Girls Gone Wild! Caught on Tape! — February 19, 2007

After my trip last week with the youngsters and their personal best trout, I just didn’t think it could get any better. Arnold, with the new CASTNSHOOT Web. Magazine was scheduled to arrive Thursday for some on the water video sessions, so I invited my good friend Capt. Paul Marcaccio from Galveston to join us.

Friday morning dawned light winds and overcast, ICE CREAM CONDITIONS. Things can sure change quick. We had just dropped anchor and we lost our overcast and I felt the dreaded HIGH PRESSURE excuse coming on. After overcast weather the last few days I felt with the clearing skies and high pressure we were going to have a real problem shooting some good video. Well like I have said MANY TIMES “I’ll take luck over skill anytime” Shortly into our first wade the reds show up and Capt. Paul and I worked on them. But, we were not after reds but BIG TROUT! Well you can guess,  Capt. Paul pops a 26” trout and the trash talk starts.

The next hour we continue to video good trout and a sprinkling of reds, but NO BIGGG TROUT!!! Well sometimes the shot of a life time just happens. With Arnold shooting me fighting what was a BIG Trout he had Capt. Paul in between him and me. With me in the background fighting a good fish, you see Capt. Paul bow-up and then we all realize we both have big trout on side by side. Great footage was shot with Capt. Paul and I trying to keep our fish from tangling with each other! WE were that close to each other. As I land my fish I know it will go over 8# then Capt. Paul gets his and we both just have that DUMB GUIDE LOOK!!!! One fish went 9# even, the other tipped the boga at 9 ¼#. I have caught two large fish on the same wade BUT NEVER SIDE BY SIDE. Well all I can say is “I sure like it when that guide stuff works”. I must say this shot closed the show for us.

Back at the Lodge we reminisced about what had happened and just thank God we were able to get the opportunity to do a great shoot.

With Arnold leaving for another shoot, in walks my good friend ALLEN WARREN, he was there to do a show as well. With the high pressure of Friday, I just did not have much confidence we would get another show after the events of Friday, but BOY was I wrong.  With our good friends from 4 F Fishing club arriving Friday evening, we had some of the best anglers on the coast as subjects for Allen’s Show.

Sat. morning dawned overcast with the approach of another front due before noon. With light winds, we started our first wade with little action at first. Then it started, first we caught a number of good reds then the trout showed up. The action was non stop and I just waded from angler to angler taking pictures, hollering and weighing the bigger ones. Allen’s poor camera man was running back and forth along the line filming anglers as they caught fish after fish. The fish were staged tight in a small gut and my biggest problem was keeping the guys from wading thru them. I must say I now have a new nick name. “Coach” seems all my anglers said I kept HOLLERING “Don’t Move” Stay Put!! Well we must have done something right because both days we had Big Trout on our boat. 7 ¼# Sat. and 8 ½ # Sunday. Nice thing Allen’s camera man was on the ball and got these on film. We will post show times and dates for Allen’s Show and when Arnold posts Fridays show on CASTNSHOOT.COM we will let you know. We have added numerous pictures of the fish on our photo page.

Now for the real report. We found the trout staged in 2 to 3 feet of water in shallow guts. The key to these guts were not big drop offs but changes as small as 6” from the surrounding depths. We caught most of our fish on corkys, catch 2000 and small bomber jerk baits. These fish were tight and when you caught a good fish just stand there and grind. “DON’T MOVE” sounds like I’m trying to be a coach again. At one point I had 4 men in one spot for more than 1 ½ hours throwing and catching fish after fish. Don’t walk thru them! Another major key watch for mullet jumping. When you find them stay with it.

We are going to the Holder Show next week in Houston and I can assure you I would rather be home chasing the big girls!  If you get a change come see us, we will have a number of photos of our recent big girls.