Today I had one of the best fishing experiences I have ever had and I have had a few.

I got a call last night from my brother in-law Matt. He invited me to go fishing with him down in East Matagorda Bay. I knew that it was 1.5 to 2 hours away and with the weather reports showing a 70% chance of rain and a morning temperature of 48 degrees I was about to turn down the invite. Then Matt says to me something like 'what would you rather do sleep late and drink coffe all morning or go fishing?' I thought about it for a few seconds and realized that I have not fished enough this year so what the hell, I'm in.

I woke up at 3 AM, got my fishing gear loaded in the truck, got my big plastic mug that holds a half of a pot of coffee filled up and by 3:30 AM I was on my way to Matts. I arrived about 4:00 while Matt was still loading up and a short time later we were on the road.

We made record time and were in the water a little after 6:00. By 6:30 the sun was just coming up and we could see a little better Matt broke out the binoculars and started looking for some birds working. I was a little worried at first that we wouldn't find any good groups of birds but about 30 or 40 minutes later we could see groups of birds up and down the near shoreline. We headed over and started catching speckled trout right away. I think we had out trout limit by 9:30 or so and were hoping to get into some reds.

Where the trout were closer to shore under low flying groups of birds we found the reds out in the middle of the bay under loose groups of high flying birds. Around 11:30 Matt had his and I was one red short of my limit so we decided to head in.

Before we trailered the boat Matt took a detour up Caney Creek to show me the house he rented recently, his new lot he just bought and to stop by a little store on the water for a celibration beverage. After a little sight seeing we trailered the boat and headed for the house.

The return trip took us considerably longer with the additional traffic and the lines at the beltway 8 full service toll boths were long. About a mile before the Clay road exit Matt looks in the rear view mirror and gives a whoa! I looked out the side view mirror to see a huge plume of white smoke coming off of the boat trailer tire. Matt pulled over as far as he could and we got out to check the tire. When I walked back I could hear it hissing air and there was a spot on the top of the fender that looked very hot. I found that the fender was hot enough to sizzle spit. What apparently happened is that the fender was loose for some time and recently Matt had his boat guy tighten it up with some new bolts. Well the bolts came loose and let the fender ride on top of the tire. Meanwhile, the loose bolts were coming out of the hole wearing a groove in the middle of the tire where the tread used to be.

Matt had to search his new truck since he wasn't sure where his jack as located and in a few minutes we had the boat jacked up and were ready to take the tire off. The only problem was that the lug wrench was the wrong size. Lucky for us it was close enough to loosen all but one of the lugs. Somehow one of the lug nuts is a different much smaller size that will not work with the lug wrench. I know I don't have anything in my fish bag to remove a lug nut so Matt starts searching his truck and I'll be damned if he didn't come up with a small cresent wrench. After a few tense moment with Matt literally standing on the wrench the lug broke free. We looked at the fender and tried tightening the loose bolts without any luck. Then we tried loosening the bolts so we could remove the fender again with no luck. Finally Matt and I figured out that some bungie cords would hold the fender off of the spare tire. We got the spare tire on and just as I was tightening the last lug nut the Beltway police guy shows up to assist us. Figures.

With the lugs tightened I lowered the jack only to see the spare going flat. When the jack was all the way down the tire was about half flat or half full of you're the glass half full type. Anyway, the cop says there is a gas station at the next exit and said he would follow us over. We pull into the station to find some old guy checking and airing up all of his tires and really taking his time. That is when Matt notices that he can't roll the power windows up or down. Since we were waiting for the old guy anyway we popped the hood and checked the fuse box thinking that a fuse must have blown. After 10 minutes of looking we could not find a fuse label for the windows and decided to give up since now the old man is pulling away. Matt filled the tire with air and restarted the truck and the windows were now magically working. We hit the road and were back at Matt's house about 20 minutes later.

After a few pictures at Matt's house I headed home with a cooler full of fish and a hankering for beer and a cigar. Once home I enjoyed a beverage while thinking about all the fish I am about to fillet and started thinking about Karma. Cause and Effect. I know that the good of catching all of those fish will be followed by the bad of having to clean them but I can do without the other mishaps.

Oh, did I mention that on the drive home my transmission started really slipping. Man what I won't endure for a good day of fishing.

Click here for a map of the area where we fished (opens in a new window)

Click here to see my cooler full of fish (opens in a new window)

Click here to see my Redfish 1 (opens in a new window)

Click here to see my Redfish 2(opens in a new window)

Click here to see my Trout 1(opens in a new window)

Click here to see my Trout 2(opens in a new window)

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