I spent two solid half days (8/26-8/27) fishing with Captain Eric Knipling (texasflatsflyfishing.com) in the Rockport/Aransas, TX area. On both days, Captain Eric worked his tail off poling through creeks to get us inside good lakes or motoring to yet another promising flat or on a couple occasions, jumping off the boat to push us over a hump or through areas too shallow to pole or motor through. His Hell’s Bay drafts super shallow, and even then, he may donate some gelcoat to get you to fish. He prefers casting to sighted fish and he’s great at spotting them. He knows his angles: ie. the correct angle to motor in heavy bay chop so that you don’t get drenched, much less sprayed, the best flat to try, based on the angle of the sun or the direction of the wind… We fished shorelines and lakes in the vast Rockport/Aransas bay system with a fly Captain Eric ties that is a super sexy imitation of a shrimp. On day one, I had shots on 3-4 pods of super skiddish tailers and some cruisers. I screwed the pooch mostly, but managed a good fish out of one. Back at the dock, I met Captain Chuck Naiser, who seems like a great guy to spend time with too. On day two, we launched from a different location and got going on good sight fishing, hooking into cruisers and tailers that were much more willing to eat. Besides the reds, we sighted flounder, rays, black drum, sheepshead, finger mullet, much larger mullet, catfish, porpoises and a gator. It’s a healthy looking ecosystem over there. Rockport is a fishing town, for sure. It almost seems there’s a 1:1 ratio of boats to vehicles. I dropped into the Orvis flyshop that Chris Sumers mentioned, and met Dave Hayward the store manager. Dave has the shop stocked up pretty good, and he readily shared his knowledge of the ins/outs of the area. After hearing that I came well equipped for stripers toting my 9 wt Sage RPL and my floater and intermediate shooting heads;), and, on nothing but a hand shake, Dave offered to lend me a much more appropriate 8-wt (Orvis Zero Gravity matched with a Battenkill Mid Arbor that was loaded with a full floater). I had a great time and would absolutely go back, and I would do everything about the same, including jumping onboard with Captain Knipling and visiting Dave Hayward’s flyshop, except maybe I’d go during the fall/winter so that I can also try a day or two chasing tarpon, jacks and over-size reds in Port O’Connor. And, maybe then I can use my shooting heads. A few lessons:
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