Kayaking Across St Charles Bay, 2014

The tide was out and so we had to launch from an oyster bar. It was ok at first but then we lost any depth and I almost got stuck in the mud. Moving out ahead, Roy seemed to be doing better as he must have found a deeper path to the boat channel.

The wind was blowing from the east forcing us to paddle it head on, but the kayaks made the paddling possible and as we made our way across St Charles Bay the waves got smaller and the kayaking easier. Reaching the main boat pass we pulled ashore and then cast our shrimp into a nice outgoing tide.

However the number of boats seemed endless and about every five minutes another passed through the cut and over our lines. I mentioned to Roy another place off the Black Jack Pennisula and so we kayaked to an area that contained quite a few sandy patches, surrounded by darker vegetation.

It looked like a good spot and so we anchored and fished the spots, leap froging each other. The water was cold, which is a pretty good excuse and we never had a single pickup. I rowed back to the south side of the pass and actually had a bite! It turned out to be my first sting ray from a yak and so I cut the line, rather then trying to remove the deep set hook in a small open yak.

Another bite but now I was onto a fish that fought like, and was, a hard head catfish. It’s a species that is one of the least desirable fish of the Gulf Coast. I did have more bites but they were too small to get hooked up on my five ought circle hook.

There was still another good spot to fish but it only produced an under size black drum. The tide then changed and our lines became slimmed with a fine green algae. It was a real mess trying to remove it and so we moved back into the bay and gave it one last cast.

We never did catch any keepers but that’s ok as the fishing can be good even without the catching. At the very least Roy had paddled across St Charles Bay and fished some of the spots he had read about in our blog. The kayaks had again  worked better then the canoe and so I will probably sell it when we get back to our place in Star Valley. Clear skies