Everything is Bigger in Texas?!? - Maybe not the Micros!

[Johnsfolly]

Last Week I was back down in Texas for a business conference in Houston. I added a couple of days to the trip to get back out for new fish species that I was not able to fish or catch on my last trip back in Nov. I had planned for some freshwater and saltwater fishing. The first afternoon found me trying to find fishable access to the White Oak Bayou. I headed to Woodland park just north of downtown Houston. The creek banks in most spots had 4 to 10 ft drops down to the water. Most of the walking trail looked like this between the trail and the water ...

I did find three access points, but still needed some mountain goat footing to fish the bank in the one access point. Fortunately the banks were sand which provided some grip. My targets were grass carp and spotted gar. Long story short, I saw both but they stayed out of casting range or on the down stream side of deadfalls that I could not get below and cast back upstream. I did have one gar that was tight up under some brush upstream of me. I made a cast and hung in the brush and a small sunfish grabbed the cutbait. That got me unhung and the gar came out and chased the sunfish. It ignored the cutbait and didn't respond to any of my other casts. I tried chumming for the carp using bread and strawberry dough baits. I just ended up feeding the turtles. I even landed one🙄. I saw a decent mirror pearl colored koi but it dissappeared quickly. I did catch a couple of sunfish and a Texas cichlid, all on bait. I did see a bunch of established exotic finches, scaly breasted munias.

Bluegill

Plains longear

TX Cichlid

The next morning had me running an hour down to Galveston Island. I felt certain that the small inlet to the East End Lagoon off of the shipping channel would be my best shot at catching some lifers. I had been in contact with one of the Houston area INAT folks for the past year and they have caught at least four species from that area that would be lifers for me. I typically don't like blind casting for micros, but on my first cast into the current I landed the first of my targets, a flagfin mojarra!

I caught several of these guys. I also fished the schools of minnows looking for longnose and/or diamond killifish. I caught a bunch of the longnose killies, another lifer😉.

I didn't find or have any luck on diamond killies. I tied on a larger hook and tossed out my shrimp. I would get bit as soon as I came tight. Nearly all of those fish were pinfish. I did land a small gray snapper and a cool looking pigfish.

Redfish and gulf/southern flounder were also targets for this trip. That afternoon I headed to Sea Wolf Park to try for any of those species. The fish report board at the park had folks catching croakers, sand weakfish, ladyfish and kingfish. I still hadn't caught a ladyfish or a gulf kingfish. I fished a variety of baits and setups, high low rigs with shrimp or fishbites, fish finding rigs with cutbaits or tadem jig rigs with gulp minnows or swimming mullets. I caught a lot of croakers on the high low rigs with shrimp and the fishbites. I did land a couple of lifer ladyfish and a bunch of sand weakfish (aka sand trout),

Even a southern kingfish - but not a Gulf king😒.

Photos of the park.

After dark I headed back to East end lagoon to do some night fishing. I was hoping to find some small flounder species or another target - the darter goby. Even with my brightest light setting I could only see about 12 to 16 inches deep and my red light setting was not useful at all. I saw a bunch of mullets that spooked at every opportunity. I saw more longnose killifish that refused to bite my shrimp. I also found what I thought must be the darter gobies and they also did not bite. I only caught one frillfin goby.

Saturday was either going to be another saltwater or freshwater trip. Since I saw the possible darter gobies and still wanted to try and catch a redfish or gulf kingfish, I went back down to the Gulf to fish. I should have predicted that the beaches would be crowded since it was a decent Saturday. The first couple of spots were too crowded for me to feel comfortable fishing. Lost me a lot of fishing time. I ended up in Galveston Island State Park. There was a decent sized lagoon with a couple of folks already fishing. I started by microfishing a small outlet channel. Only bites were crabs. I saw two of the other folks catch puppy redfish on shrimp in the lagoon. I put on a tandem jig rig and fished 1.5 inch Gulp minnows and 1 inch pearl swimming mullets. I would get bites on each cast. No hook ups and often the tails would be bitten off the baits. Switched up to a high low rig with smaller hooks and caught a couple of pinfish, the likely culprits biting off the tails. I switched back to the tandem jig rig with a 3 inch chartruese swimming mullet and the pearl mullet bait. I got a decent bite that wasn't fighting like a pinfish. The body shape was right for a redfish, but instead it was a croaker😒.

With the diamond killifish and the possible darter goby targets I headed back to the East End lagoon. The diamond killifish has a shorter body length like a sheepshead minnow but with a deeper body. I had on my tanago hook with shrimp and casted out to a school of fish that did not look like longnose killies. Turns out they were more flagfin mojarras. I caught a bunch before moving on. Close to where I saw them the night before I found about 6 or so gobies that could be the darter goby. They were only about 1.5 to 2 inches in length. They were agressive but since they were so small it was hard to get a hook set. I did lift one and finally got the largest one into the photo bag! Turned out to be the darter goby and the fourth lifer of my trip (would be my last as well).

I had a great trip. I suspect that I will be back in TX in the near future and hope to get back after those targets that I didn't catch and maybe a few others as well.

[FishnDave]

Buncha stuff!  You had to be happy with this trip!  

[Johnsfolly]

11 minutes ago, FishnDave said:

Buncha stuff!  You had to be happy with this trip!  

I was hoping to get three or four lifers and achieved that number. I also wanted to have a chance to catch a grassie or gar on one of your jigs. Never really had that chance but don't regret going back down to Galveston for the darter gobies. 

[BilletHead]

           Good trip report and more for your list! 

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

Fun times.    Great write up.   Lots of opportunities there and you seemed to get your money's worth.