To borrow a phrase from the famous Bob Wills, ""Big Balls are back in town."" So load up those Bay boats and dust off those frowns, the girls are all unhappy, cause big balls in town!!!
With what seems like almost the first half of this years fishing season being a disappointment due too some sort of unseasonable weather conditions. If the never ending showers didn't dampen those fishing spirits, those crazy domino cold fronts which we have been experiencing up until last week, did!!! With their uncanny knack for arriving seemly precisely on Friday afternoon for the last six months. Anglers all along the Texas Gulf Coast probably burned up quite a few transmissions this past weekend, on their 90 mile an hour "Mad Rush" to the bays.
The good news for all these cabin fever anglers. With blistered hands and worn out backs, from what would normally be 5 years worth of honey-do's around the old homestead. With flower beds overrunning into the neighbors yards, and tomato plants already starting to produce fruit. When the last time your lawn looked this green and well manicured, your graduating son was in diapers. Trout are showing up in our Texas bays with avengeance!!!
So say Adios' to your newfound friend Bud at the local plant store. Tell him how sorry you are to leave him with such high hopes that this windfall of prosperity would last forever, but it was not meant to be. And console him in the fact that your wife still has lots of plans for her newfound beds, and he may still be able to put little junior through college with you and your fishing buddies credit cards!!! Revisit that old friend Bill at the tire shop and have some much needed shocks put on Old Blue, that are long blown out from hauling tons of dirt, mulch and rocks for the new flower beds. Chances are since the old truck has seen how the other half of a truck life can be so miserable, he will be appreciate how easy a life he has just towing a boat. And those long ago days of constant complaining with flat tires and overheated radiator's will be a thing of the past. Check out Tom at the old Tackle Shop and notice the smile as it spread across his face as you walk in the door. Notice how he inconspicuously dust off the old credit card machine as he mentions all the new colors and patterns of lures for the 97 fishing season!!!
Speaking of the 97 fishing season! This years trophy trout will be sporting a Chartreuse plastic jig, with either a pearl or electric blue underbelly to finish out her ensemble. Trophy trout in the lower bays will opt for the live variety of tournament wear with either a croaker or shrimp that enhances the sparkling blues of their bodies. And for those trout who live on the dangerous side of the tracks of the grassy flats of Capono bays and Baffin. Many a lure company has introduced exciting new colors that corrodiant well with oversize trout yellow mouths!! Yes this years trout should look quite dashing as they come up to the boat sporting these new and exciting looks for the 97 season.
And judging from the reports from "Hammer-Time Potlickers" from all over the coast. Heavy stringers are being caught from Sabine lake to the lower Laguna's. Trophy trout in double digit size and weights to match are being caught in Matagorda, Baffin, East, West and your Mama's house!!!! Trout so full of eggs they resemble a truck load of angler's leaving an all you can eat seafood buffet with free beer. Trout so use to gorging themselves on the overabundant of this year shrimp crop, will swallow anything even closely resembling their favorite delicacies. The only decision you may be forced to make is not if the trout on the end of you line is legal or not, but if it will make a better mount than the other 5 already in the box!!
But the really good news is not that the boy's are back in the bays, but the timing!!! With the C.C.A tournament just a few weeks away you will still have ample time to find that one really hot spot. And if your smart will throw back those couple of 10 plus pound trout you caught this past weekend. This may allow them enough time to forage on shrimp for the next couple of weeks before you catch them again for the money!!!
So be sure to get those entries in for this years tournament. Respool those reels and stock those tackle boxes with this years hot lures. Charge up those batteries in the you and the boat. Heck maybe even get a little professional assistance in the next few weeks from one of Hammer-Time's guides to help put you where the trout are biting!!! And watch out for those first few backlashes of the season, till the rust wears off. Judging from the first few reports I seen, this may be a trout season to remember. Cause ""Big Balls In Town""!!!