While it is true that many of my beach adventures are conducted solo, October was undoubtedly the month of fishing with friends. Some of them being newly found friendships and others from the days long ago. Growing up, I was always told find your passion and then surround yourself with like minded people. That can often be difficult in a sport where you are constantly being eaten alive by insects, complete exhaustion for sometimes days on end from lack of sleep and all while battling anything and everything that Mother Nature can throw your way. It’s what we live for and I am sure that my brothers on the sand would certainly agree.

October presented us with many days with outstanding conditions. One day having the clearest water conditions that I have personally seen since I first started venturing to Matagorda in 2009. It looked like I had taken a wrong turn and ended up somewhere in the Caribbean. Being able to walk out to neck deep water and see your feet is a huge rarity on that section of coastline. Bait fish were easy to come by on most days. Whiting, croaker and lady fish were good on pink and orange Fishbites. Regarding the croaker, many were huge and perfect eating size. Redfish were great for the majority of the month on cut whiting and croaker chunks. Once the water gets a bit colder we should start to see the massive redfish being caught more in greater numbers. Fish in the 45”+ range with really thick bodies. Blacktips and bull sharks are still present as our group caught a couple this past Saturday, however, I don’t expect them to stick around much longer. Once that water gets cold enough they will high tail it out of here and move off to seek out warmer water. The sandbar sharks have no doubt made their appearance with several being caught all up and down the beach this past weekend. Our group was able to land two, both respectable sharks at 6’10 and 6’9. If sandbars are in the area they will hardly pass up a whole big whiting, chunks of cownose ray and sheepshead. All three make great fall and winter time baits for this awesome colder water and quite ferocious shark species. Donnie and his dad reported 3 as I was heading off the beach while Matt and crew reported a few of their own as well on the Sargent side. A great sign to see them being caught in such great numbers already. Remember to always practice catch and release on them as they are a federally protected species.

The friendships forged by salty air, campfires and a common shared sense of adventure are more often times than not, the best ones. It was great to see everybody throughout the month and outstanding job to all my buds for knocking out their personal best sandbar sharks. If we get some great weather windows the onslaught of fish catching will continue into November and should be pretty awesome to say the least. Pack those waders, cold water is on its way!

See y’all out there

-TPOTTS

Solid post and solid fish. Thanks for sharing.

wow!