Layla and I had taken a long weekend in late June at our beach house in Bayou Vista and Monday morning turned out to be “one of those days”. The tide was coming in all morning, light wind out of the southeast and all of “the weekenders” had gone home.

Since the conditions were picture perfect, we were going to fish around the wreck in West Galveston Bay. I’d always had a soft spot in my heart for the wrecked, shrimp boat that lay less than a hundred yards off of the old Intercoastal Waterway channel. One problem! The last big, low pressure, system that had come this way had knocked down the exhaust pipe of the boat and there wasn’t anyway to find the old wreck.

Being sure that I could find the general area, we headed out the “back way” to West Bay. Two years before, Randy and I headed out this very same way and he had run my Whaler into the reef beside the small cut, “unhorsing me”, see [“A Close Call”]. But, the big twenty-two footer had no problem, gliding close to the marker, flying across the Intercoastal and heading on into the bay. Just think, this boat would run flat out in twelve inches of water! Here’s a picture of it in the sling at our beach house.

Finding the general area of “the wreck” we both cast out. Layla was using a spinning outfit with eight pound; line, popping cork, three foot, leader, topped off with a nice, live shrimp. By the way, she never learned how to successfully attach the shrimp to the hook, but I gladly did this chore. My outfit was the same, but I had a seven and a half foot popping rod that hurled my shrimp out as far as her spinning rig.

Working and popping the corks, mine went under first and I was rewarded with a real, pole bender! The trout made one good run, then wallowed on the top of the water, came into the boat, then the fun started! The trout made me do the “West Bay Shuffle” around the boat twice, before the combination of the long fight and the rod’s pressure, had it laying on the top. Layla netted it and we both admired the six pounder, before I released it.

Layla caught two nice eating size specs that we boxed for today’s lunch and noticing that we’d drifted out of the catching zone, I doubled back, swinging wide, and started the drift pattern again. Again, my first cast was met with another hard strike and same song, second verse. This spec was a twin to my first one, another six pounder that we released. We both caught some eating size specs that we put into the cooler and decided that we’d call it a day and head back in.

Getting back, as Layla washed out the boat, I filleted the fish. We put one freezer bag up for future use and took two nice fillets up into the house and fried them up. Taking two pieces of white bread, adding some tartar sauce, then slapping on the fried fish, yum-yum! Adding some ice tea, this made a meal fit for a king and a perfect ending to our long weekend!