First time out

[Hoosier Daddy]

My son and I tried our hand at wade fishing today. I think we had un-usually good luck for a couple of first timers.

Bigs thanks to everyone here for the warm welcome, and special thanks to Jason at Gulf Coast Waders who went above and beyond to ensure we got our new waders yesterday. I don't have anything to compare them to, but they worked great and seemed to be of much better quality and comfort for the money compared to what I saw at Academy.

[Ibtsoom]

WTG!! That's an awesome result for the first time!!

[SUPER SPOOK]

nice fish you have there! glad yall had fun.

[9121SS]

Nice! Congrats

[Jhua]

Very nice!

[buoy37]

Damn nice red you landed there.

Welcome to the forum you "show off".

Tell us about the battle.

[jocues]

That's a great first report, nice fish!

[reelshallow]

Great catch

[reeltime]

Good job those are the waders i'm gonna get!The 5ply ones.

[Curmudgeon]

Way to go!! So glad you had fun & got some fish. Perhaps I'll get better waders next time..

[gsb]

gREAT LOOKING FISH! congrats on a good day

[Hoosier Daddy]

Damn nice red you landed there.

Welcome to the forum you "show off".

Tell us about the battle.

My son couldn't wait to try his waders out and was going to go to Galveston alone, which worried his mom. So I 'had' to take the day off work and tag along. We started at West Beach behind Woody's bar about 9 AM fishing with dead shrimp, as suggested by the guy at the bait shop ('water's still pretty cold for wading', but we're from Indiana and we know what cold is) We caught a steady supply of whiting, which was fine with us as we just wanted to catch something for supper. About 11 the action had died off and a former Ohio Buckeye walking by told us about a spot down the road. We drove to San Luis Pass and waded off into the gulf side. It became apparent very quickly that we didn't have the gear necessary to fish that location. We had 8.5' rods with rigs for dead shrimp, a cooler with drinks and 2 pounds of dead shrimp (still in the car), and literally nothing else. We we waded back to shore and drove over to the gulf side. Within a minute each caught a whiting. Then on my second cast...

When I set the hook I thought it was just another whiting, but as soon as I did my reel went crazy. I was loosing line at an alarming rate. For a guy who was used to fishing for bluegill and bass in local ponds back in Indiana, this was pretty exciting stuff. I held my rod high trying to get some line back and yelled at my son, who was on the beach putting another whiting into the cooler. He came into the water next to me, looking at the line coming off my reel and laughed. After maybe 8 minutes and a couple of long runs I felt like I was getting some of my line back. I'm using my thumb on the spool because I don't know how my drag works on my new reel. By now several people had come down to watch, and I told my son to ask if anyone had a net (like I said, we had nothing but the basics). It took 5 minutes for my son to go down the beach where one of the guys had set up, couldn't find the net, come back and ask the guy again where the net was, have the guy give him his truck keys, and my son to go back and just drive the guys truck along the beach so the guy could find his net. I'm watching all this over my shoulder thinking 'Laurel and Hardy go fishing'. I finally have my son standing next to me with the net. I see my sinker, then I see the fish. Oh boy! I tell my son to try to come up behind it, he comes at it from the side, bumps the fish and off he goes. 2 minutes later we try it again. My son gets up behind the fish and lifts it, bending the gentlemen's landing net. I grabbed the other end of net and we brought him to shore. I thought he was a redfish, and confirmed with the guys standing there. I felt pretty stupid asking, and explained that we moved here from Indiana and this was our first time in the gulf. The old timer who's net we bent looked at me for a few seconds and responded, 'I know people who have fished here for years and never caught a fish like that'.

He measured 36 inches.

Actually I wish my son would have caught it. But it was just plain dumb luck (and my new Gulf Coast Waders!) that fish picked up my shrimp. Regardless, my son and I had a really great day together. We are both suffering from sunburn today (another thing to add to our gear list). But we did enjoy some fried whiting last night, and I look forward to our next day together.



My son. This is what it's all about...

[Ibtsoom]

Great story - great pics! Keep it up and keep posting up!!

[buoy37]

Now that was a report!!!!!

For the years I have been fishing, I have yet to clear 27" on a red.

[imhammer]

Great report and pics and you are right.....That is what it's all about!