Some Days You’re The Windshield and Some Days You’re The Bug!

Texas fly fishing report #flyfishing

Finally! You’ll know by listening that I’ve been the “bug” since last Wednesday night when I was hit by a virus windshield dead on at ninety-miles-an-hour. Three days later, I finally found the energy to load up my stuff from Houston and limp back to North Texas (Sunday morning). It was a disaster I had gone years avoiding, but those little nephews and niece just rubbed their germs all over me, and they stuck like cold snot on a shirt sleeve.

Lost in the ether of the coma was Black Friday, whatever happens Saturday; all kinds of fly fishing and information about the saltwater scene around the Galveston system. It was bound to happen some year, but I certainly wasn’t prepared to be completely shut down … which we can’t really prepare for anyway can we?

Feel free to watch the video. You’ll know I’m limping along, and of course we had to relocate the video indoors as our next season (there was no fall as usual) swept in hard and cold last night with a thirty-plus degree drop in temperatures, and a cutting wind. We’ll keep moving the video location until we find a spot as friendly as the Fly Bar is in good weather. I may just have to get a heater for the bar!

For those of you who don’t watch videos, or the Texas Fly Caster video channel, you can (pay to) read the summary of how the fly fishing is shaping up – for flounder during this season in Galveston. If you look back to past (posts) Black Fridays fly fishing for flounder in Galveston, IT IS the same story as in years past.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO haven’t fly fished for flounder … read on …

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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES AND TIMING FOR CATCHING TEXAS FLOUNDER ON FLY

• First, remember that TPWD has different regulations regarding flounder during this time of year. That is because they are so bountiful and easy to catch. These regulations are in place to protect the population, and increase the quantity and quality of flounder on the Texas Gulf Coast. These regulations work, and are statistically proven to be beneficial.
• Next, even if it’s the right time of year, the weather still has to have triggered the flounder with an initial cold snap. It has this year. It did not last year.
• Flounder are more active on moving tides.
• Fish where fishermen are for a guaranteed result. Keep your eyes on them – the colors they use and rate of their conventional retrieve.
• FLY SELECTION – Clouser in Pink/Pink  or Chartreuse/Pink size 2-6 Make sure the heads are coated with something like CCG to protect the threads over the barbells and the bucktail attached to hook. Otherwise you are looking at one fly per flounder as their teeth shatter the fly.
• LEADER SELECTION – Two piece fluorocarbon – 20/10 or 20/8
• HABITAT – I fly fish the places where conventional fishers are catching fish. If they are catching flounder, you will catch flounder.
• RETRIEVE – Let the fly sink to the bottom. Depth won’t be more than five feet, but that nine foot leader becomes more critical to success.
• SET – I have always had these fish set the hook themselves. That’s just how it turns out. If you like a long fight, hold your rod straight up. If you like an extremely short fight, put side pressure on them and reel in an extremely green and pissed flounder!
• ROD / LINE – Saltwater rods and saltwater lines are in order. I tried sinking lines years ago, and this area has enough flotsam-jetsam to get you hung up plenty. Anywhere from six to eight weight.
• LOOK – Flounder are probably the easiest “freaky fish” to catch on fly. Both eyes on one side, but look closely … which side did the eyes rotate to? There’s only one way up, so take a close look!

RIGHT NOW IN GALVESTON – By the time I left the Texas City Dike (an extremely interesting place), I was ready to just go check the old standby – Sea Wolf Park. Tides were slack, but I did stop and fish after I saw guys walking along the road with their two limits in net. They were coming out of the channel side, and that’s a place that is a little deeper and more exposed than I typically like to fish the run. So I walked in to the cove and fished there for maybe an hour, but also watched the other conventional anglers – nothing, not a single bent rod. I pulled out of the cove and walked across the street to watch the channel-side action, and … nothing. I would say that watching a good fifty conventional anglers work the water over a half-mile visibility can give you a good idea of what’s happening. And nothing was happening at all. The tide had calmed the feeding down, and the next tide move was many hours away. So even thought I didn’t catch any flounder last Wednesday, if you watch the tides and use this information – you can catch flounder during the fall flounder run in and around Galveston, Texas.

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