Here is a guest post from Jim Jacobus(208). He has a wealth of fishing(and catching) knowledge. I hope he will contribute often!

I was standing in the parking lot at Kon Tiki the other day when I ran into my good friend and fellow condo owner Larry Biggers! I always enjoy talking to Larry because he knows everything that is going on around Kon Tiki, Rockport and those parts of the world. One story led to another and eventually we talked about his blog and how much I/we enjoyed reading it. Then I had to open my big mouth and suggest it would be good to read about fishing in the area! To which Larry responded … “awesome idea, why don’t you write something for the blog about fishing since you do so much of it down here and I will post it to my blog”!

So, here I am writing about fishing the last couple of weeks down in Rockport! Allow me to give you a brief, but important, history of my saltwater fishing experience. I started saltwater fishing, after years of freshwater fishing, in 1979 after moving to Houston, Texas from Dallas. My first experience came at the invitation of a high school chum from Dallas that lived in Houston. He had a customer back out of a wade fishing trip with guide Blaine Friermood and wanted to know if I wanted to slide into the open, and paid for, open slot. I said yes and the result was a 31”, 8lb 11oz trout that now hangs on the wall in my office! Needless to say, I was hooked so to speak!

We bought our first boat in 2000 and slowly made our way from Galveston bay complex, to Matagorda, to Port O’Conner and eventually settled in to fishing the waters around Rockport! We bought a brand new Majek Illusion with a raised console last summer and are having a blast with it! We regularly catch fish when others don’t not because I am so smart but because we have invested regularly in hiring guides like Dave Posey and Dan Poffenberger to teach us how to fish! The focus here is on teaching me “how to fish” not just taking me and my family out to haul in a lot of filets for the freezer!

Last summer, with the new boat as impetus, my son and I decided that we wanted to learn how to fish with artificial and we turned to first fishing with topwaters. We went to see the good folks over at Tackle Town in Rockport where Javier, Austin, Mike and Charlie all helped us tremendously when it came to getting all of the “right stuff”! Armed with my bone colored Zara Spook Jr we hit the waters of Estes Flats, Hog island, Traylor Island, Mud Island, St Joe’s and anywhere we could find to cast and retrieve our new found toys. I can tell you that I am now an artificial bait enthusiast!

Here’s the bottom line … we are still learning and I hope we always will be! I am confident with what I have been taught by Posey, Poffenberger and others as well as what I have learned on my own that I can go out and catch fish on just about any day I decide to put my boat in the water! I will use bait when the conditions dictate but I can throw an artificial when timing is right for that approach. Last week my son and I fished with local guide and fishing legend Jay Watkins to begin to deepen and broaden our understanding of throwing artificial. We caught a lot of fish that day, trout and redfish, including a heavy 6lb, 27in trout that we released. All in all we probably caught 35 fish that day keeping only a few for the freezer. What we learned that day, from a true professional, was huge and will open up fishing opportunities in the Rockport Bay system to us that we didn’t know even existed before!

I encourage you to do the same … learn what you can about fishing. If you have a boat, learn how to maximize your experience in that boat! No boat? Learn how to fish the causeway piers or wadefish the shoreline there right next Kon Tiki or the miles and miles of shorelines in and around Rockport. Ask for help from the guys at Tackle Town, hire a guide every now and then. Jay Watkins has some fantastic fishing videos available on his website or you can buy them at Tackle Town! Check out the message board at www.2coolfishing.com for tons and tons of info! The fishing and catching is great! The learning how to fish and catch is priceless! Give me a couple of days and I will write about the trip we took with Jay Watkins! It was an experience of a lifetime!

If you have questions about how you can learn to get the most from your own fishing experience e-mail me at jim@kontikidream.com. I will be glad to answer anything that will help you enjoy your time in Rockport!

Jim Jacobus