My good buddy Martin and his family have been in town for Thanksgiving and one thing that he really wanted to do was go fishing. His brother John would join us as well as my neighbor Ozzie and his employee Javier. Weather conditions were predicted to be 90% chance of rain and thunderstorms for most of the day with 5-6 foot swells. For most, these might sound like terrible fishing conditions but for what we were after they were perfect. One thing I tell people often is that the nastiest, coldest and wettest days, the kind that you go back to sleep and say forget it, are some of the best bull red fishing days that you will have on the Texas gulf coast.

We departed in my truck at 6AM and after a few stops for some essentials we rolled onto the beach to meet up with Ozzie and Javier. Ozzie had already gotten stuck just after the beach entrance in his 2wheel drive Tacoma but after a quick pull out we were rocking north. Driving conditions were great since we hit it at low tide and were able to run the low road, smooth sailing. Just a few other people present on the beach but pretty empty for the most part. We made it down to a designated area that we had planned on and I started bombing out a variety of baits. Baits included whiting, croaker and large blue crabs. Large mullet were much more abundant than they have been recently and fresh bait is always a good thing. The morning started off slow but once it picked up it was fast and furious. I got to play the guide/camera man role again which is something I truly love to do. There is something awesome about helping people and putting them on big fish that they normally wouldn’t get the chance to catch. Javier had never caught a fish bigger than a whiting so he was on cloud nine landing several 40+ inch reds, even brought one home for his family to eat which he was happy about. The guys hammered the bull reds all day long until the evening with a few nice upper slot reds in the mix.

We packed up early evening right before sunset and made our way back off the beach. The tide had come way up and made the beach almost non existent. By some grace of God, Ozzie was able to make it off without another a pull out in his Tacoma. Very rarely will you see a 2wheel drive vehicle make it that far on Gorda.

Next week it looks like the surf is going to lay down pretty good and hopefully I will get to run some baits out. On to the next!

-TPOTTS

Great post, great pictures. Thank you for posting this up.

A bunch of really nice reds fellas! Beautiful.

Solid post and solid fish. Good job.

Beautiful fish pics

Brings back 40 year ago memories. Nicely done.

How bad is the sand to drive on? I have a 4x4 3/4 ton with aggressive tires. What worries me is that I will have a 3,000lb camper in the back of the truck. I have driven on the beaches at Port A without a problem but this looks a little more tricky. Advise please?

Thanks!

Pulling a camper down that beach is going to be tough. I have driven on just about every beach in Texas and Matagorda is about as bad as it gets, it can be nasty. I do see campers from time to time and usually within the first 5 mile stretch of beach. The entrance itself is deep soft sand and trucks are stuck there all the time, I would venture to guess last year alone I probably pulled out close to 50 vehicles out of that one area. Best time to do it would be after a big storm or really hard front that pushes the tide way up and makes the sand more compact. It can definitely be done but i'd be very very cautious.