Galveston fishing expedition and report with friends Jeff Craft and Mix Williams. What started out as a last minute trip turned into two of the most fun days of fishing I've ever had. I've been watching the sea forecast the last week or two and this past week was looking as good as it gets for flat seas, so I called a couple buddies up and we blazed a trail South. We only had time to fish Tuesday and Wednesday. Everybody had to be back for work Thursday, so I knew we were running wind sprints for our fishing time. Our first stop was nine pm Monday night in Galveston to pick up some not so fresh bait to red fish with in the morning. Turns out my lead for fresh caught bait had all good intentions but didn't know the bait catcher was going to be sick all week. We settled for some frozen shad and small shrimp. I'm thinking we need to find another bait shop, but I just ate a deep fried buffet on a plate appetizer, I notice it's dark and the Hampton Inn is minutes away. Our bait suddenly seems fine. Fast forward to 5am Tuesday morning. Alarm goes off, eggs and coffee go in, ill skip the next part, a five minute drive and now we are paying $20 to Galveston Yacht Basin to launch. Lets Go Fishing Boys! Off to the jetties, ten minutes dodging tanker boats the size of the little town I live in we hit the cut and boogie to the first spot. Nothing there. Call a buddy and get some good numbers where he caught them days ago, make a move. There's a fleet of boats there but we pull in anyway about fifty yards back. Lines out, we wait watching every other boat in front of us staring around just like us. Nobody is getting any business. We make excuses for about fifteen minutes. You know......tide is ripping out, wind is all wrong, somebody put a banana in the boat..... who cares it's still fun anyway.... About then clickers start singing and rods are going down, ITS ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!!!! Jeff Craft lands the first bull red about twenty pounds. Mix grabs a rod and finds a hard head. Crafts rod goes down again and he is on the phone, said get it I think it's small.....nope another twenty pounder. About the time mines in, Mix Williams hooks up with a giant. We are hooting and hollering, taking pictures all the while the others boats are letting out anchor rope and are now right next to us. Didn't matter, we kept on catching them until it became comical, I maybe even felt a little bad about it, but the heck with those guys, they should had some rotton shad like us. After everybody caught several each, we could tell the seas were calming down. Time to head out to the rigs! Quick check of the radar and bouy report, green light and we hit the gas. On the way we caught a shrimp boat. Mix will have to tell that story, but it's a good one twelve miles farther offshore we hit the first rig. Drop some two ounce slabs to the bottom and start the bass rod rodeo. Spanish and King Mackerel mostly with blue fish, snapper, mingo, and lady fish thrown in here and there. We made a big horseshoe around the gulf running rig to rig, finally pulling up to one with a crew up top. We heard some yelling from up above, it was crewmen telling us some big Cobia were just off our starboard. We all chunk. Triple hook up. Mine makes a bee line right for the rig, my line sawed through three or four rig legs until I cut it fearing the rig would fall over. Well not really, but the line was separated somehow between the fish and myself. Craft pulls in our first keeper Cobia of the trip. He gets the picture, Mix gets the throwback, and I get to tie on another bait. Almost five pm close to twenty miles out, we head in. Mix spots the shrimp boat he caught earlier and wants to get his picture taken with it. We nose hook about a two pound blue runne and drop it in behind us as we slowly approach the boat pulling gear. Boom, Shark On! Strips a good hundred feet of line off the reel in about five seconds. Everybody takes a piece of the reel on this guy. Forty five minutes later, we pull about a six foot black tip along side the boat. Somehow we get the hook out and save our $8 steel sharkrig. Nobody grabs him for a picture, we all make it in with ten fingers each. Make it back to the ramp after dark and clean a few fish. Tired and hungry, we make our way to Salsa's on the seawall. Two words - Bacon Shrimp. Trust.me on this one, don't even open the menu. Upon leaving we happen to notice a little tackle store in the same parking lot. Academy....... I bet we need something! Half a hundred later we finally head for the motel. Day two starts mostly the same. Alarm goes off, breakfast, coffee, ice up, pay twenty stinking dollars just to launch the boat and we are headed through the jetties as the sun rises. Seas are flat and we aren't fishing for reds today. We are going long. Well, as long as a 24' boat can go in the gulf anyway. About five or six miles out we see a shrimper pulling nets. Bird tornado behind, dolphins everywhere. We drop a couple baits on my penn reels and begin to approach. The shrimper stops and we have a little break, wondering if we should leave, but finally begins to move and it happened. ZINGGGGGGGG, Shark on! We whooped this one in pretty quick, cut the line and headed to rigs. The rig fishing was even better. Caught a limit of big kings, some other fish and pretty much caught fish after fish all day. The last rig had a pile of cobia. A school of maybe fifteen or more. Mix puts out a free lined blue runner and waits. They leave... We get on some other good fish and suddenly the cobia are back. Mix is on another fish so I grab the roof with the live bait and pitch to the biggest cobia in the bunch. He moves. Another pitch right on his nose and he makes my bait disappear, but doesn't get the hook. I move the bait a few feet and hes got it again. This time I connect! We crank the boat and drag the fish away from the rig with the big motor. That's when we had a battle of wills, me and that fish. He almost won. I was as tired of pulling on him as I am of typing right now when we got him up. Mix his him with the gaff and the rest became a Kodak Moment. A real team effort, high gives all around. Worn out knowing we are thirty miles offshore and have fish to clean, followed by a five hour drive home, we head in. Make a stop on some private numbers given to me on the way back in and catch a few more fish by the green boy just to rub it in, but make 40mph the whole ride to the marina. We take a few more pictures, get even dirtier cleaning our catch, change clothes and drive North. Buc-ee's was about the most excitement we had on the way home, but it was short lived and over priced. I got home almost midnight. Spent about six hours cleaning the salt and slime off the boat today. That's the price you pay to play. I'm exhausted. But I'd leave in the morning to go back if I could!

Great report there, I enjoyed it very much.

Spanish mac meat is gooood! Nice haul!!

Sounds like a Blast!

Super post with some super fish. Thanks for sharing.

Longest report EVER! but best read salt report EVER!

Nice Fish Matt !

Fun hanging with you guys out there !!

Great write up ! Love me some Salt Water Fishin !

Pot licking Shrimp boats..... Now that's Fun !

... Weather was perfect !

Great post and great fish!

What a fantastic trip and a great report! Thanks Matt! Can't wait to do it again!

Great to see yall out there again Whiskey Bob! That was an amazing hook-up yall had behind the shrimp boat. Never seen a fish that big blow up out of the water like that!