Decker Win

I fished the club tournament at Decker today with Tommy Tomlin. We won it using topwater frogs and spinnerbaits. I had just over 20lbs, and Tommy had over 17. We caught alot of fish and almost all of them came on topwater. Fun morning! That's 3 wins in a row in the club tournaments... Choke Canyon is next!

Quick Falcon report

Dad, Keith & I hit Falcon for Labor Day weekend. It was dirty, low water, and windy. We didn't catch near the numbers that Falcon usually kicks out, but we did manage to boat some decent fish on saturday morning. Sunday was a disaster, as Keith lost his sunglasses, Dad dunked his iphone, and I broke the shaft on the trolling motor. At that point, I tucked my tail and headed home. I did mark some killer spots for next time, especially if the water comes up about 10'... Here's a shot of the biggest of the weekend, 8lbs caught on a chartreuse/blue  Bandit 250.

Catch of the Week!!

Rachel got Catch of the Week on www.southwestoutdoorsreport.com with her 35" snook!! She'll be on TV tonight and on Saturday morning on FSN!! Daddy gets a new pair of Costas!!

Summer Tournament Report

After a tough club tournament on Stillhouse in June, the July and August tournaments have gone well. On 7/21, David Gandaria and I won on Lake Georgetown, and this past weekend, Tom Martens and I won the 13hr overnight tournament on LBJ. We were hitting green lights upriver with spoons and crankbaits to catch our fish. The trick was running the crankbait very slowly... Our kicker fish was this one that went about 6.3lbs. It caught the crankbait in the gill and didn't survive, but it made a tasty fillet. This tournament extended my lead a bit in the AOY club standings, so I'm looking to close out the year strong... I have a few rods that have gone out recently without pics, but I should have some new rod shots soon.

Quick Ship Channel trip

That title is a tongue twister... Me & Keith hit the ship channel for a quick morning trip on 8/12. We only had about 3 hrs to fish, and went with minimum gear to try to find some snook. The snook were a little lockjawed, but we did have several followers and about 3 confirmed snook bites. Keith had a good one on for a few seconds... I caught this barracuda on the 2nd cast of the morning. Interesting catch for inshore...  Keith took the stick on the panga and was still sporting his tough new tat that Presley stuck on him. Hardcore pirate!

Big Texas Snook

Here's some shots of the snook we caught on July 4th in the Brownsville ship channel. We found these fish feeding over oyster beds, and caught them on Strike Pro Buster Jerks, Baby Busters, and white 3" Gulp shrimp. We rigged up with 40lb leader & I'm glad we did... Keith started off the action with a 29". From there, we went to the other side of the channel, and Keith caught his personal best 34". Right after that, Rachel and I had a sweet double hookup. Hers was 35" and mine was 33". I had mine on a custom Castaway BB2 flipping stick with 65lb braid, and Rachel had hers on a custom ATC 3 piece travel bay rod with 12lb mono! LaVida caught the only keeper of the morning with her 27". We all caught our personal best snook!

South Padre Freediving

On saturday, Keith, Lilly & I headed out towards blue water in the Panga. We got a bit of a late start, so we went 35 miles out straight to a rig that they have been in the process of disassembling. When Keith was out there a week ago, it was laid over on its side and there were fish all over it. We ran for over an hour and a half to get to it, and when we got there, we realized that they had finished taking it out. Apparently, there is a new deal that any non-producing platforms in the Gulf have to be removed. They're taking out every single platform within range of SPI... they were working on the 17 mile rig, and Little Sara (the 10 mile rig) is coming out next week. Pretty sad.

Anyway, after running all that way, we decided to go to the Liberty ships. We ran over there, and when we got there, the water was too green to do any good diving.  From there, we went to the 17 mile rig and dove there for about 45 minutes until we got run off by a crane barge coming to take apart the rig. Keith shot one snapper off that rig, and the current was ripping. From there, we went to Little Sara and traded off with Keith's big Ulusub gun and the camera. He shot another snapper, and I skewered a barracuda. There were lots of cuda and snapper, but most of the snapper were 50+ feet down. All in all, it was a fun trip, but we ran a long way for not very many fillets. Here's some pics & video...

Here's the shot on the cuda:

Here's Keith trying to ruin my camera by taking it down around 50ft deep!