Bull Reds Hot at Calcasieu (Cameron Jetties)

[MathGeek]

Finally made it back to Calcasieu. We hit GI in July and did OK. Lots of fun, but only averaged two bulls per day in the pass, down a bit from the 4 bulls per day we averaged at the Cameron Jetties back in May/June. Picked up some crab at JTs (Lake St) on the way down. Everything looked smooth, so we motored out of the west side cut at 10:00 AM on Sat and dropped anchor about 50 yds west and 50 yds south of the cut. There were already three boats stacked up between the end and the channel marker (our favorite spot), so we stopped here instead.

I cut the first crab in half and threw two baits out of the back on spinning rods (50 lb pp). Then I put a whole crab on a down line on one of the level winds (80 lb pp). I threw some crab to my sons up front, then took out a mullet to cut up for some more lines (we typically fish 6-8 at a time). I was fiddling with a mullet when the firts cracked crab started heading south at a high rate of speed. I took the rod out of the holder to fight the fish while the boys got all the other crabs reeled in and rods put in holders. With 50 lb line I didn't have to play him too much and kinda horsed him a bit to keep him out of the motors (still down). We threw some crabs back out quickly after he hit the deck and it wasn't but a couple of minutes before the whole crab started pulling drag and right after that another cracked crab went (other side of the boat). I cleared all the lines and encouraged each of the boys to keep their fish on their side of the boat to keep them from tangling with each other. I told them they had plenty of strong line so tighten down the drags and get the fish to the boat. The bigger fish on the whole crab reached the boat first, and as soon as we got the net free, I turned around an needed the other one.

22 minutes fishing: 3 bull reds (36-40"), fastest limit ever on my boat. The boat closer to the cut was suitably impressed and asked what we were doing. We explained crab on the bottom and invited them along side and threw them a bag with 1/2 dozen crab, since we were switching to mullet (hoping for sharks) and crab claws (hoping for drum). In the next couple of hours we managed to land three more bull reds on the mullet (released) and had a couple of strong break off runs that were probably sharks, but one may have been a big bull red or drum.

Another interesting observation is the catfish seem to be on vacation. At one point, we had caught four bull reds and only one catfish. The boys like to fish some shrimp and usually catch one catfish after another. We also catch plentiful catfish most summer days on mullet and crab, but there were very few yesterday.