The day starts on Tuesday, August 16th, around 4:00 pm. Ryan and William are meeting me at my place so that we can head to Corpus Christi for two days of offshore kayak fishing. The first day we will fish PINS and the second day we will fish Bob Hall Pier (BHP) for the outing Yakety_Yak is holding. That report will be out soon. For now, let’s stick with the report for going down PINS. Once Ryan and William arrived, it only took us 30 minutes to get everything loaded on the trailer, in the bed of my truck, and inside of the truck. Once the truck was loaded, it was time to hit the road.

The first stop we made is to everyone’s favorite spot, Buc-ee’s. We had to hit the restroom, get something to eat, and get some ice. We didn’t eat anything heavy because we were going to get something more substantial once we hit Corpus. As far as the ice goes, we only bought a few bags to put in the cooler to cool the coolers down. This will help when we get to Corpus to buy the other multiple bags of ice we will need to keep cold during the next 24 hours.

Now we are back on the road and headed to Corpus Christi. Once we arrived there the construction sucked. It seemed that the construction has been going on forever. After making it through all that mess, away we went to get across the Causeway.

We stop for a quick bite to eat from Whataburger. Next on the list is to go to Stripes to get some squid and ice. Finally, we are headed to the second to the last leg of the trip to get to the beachline of PINS. Once on PINS, it’s a very long drive. For those of you that are thinking of going down PINS, there are some things you need to consider. First, be sure that you have a 4wd vehicle that works VERY WELL. Second, make sure you have the right equipment to get you out if you get stuck in the sand. Third, try and have someone run with you so that if either of you get stuck in the sand, the other can help get you out with their vehicle. Fourth, once you get on the PINS beachline, there is no cellular service. If you get stuck on PINS, you will have to find someone to get you out or get a ride back to the island where your phone will work again and call for additional help. Lastly, if you call a wrecker service to get you out of the sand, it’s going to cost you well over $1000 to get your vehicle out.

The last part of our trip is finally over. We arrived at our destination. Now it’s time to get the kayaks together. While doing this, a quick pic of the evening was in order.




All three of us spent some time getting things together. We took our time to make sure that we didn’t forget anything. It wasn’t like we had anything else planned so it only makes sense to take our time. It was starting to get late and I finally finished getting all my stuff ready on the kayak. I took a few minutes to sit and take in the moment while looking at the surf and sky.



My eyes started to get heavy and then I knew it was time to go to sleep. All three of us slept in the truck. William slept in the front passenger side while Ryan slept on the front driver side. I slept in the cab. It was hot outside so we kept the a/c on all night. My truck takes diesel and it has a 48-gallon tank so I wasn’t worried about running out of gas anytime soon. I also had half a tank of diesel in my auxiliary tank in addition to the practically full tank I had on my main tank. I wasn’t running out of gas anytime soon, lol.

The next morning comes and I get up around 4:30 am to get my day started. I’ve always been an early bird. Soon the other guys got up and we were all preparing for the upcoming day. I bring the two kayaks around to the ocean’s edge only to bring the truck around to get mine afterwards. This saved us on having to drag yaks to the edge of the surf on a low tide day.



Now we are all set up and about to launch.







We are launching and ready to get after it. Ryan and I make it through the surf; however, William wasn’t so lucky. William turtled and it costed him dearly. William lost a knife, some bank weights for snapper fishing, and most of his tackle in his tackle box (the tackle box doesn’t float, lol). The entire box went into the drink. William took things for what it’s worth, gathered his thoughts once he was back on shore, checked his yak for water, set the yak up again, and he finally made a second run through the surf. While William was dealing with his problems, Ryan had some problems of his own. Ryan’s rudder was messed up. The rudder screw that holds both side of the Hobie rudder together on the circular part was stripped. After we passed the surf zone, I leaned on my stomach over my kayak and on to the rear of Ryan’s kayak to work on his rudder. No matter what I did, this was not something I would not be able to figure out that would be able to be fixed on the water. Instead, Ryan was going to have to use his paddle as a rudder while using his mirage drive to propel himself forward. This is pretty much what Ryan did the entire day on the water with no problems. It was somewhat challenging with the current being as it was. Ryan rose to the challenge and did just fine.

Finally, I make it back to my seat and William is through the surf and back with us. The gang is all here so we head out to the honey hole.



Right before we all arrive to the spot that we were going to fish, we all deploy lines to start catching kings. William is almost immediately hooked up. After a short fight, William loses the fish. No worries as he ends up getting another run on the line pretty soon after the first miss. William is on fire but now he just needs to land the fish. While William is holding his own, I hear Ryan say on the radio that he has a “fish on.” I’m the only one that doesn’t have a fish on the line yet until………. Oh wait, FISH ON!! All three of us are now hooked up. Not even 15 seconds into my battle with the fish on my line, William finally has his first king fish on the yak. Shortly after Ryan has his first king on the yak. Finally, my king is on the yak and we all have one king in the bag each.

While the king bite was good, William was in the middle of bringing in a king fish. William had the king at the yak and began to start lifting it out of the water. When he was bringing the king out of the water, he over compensated by leaning a little too far in the opposite direction. As the fish came out of the water and up on the kayak, the fish kept going and the next thing you know, William took another dive in the ocean, lol. Needless to say, he let go of the fish so that he could grab the yak. That king will live to see another day. William got back in to the yak. By this time, William had lost a very good rod/reel and some other items. This was a costly trip for William. Despite losing as much stuff as William did, he collected himself and then kept on fishing with what he still had. At one point, William would hold some bait in his hand and would noodle for kings, lol (not really).

As you can guess based from what you just read, the fishing for kings was like that all morning long. The kings were out and we took advantage of it. After Ryan caught a few kings, he started to fish for snapper. By the time we caught two kings each, everyone was fishing for snapper. The interesting thing about this place is that the trigger fish were all over the place. I was running a 16 oz bank weight and no matter how fast my line made it to the bottom, the trigger fish would get my bait. The trigger fish made it very difficult to go after snapper. By lunch, Ryan caught the only keeper snapper. We all caught trigger fish but nothing of size that would be able to go into the fish bag.

Finally, it was time to start heading back so that we could get ready to head on over to Bob Hall Pier for the outing the next day. William made it back first. He went forward through the surf and made it with no problems. Ryan and I came in backwards with just a little bit of distance between us so that we didn’t have any conflicts running into each other while in the surf zone. Ryan and I went arrived on land with no problems. The surf was beautiful coming back in, just as predicted.

After all three of us made it back to shore, we decided to get some pics to remember the moment by. What a great day on the water amongst friends!





Ryan actually caught two snapper as you will see in this next pic, lol.



Now it was time to pack up all the gear and work our way back off of the PINS beach line. Ryan managed a great shot of my truck with his drone as I was doing a quick walk around of the truck before leaving.



I hope you guys enjoyed the report. My apologies on taking so long to get this posted but work kept me busy. I’ll try to get the BHP report up as asap. Until then, tight lines!!

Excellent report, thanks for sharing!

Really nice pictures too!

My pleasure!





Thanks

Incredible well written report!

Thanks!

Awesome post

fabulous

poor William

Thanks.




He was a trooper though. He bounced back both times and kept on fishing.

Great post! You’re a natural as a narrator. I hope to take on a btb trip at some point!

JR

Thanks, feel free to call anytime if you have questions. 832-588-7091