Anglers land jackfish during run on jetty

By Vince Stiglich Jr.
Correspondent

Published August 25, 2005

If ever the term "jacks are wild" applied to a fishing report (instead of a poker hand), today is that day.

During an early morning to about noon North Jetty trip by Texas A&M student Bailey Campbell and his neighbor, Bob Sarks, the two not only caught a mess of 15 Spanish mackerel to a nice 26 inches, but the anglers came across a massive school of jackfish (also known as jack crevalle) to pretty much cap their time on the water.

"We saw a large school of jackfish, maybe 150 to 200 of them," said Campbell of the day's sighting. "I caught one jackfish, my first ever."

"It was amazing."

Campbell said that all of the fish went for live shrimp, and added that the weather was perfect for the jetties, "calm, clear and green."

For folks who might be interested, jackfish have the capability of being among the most proficient battlers in the Gulf, but they also make for abysmal table fare. Still, the fun of engaging the fish in battle more than makes up for its lack of cuisine possibilities.

Now if I only had a couple of kings (as in king mackerel) to complete my hand, I would be set.

In other area fishing news, the sparkling, shining beauty of the Galveston surf and beachfront has to be the highlighted opening of Sonya Hix's Galveston Pier Wednesday report, and not only was the Gulf about as awesome as it gets, some quality fish were also caught.

"We had Spanish mackerel, redfish, jackfish, flounder, speckled trout and lots of gafftops," Hix noted. "It's been very good."

As for bait, most anglers employed the standard fare of live shrimp, fresh dead shrimp, various forms of cut bait, squid and lures.

The same held true over at the 61st Street Pier, where staffer Richard Belleau said that fair numbers of Spanish mackerel, jackfish, speckled trout, sand trout and croaker were decked.

The baits used were pretty much the same a listed above.

In area offshore news, Capt. Paul Stanton and mate Mike Raach did a great job of putting the Jeff Frazier party of six from the ADT Company out of Houston on some quality fish. In all, the six fishermen decked 17 dorado to about 15 pounds or so, one tripletail, 10 kingfish to a nice 25 pounds, one ling, a shark, 12 of the aforementioned jackfish and four Spanish mackerel.

Most of the fish went for Spanish sardines.

Stanton said that Frazier caught the tripletail and Joe Matthews decked the big ling.

+++

To get your catch in the Reel Report, phone Stiglich at (409) 683-5273. There's no charge for this service.

Read this story and more here...