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Reopening of pass to Mesquite Bay restores fishing hot spot

Reopening of pass to Mesquite Bay restores fishing hot spot

By Ralph Winingham, For the Express-News

December 11, 2014 Updated: December 12, 2014 2:26pm

 
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/ For the Express-News

ROCKPORT — With the roar of the Texas Gulf Coast surf in his ears and the swift tidewater rushing past his legs, Capt. Ron Coulston took a trip back in time last week to fish a newly opened Cedar Bayou.

“I haven’t been able to do this since 1995,” Coulston said as he waded near the channel cut through shifting sand in hopes of enticing a flounder, redfish, black drum or speckled trout into attacking a bait bounced along the bottom.

“This is a natural funnel for bait moving out of the bays into the Gulf. Where you have bait, you will have fish ready to feed. Cedar Bayou was a hot spot I spent a lot of time fishing in the old days, and it is great to be back here now.”

The only natural pass for a 70-mile stretch between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor that allows water to move back and forth from Mesquite Bay to the Gulf, Cedar Bayou was reopened Sept. 25 more than 35 years after the state took emergency action to cut off the flow.

The decision to seal up the pass was spawned by the June 3, 1979, blowout of an oil well in the Bahia de Campeche, about 600 miles south of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. Concerns about possible damage to the bay system — if some of the more than 3.3 million barrels of oil released was carried through the pass into the bay — prompted the closure.

While the potential natural catastrophe was avoided, closing the pass between San Jose and Matagorda Islands also inhibited fish and wildlife productivity in the bay system. Two earlier attempts to reopen Cedar Bayou, one in 1987 and one in ’95, were short lived and neither project connected the pass with Vinson Slough in order to create the necessary hydraulic flow to keep it open.

The latest effort, costing about $9.4 million, started in April and was completed in September.

“The Fish Pass at Cedar Bayou has long been a special and storied place for Texas’ saltwater anglers and coastal enthusiasts,” Texas Parks & Wildlife Department executive director Carter Smith said in a news release. “Reopening the historic Fish Pass will undoubtedly provide additional high quality recreational opportunities for Texas’ anglers to enjoy the bountiful outdoor resources for which this stretch of the coast is so well known.”

Coulston is just one of many anglers to take advantage.

“There were people out here catching fish the day it reopened,” he said. “Everything comes through here — reds, drum, trout and flounder. I prefer to fish during a falling tide that just seems to suck the bait through and the big fish come right in after the bait.”

On a visit to the pass last week, Coulston used a lead jig head threaded onto a Gulp molted shrimp colored plastic tail or hooked through the head of a live shrimp to fire up the action. A five-fish limit of speckled trout, all about 16-18 inches long, found their way into the live well of his boat in just a short time.

I’m kind of surprised to be catching so many trout now,” he said. “I expected to pick up some nice flounder and reds. It is rare to come out here and not catch anything.”

No boats are allowed within about 400 yards of the mouth of Cedar Bayou where it empties into the Gulf waters, so anglers are required to wade fish or cast from the shoreline in search of a saltwater tussle.

Coulston said waders should be aware the waters moving through the pass can be quite rapid and move a lot of sand, which can catch an inattentive angler by surprise. Unless a wade fisherman keeps moving, they might have sand fill in around their legs similar to quick sand.

“If you start to get stuck, the best thing to do is just lie down on the water and swim out of that spot,” he said. “I don’t think the sand will pull someone completely under, but you can get stuck pretty easily.”

The guide said that since the pass has reopened, angling pressure has been pretty intense. However, he added that with the free flow of water between the Gulf and the bays, there should be plenty of action for everyone.

“Reopening Cedar Bayou is just a win-win for everyone,” Coulston said.