, but from other news reports, I am gathering it may be a brown tide.

Nevertheless, the water was mostly stunning, and unlike anything I remembered, with resonant colors ranging from simple sand to jade green and shallow blues. Sand bars, all of them visible, were meandering strips of brown that occasionally broke down allowing currents to funnel bait close to shore and sweep it away just easily. Christo should never see this because he would find a way to wrap it in something.

We stopped, and started, and stuttered and stared at the water – looking for signs of struggle between predator and prey. I finally caught a glimpse of a shadow chasing parallel to the shore. It was shaped like a football, twice as big and moving like a cruise missile. I was out of my depth when it came to identifying unusual saltwater fish on the move, and it didn’t matter anyway because it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. We fished of course, but the action moved away as quickly as it came. I found out later the mysterious shape was a Bontio. What I would have given to get a hook on a Bonito or one of the larger jacks that occasionally pushed a wake along a small wave.

Finally, on one stop, everything came together. The bait was in close and silver flashes revealed something larger at work. They were in the first cut, and so close to shore that they were made virtually invisible by the sand being churned in six inch waves. Keep in mind, I still had nothing that fell into the category of fish porn.

Shane tied into one of the flashes, and the bend of the rod told me I could relax. He landed a very respectable speckled trout, and I landed the article in the Lone Star Outdoor News. Porn sells.

As we approached the end of the sandy sojourn, the newly crowded beaches made the driving more about avoiding humans, cars and sinking trucks, and less about watching the water for signs. The road didn’t go on forever, and this journey was at the end.

Post Script
Of course, thanks to my Grandma, soon to turn 90, for letting me wander along the beach for twelve hours of my visit ostensibly to see her.
Many thanks to the friendly group at Laguna Madre Fly Fishers Association. They welcomed me as if I were a charter member, and some of these friendships are bound to go on. David McDonald, who I met in person in the summer of 2008 was instrumental in providing the spark that lit the fire of this journey. Jim Palumbo, current president of LMFFA, and Shane Wilson, past president, were especially helpful, and as is so often the case, one story leads to another. Shane spearheads a non profit venture called Fishing’s Future, a non-profit organization, that will obviously make TFC if all the stars of scheduling and travel align properly.

Having missed a photograph of a speckled trout of epic proportions, I suddenly was stricken by the realization that I had to capture some good fish porn to help sell the story.

Maybe it was the large volume of coffee, but my heart started beating just a bit quicker. I decided the remedy would obviously be to fish a bit, maybe catch my own trout, or at least see if fishing would do anything to calm the synapses.

I lined my TFO Clouser eight weight with a floating line, since there were virtually no waves and the maximum depth was no more than four feet no matter which cut I fished. I put on a medium weight hand tied mono leader and a simple green over green Clouser. By the second cast, the Clouser was being nipped at by schools of small ladyfish and one finally got the taste of a number two Mustad Circle hook in the corner of it’s jaw. On a rod flex like the eight weight TFO Clouser, the fourteen inch ladyfish bent the rod only to about the third guide, jumping like crazy in every unpredictable direction … from a distance I can imagine I looked like a Mexican vaquero twirling a rope with a waist high loop.

I caught a couple more ladyfish and a hand full of hand sized jack crevalle small in size, but typically large in fight. I could see the crowd growing impatient, and before I knew it everyone was loading up to head up the beach again.

By now the disjointed snake of a convoy had segments that were slithering out of sight of each other, so that there was no communication, and no way of knowing who was into fish and who was still on the move. The sun was up and a typical breeze started onshore.

The herky-jerky progression found me behind a couple of trucks, Toyotas of course, that had a good set of eyes leading the way along the beach and squirming soft sand. Although anyone could see the baitfish, by the thousands and in sum, millions, what Shane Wilson was not seeing were predators chasing the baitfish clouds. So we kept moving.

My excitement was building at the thought of actually seeing the Port Mansfield Cut, a place I had wanted to go since childhood, but never been invited along by my uncle. I had played along these beaches and dunes in raucous high school four-wheel-drive forays. Gas was about 89-cents, I still had to pitch in for it, and we usually had to switch tanks on my friend’s Ford – never getting close to the Cut. For the record, there were many, many less miles of pavement back then.

We stopped a couple more times, but with the sun beginning to reveal every detail beneath the water, it was becoming more apparent; there was bait, but there weren’t fish – a distinction with a difference. Of course we wet a few lines just to double check our instincts, and were again chased by lady fish and jacks.

Moving again, I could see the distinct curvature of a jetties reaching out into the Gulf at a distance. I really had no idea what to expect, and having only the South Padre Jetties to go by, these rocks were a fraction of the distance in length.

We stopped short, where Shane had the good grace to donate some choice knowledge. While I was looking at the buzz of fishermen along the jetties and along the rocks back into the pass, Shane pointed out a circuit tarpon take, one pointed out to him by Larry Haines, of The Fly Shop in Port Isabel. It made perfect sense, and some of the tournament “contestants” were obviously poised for action in their boats off the stunted tip of the jetties, knowing the same thing.

Much of the crew gathered where we were, with a couple of folks at the jetties. I just had to actually summit South Padre, so after a bit more fishing I went to the jetties. They were so short, I didn’t even bother to walk out and instead cast into the pass from the granite boulders. Bait was everywhere, and sparkling in the mid day sun. There was plenty of bait, but again, no obvious predators.

My jetties bouldering was kind of a spontaneous thing, so I hadn’t taken the time to boot up and was on a slippery slope. A few more casts, and I was done … climbing up from water level and another boulder, too slippery and a full body slap delivered by a tons-heavy piece of granite – face forward. Pissed at myself for being so dumb, I managed to recover quickly with nothing but a couple of barnacle scratches.

David had been at the jetties awhile before I arrived, but neither he, nor his passenger who had walked back to the bayside, had found fish. So I dropped back to the crew and had some lunch, and fished some more. The wind was approaching normal and clouds were building to the south.

While I was fishing I managed a humorous catch of what would otherwise been another, now slightly annoying, ladyfish. This one was about the same size as all the others, and it managed to, while dangling from a nine foot rod and a short length of line, jump directly away (imagine twelve-o’clock), jump immediately at three-o’clock, at nine and again at twelve. I should have seen this coming, but then it jumped to six, which at our water depth, put him on target for my … a direct hit, and the wind was momentarily knocked out of me.

Tomorrow – The Long and Winding Beach