| Laguna Calling |
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May/June 2008 The King Ranch shoreline this morning is alive with feeding herds of whitetails and the lonesome lowing of Santa Gertrudis cattle. Down the shoreline, a lone Nilgai tasted the salty water of the lower Laguna Madre. My grandfather taught me years ago, while throwing Carolina-rigged shrimp in Galveston Bay, if wildlife is feeding on land, the fish are feeding too. He also told me the moon drives the feeding habits of nature—full moons were full feeds. Sunrises and sunsets also played into the equation. These are Mother Nature's dinner bells.
Twitch…twitch…reel. The only movement on the mirror calm surface was the ripples created by the bobbing She-Pup. Twitch…twitch…reel. Brandon, Rusty, Jeremy, and I are wade-fishing at ground zero. Twitch…twitch…reel. The She–Pup reaches the end of his rod and quickly arched through the air back out in to the feeding zone. Twitch…twitch…reel. The ‘Bowl’ is characterized by lights shades of light-colored gravel and dark patches of Manatee grass and soft, warm mud—perfect for fish to lazily sun themselves. Twitch…twitch…boil. The water under Rusty’s black and chrome She-Pup suddenly boiled with the large rush of a thick body. Rusty leaned forward with anticipation and stopped the threatened lure. Twitch…BOOM.
The small topwater disappeared under a wall of white water and a loud, deep pop. The first few seconds of the fight went in the fish’s favor. The whirr…whirr…whirr of losing drag matched the bends and bows of the dancing rod in Rusty’s hand. The fish, with power and reckless abandonment, ran to save itself from the predator at the other end of his dinner. Above the waterline, Rusty expertly fought the writhing mass of muscle at the end of his line and quickly gained back the lost line. As the fish drew nearer, the fight became a war of wills and the fish was losing his end of the tussle. Swimming in a few awkward circles around Rusty the fish went head down and boiled the water with slow, intermittent shakes of it’s head and thrusts of its giant, fanned tail. The blue-tinged spotted tail of Sciaenops ocellatus broke the surface and Rusty informed us, “No, just a good red.”
We all tease Brandon to persuade him to change his pink, submerging Corky and go to the red and white or black and chrome topwaters we were having such great success with. He begrudgingly digs through his tackle box and grabs a red and white Top-Dog and throws it into his wading belt. He looks over his shoulder at us as we finish our sandwiches and plunges back into the waist deep water, “Just in case. But I am feeling the pink Corky.” We all laugh and hastily finish our munch to catch up with Brandon waddling off across the flat to catch his first fish of the day.
The Texas Keys
The lower Laguna Madre is the most isolated and fragile of the Texas bay systems. From Marker 22 in the King Ranch Land Cut to the sprawling mangrove coves of South Bay, the lower Laguna Madre stretches fifty-two vertical miles along the Gulf Inter-coastal Water Way. At her widest, she is almost six miles across and at her deepest, excluding the dredged waterways, she is a mere 6 feet–measured in her entirety, the lagoon averages less than twenty-four inches deep.
The eco-system, consisting almost entirely of lush, seagrassed flats boast a staggering ninety percent of the seagrass populations found in Texas’ bay system complexes. An astounding seventy-six percent of her five-hundred and fifty square miles of flats rest under a blanket of manatee, turtle, and shoal grasses. To add to her alluring Texan mystique, her average salinity levels of thirty-seven to thirty-eight parts salt to thousand parts water (ppt) is much higher than her gulf neighbor which averages a mere thirty-two to thirty-five (ppt). In times of severe drought and hot periods, remote areas like Gladys’s Hole or the North East Flats can top out at fish killing salinity levels upwards of forty-two to forty-five ppt salt to water.
The lower Laguna Madre’s virtual isolation from the rest of the Texas bay waters has created a fishery almost unrecognizable to the everyday Texas angler. Often referred to, compared to, and measured against the fabled Florida Keys, the only clues an angler is still fishing in Texas waters are the budding Prickly Pear Cacti along the shorelines and his guide’s slow, molasses thick southern accent.
The lower Laguna Madre’s secret is out. She is a sight fisherman’s dream for stalking tailing reds in ankle deep water and is quickly, and not surprisingly to those in the know, becoming a destination for a resurging snook and tarpon fisheries. With pathfinders like fly-fishing guide Captain Eric Glass constantly pushing the bar on snook higher and higher and stories of thirty-five inch snook abounding, the return of the snook as a Texas sport-fishing target is growing and gaining popularity amongst fly-fishermen and artificial pluggers alike. As far as tarpon, stories of bait soakers targeting sheep head and sand trout jumping triple digit class fish in the Brazos Santiago Pass are becoming commonplace. In addition, multi tarpon days for those brave enough to target them are not unheard of during hot summer months.
