Nice time to fish in Galveston

Calm conditions prevailed most of Friday; however, the Gulf was full of thunderstorms, none of which made its way to give us some badly needed rain.

Inshore, fishermen hitting the jetties and Houston Ship Channel spoil banks enjoyed good catches of trout and other fish.

Dewey Jones of Port Bolivar took his son-in-law John Lewis of Longview to the North Jetty on Thursday morning where the pair of anglers caught 11 trout using live shrimp for bait.

Houston Ship Channel Marker 59 is known for producing lots of fish this time of year and Friday was no exception. Mark Raymond and his wife Hazel were anchored close to the marker by 7 a.m. and before 9 a.m. had 15 trout, two slot reds and a bunch of croaker in their ice chest. Live croaker and shrimp were the baits.

Marker 59 is just outside of San Leon heading toward Morgan’s Point.

The Texas City Dike has been giving up stringers of mostly pan fish with a few flounder and reds. Night fishermen are catching trout under lights around the dike. Many of the trout are undersized, however.

Julio Ramirez landed a 4-pound flounder and 12 sand trout fishing Seawolf Park on Friday morning. Dead shrimp was the bait.

The party boat New Buccaneer has been offshore several times this week and returned each time with nice catches. One of the best trips this week came Wednesday when Capt. Matt Smith hauled 57 anglers 60 miles out and returned with 545 vermilion snapper, 25 tomate, eight almaco jack, five lane snapper, four rockhinds, four rainbow runners, three scamp, two whitebone porgy, two barracuda and a variety of other fish including a Spanish hog fish and a 200-pound dusky shark.

Earlier this week, one of the trips had to return to dock when a passenger passed out because of a Dramamine overdose attributed to not reading the dosage instructions. The incident spoiled the trip for the other anglers onboard. Don’t let that happen to you. Anti-seasickness medications are drugs. Prescription or not, they should be respected as such.