Okay, I have not been fishing for every long and we have only had our boat for a month...and I hear all these people talking about the 1st, 2nd, 3rd cut, and the community bar. I asked my husband what/where these cuts were and all he said was, out in the gulf (which is oh so helpful). Can anyone give me an idea (I am not asking for a location of a fishing spot or anything..promise) I just want to be able to understand what the heck people are talking about. Thanks guys!

guts are the big dips in between the sandbars. community bar, i've never heard of myself. i fish the uppercoast (galveston, bolivar, sabine) 99.9% of the time. that might be something referring to the continental shelf and where it drops off into the "deep" side of the Gulf. you can find the cuts from any beach...just walk/swim from sandbar to sandbar. Gig 'em!

Stand on the beach facing the gulf and walk into the water. You will find yourself getting slightly deeper. That is the first cut. Keep walking east and you will find yourself geeting shallower. That is the first sandbar. Repeat prcess for 2nd cut and 2nd sandbar and again for the third.

Out past the 2nd bar is where you become part of the food chain, i.e. bigger critters with bigger teeth. But chances are still astronimical of having a problem, your far more likely to drown because you cant keep your head up, which is still a good reason to stay in a bit closer. Good news is that if your using artificials, the 2nd gut is a good place to cast into.

By the way, anyone know how far out the 3rd bar tends to be?

depending on the tide you need to be carefull on the second gut cuz in the evenings when the tide comes in it gets deep fast and when that happens u can fish the first gut

First cut is knee deep
second cut is waist deep
third cut, depending on the tide is over my head or to the shoulders
I am 6' tall

3rd bar is a ways out...depending on what part of the coast your on and where the tide is shifts it around too. plus the hurricanes last summer moved the sandbars. i would guess prolly about 50-60 yards out though

Mullet Mike,

You can observe the bars yourself by going to Google Maps. Just select different area along the coast, then zoom in. Click the satelite mood on the map. Unless the water was rough when the photo was taken you can see the bars.

Check out any area you will be going to visit. You can get a good lay of the land.

Good luck.

Wayne

We always call 'em guts. Cuts are the breaks in the sandbars that fish use to move from one gut to the other. One second thought, we never really refer to the gut much. It't usually something like "I was standing on the second bar when...." Be careful though, remember the bars move and the tide comes up. I've waded out to the third bar to fish before and had to swim back to the second cause the tide came up. Also, use long stringers and keep an eye on your truck, you will move down the beach as you wade.

Thanks for all the help guys. I also had the hardest time thinking that the cuts would be out in the gulf because people always say that they went out bay fishing and caught XX fish in the third cut. It took me forver for it to sink in that the bays are considered the waters in between the mainland and the barrier island as well as the gulf ~5 miles out.

Now your talking cuts in the bank. As in the third "entrance" to the bay from, say the Intercoastal Canal. So if I told you we put in at Linda's and fished around the third cut, that would be leaving Linda's Baitcamp, heading down the ICW and taking the third entrance into East Matagorda.
Thus the diff. in CUT and GUT

Texas Texas Yeeee Haw!!!
2005 Baseball and FOOTBALL Champs.

Quit saying cut. You are thinking of guts.
Cuts are what splits a sandbar in half. They are caused by surf piling up on the beach and looking for the least path of resistance and they tend to funnel back out through the cuts in the first bars...if you actually find a cut stay out of it or you may be swept out faster than you would think. THESE ARE RIPTIDES CAUSED BY THE CUTS...DANGER.

Speaking of the depths of the guts. Yes each one gets progressivly deeper. I have noticed that every year that goes by without a major direct hit from a tropical storm the guts get deeper and farther apart.
A direct hit by a storm will almost knock all the bars flat and the wade to the 3rd gut is a walk in the park. Rita and Katrina was not a hard enoughe hit for us to flatten our bars but if we get one this year, go out after the storm and wade out for yourself and remember I told you so.