Ahhhh, the memories of mosquitos and wide open fishing. It's tough to say which there are more of, but I'll go out on a limb with the mosquitos
. I fished the saltgrass along the Texas coast nearly every week of my life as a child. The epic fishing for specks, reds and Flounder is something I think about often. My favorite topwater plug back in the day was a natural bone colored Jumping Minnow. To watch a single Redfish or an entire school of bull-reds charge that plug was heaven on earth. Big Speckled Trout love those 'walk the dog' type plugs too. Those were the days!
The Texas fishery is a great example of how proper management (DFG with watch-dog anglers) can sustain an incredibly complex body of water...under heavy pressure. To people who think Southern California has heavy pressure, think again. Every person with a truck has a boat in Texas and there's a lot of trucks
. Nearly every man, woman and child loves to fish...all the time. A funny way to look at it: take your average nine year old girl here compared to an average nine year old girl in Texas...the nine year old girl in Texas can pitch an 1/8 ounce leadhead under a dock with a Shimano Chonarch SF baitcast reel, accurately, without backlashing. She'll probably see that school of fish holding just off the Oyster bed and make a cast without telling you, too. Even with all those people fishing, the fishing is ridiculously good...if you know where to go, and when. Kinda like here. It's just a different attitude towards enjoying the outdoors over there.
The mosquitos of the Texas Coast deserve another mention (try being allergic to them and fishing everyday
), but the people you'll meet make up for it. The word genuine comes to mind in reference to the common folk. Make sure to brush up on your eye contact before planning a trip. It would be funny as hell to watch the MLPA/BRTF "try" to do what they're doing here to the people of Texas..can you say "get a rope"?
I remember when the Redfish numbers were a little low due to a couple bad winters (the bays froze and killed a lot of fish). They built up a well recieved stocking program to achieve the numbers of fish they enjoy today. Someone could learn from this if they wanted to actually look at the science involved. Since the Southern California fishing is better than it's been in thirty years, let's just shut down fishing entirely
.