A Fun Day of Fishing Cedar Bayou, Texas

We have never been to Cedar Bayou, (it’s an opening to the Gulf of Mexico now closed by Hurricane Harvey), so when John asked if we wanted to go fishing there with his wife Nina, we jumped at the chance, ( I said yes without first asking Renita which is always a dangerous move on my part).

The next day found us heading to Cedar Bayou after we launched at Goose Island State Park. It’s a long run, much of it along the Aransas National Wildlife refuge. Normally one would see whooping cranes but they have not yet arrived and so we had to content ourselves with the occasional dolphin.

John expertly navigated the shallow waters and we reached the bay side mouth of the bayou after and eighteen-mile run. As we started up the bayou, we noticed lots of bait fish activity along the shores, marked by an occasional swirl of larger fish.

Setting down his gps guided trolling motor John set it to the anchor position, and we were soon fishing without any cumbersome anchor. Almost immediately Nina hooked and lost a nice fish before she hooked another one. She fought the fish to the boat, and it was a nice red fish! It was undersize red and so it went back into the water.

On the next cast she caught another, and we were all a little jealous even though we had barely started to fish. John’s turn was next, and he also caught an undersized red fish, and then it was Renita's turn when she set the hook on a keeper black drum. She made another cast and caught a larger black drum and the possibility of fresh fish for dinner seemed doable.

Meanwhile I had missed several bites and as the others kept catching fish, I wondered what my problem was. Finally I managed to catch the smallest red of the day and it was a wonder how the fish had managed to get the hook in its mouth, (we all  use circle hooks so the fish are easy to release as the hook is almost always in the corner of the fish’s mouth)

The bite slowed a little, but Renita continued to get bites and she even landed a gulf flounder. It was also undersized, and the picture is of the bottom side of the fish as the top sided is brown and spotted. John decided we should move up the bayou and after fishing an island, (where we caught a piggy perch, a hardhead catfish and a stingray we moved again.

In the new spot Nina lost a nice fish and I caught a keeper speckled trout! It was John’s turn next and his fish jumped out of the water several times before I was able to net it. It was a nice lady fish, also called the poor man’s tarpon, and it was his first lady fish so of course we had to take a picture.

We caught several sand trout and another small speckled trout before John decided to see how close he could get us to the mouth. As we fished we had been hearing the roar of the surf but when we neared the closed mouth we grounded in about a little over a foot of water, (the mouth is closed just past the junction with Vinson channel),. There were other fisherman wade fishing not too far away and so we used the trolling motor to retreat to deeper water.

Not being done fishing yet and we next headed to an area we call the three fingers. The water has been extremely high and so while we couldn’t see them, we did manage to find an edge to fish. All of us caught small reds, (John caught quite a few), before we decided to call it a day and head back to the dock.

It had been a great day of fishing new water and we had caught eight different species of fish, including three keepers. Thanks again John and Nina for taking us out and sharing your day! Clear skies.

Ps apparently the Cedar Bayous mouth will be reopened in 2020, as part of the recovery from Hurricane Harvey.