Home of the Whopper  However exotic her burgeoning fisheries are though, the fact remains the lower Laguna Madre is the go to place to target a trophy trout. Most anglers consider any speckled trout over twenty-five inches a trophy; however, once one gets south of the King Ranch Land Cut, a twenty-fiver simply gets an angler a “decent fish” remark from his buddies. Captain Paul Marcaccio, of Marcaccio’s Guide Service out of Galveston says, “I try to make it to Port Mansfield two to three times a year. I can catch big fish in Galveston but they do not seem to have the weight and girth these girls have down south. I have caught my three biggest fish in the Laguna Madre. There must be something in the water.” Although the lower Laguna still stands as the reigning queen for trophy trout, her reputation as the go to place to land a trophy speckled trout faces steep competition from Indian River, Florida. Indian River is quickly gaining a reputation as a rivaled competitor for the title of ‘Hottest Trophy Trout Destination.’ Indian River holds the all-tackle speckled trout IGFA world record with a whopping 17.1-pound spotted leviathan. However, not to be out done, the crystalline waters of the lower Laguna Madre have produced numerous IGFA class-tippet fly-fishing world records and the current Texas state all-tackle trout record of 15.6-pounds were pulled from her shallow depths. Bud Rowland of Port Isabel, a monster trout aficionado, caught the beast on May 23, 2003 while sight casting—he released her to breed more monster trout. Although Bud’s catch was outside of the typical window most consider the prime trophy trout months of December through March, the catch exhibits the size of trout available year round in the Laguna’s eco-system.
Eyes on the Environment As polarizing as she is alluring, the Laguna has also been a catalyst for a number of environmental battles over the years. The so-called ‘redfish wars’ of the eighties that led to the genesis of the Coastal Conservation Association and the end of commercial red drum fishing in the state was the first major environmental victory for Texas coastal fisheries. More recently, a steady twenty-year decrease in the spawning stock biomasses of spotted sea trout in the lower Laguna Madre led Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to institute the first regionalized coastal management plan on the Texas coast. The idea of a regionalized management plan did not occur overnight though. In 2002, under then TPW Commission Chairperson, Katherine Armstrong, the first plans for a regionalized Texas coast took root in the Spotted Sea Trout Workshop. Then head of TPWD Coastal Fisheries, Hal Osborne, under the behest of Chairperson Armstrong, began studying the feasibility of a regionalized coastal fishery. However, with Ms. Armstrong’s resignation and Mr. Osborne’s subsequent retirement, the issue was tabled until forward thinking Laguna Madre Eco-System leader Randy Blankinship and current Head of Coastal Fisheries Dr. Larry McKinney ‘damned the torpedoes’ and charged headlong into implementing a regionalized management plan. After a long and arduous public debate to lower limits in the lower Laguna Madre and regionalize the coast, the TPW Board of Commissioners voted unanimously, with Commissioner Parker abstaining, to lower limits in the Laguna and regionalize the coast. With management fears assuaged and a progressive and aggressive management philosophy engaged, the lower Laguna Madre still faces dire environmental concerns. Naturally landlocked, the only fresh water inflows into the upper end of the lower Laguna are the man-made Port Mansfield East Cut and King Ranch Land Cut.
The southern half of the Laguna, from Arroyo City to Port Isabel, gets fresh water exchanges from the Arroyo Colorado and the Brazos Santiago Pass. Historically, the Port Mansfield East Cut received funding and maintenance dredging on a two year schedule. However, the Hurricane Katrina disaster has beleaguered the United States Corp of Army Engineers and has virtually forced the USACE to abandon all efforts to dredge the Port Mansfield East Cut. With serious shoaling affecting more than two-thirds of the East Cut jetty opening, concerned Port Mansfield citizens and anglers across the state are mobilizing to lobby state and national legislators to do something to remedy the situation. As the only major ‘fresh’ water opening for the northern and middle regions of the lower Laguna Madre and a vital access point for bay cleansing exchange with the gulf, the East Cut situation is becoming dire. Without healthy gulf exchanges, the salinity levels of the, already, hyper-saline waters can reach levels that lead to fish kills, oyster kills, and harmful alga blooms.
Not Dead Yet Forty-five minutes into our wade, Brandon continues to throw the pink Corky. The rest of us have caught and released another dozen fish between us and we are all turning up the levels of ridicule and teasing on Brandon. Relentless in his determination and monk like in his devotion to the little pink Corky, Brandon Finally breaks, “Fine! Yall want me to put on a topwater. Fine! I’ll show yall; I’m just jinxed.” Brandon digs into his cavernous wading belt of lures and digs out the red and white Top-Dog. Yes, the muses and fates never could have planned it better. Writing the story even seems corny. Brandon lobs the big topwater along the length of a barely perceptible grassline running parallel to the shoreline. Twitch…twitch—he does not even get to reel. The explosion is loud and the unmistakable calling card of a large, slashing, feeding trout. Brandon giggles and bows his rod in half on the hook set. He fights the fish gingerly for a few minutes. He backed the drag way off so he would not rip the fishes thin, membraned lip. Thirty-two inches and close enough to twelve pounds to say, “Yeah, I caught a Mansfield twelve-pounder.” Brandon laughs at his luck. The required photos record the catch and the old grandma trout swims away after release to spawn and continue the legacy of the lower Laguna Madre monster trout
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If that be the case, she is clanging those bells furiously as the moon, full and setting, and the sun, red and rising, compete for attention on opposing, cloudless horizons.
Rusty, Jeremy, and Brandon did not travel three hundred and fifty miles south to catch red fish.