The Galveston County Daily News

Saturday, we awoke to a pleasant surprise, as the wind was calm and the water flat. Those are great conditions in which to launch the boat and take out after some flounder, reds and trout.

Early reports indicated good catches from all around the Galveston Bay Complex.

The annual flounder hot spots were crowded with boats and anglers. This included the shoreline of Pelican Island from Seawolf Park to the cedars, where a dredging operation prevented boats from getting close to shore.

The end of the South Jetty looked like a parking lot with all of the boats anchored and tossing baits for big reds.

Today begins the monthlong special flounder restriction in which bag limits are reduced from five per person per day to two. The 14-inch minimum size has not changed. Perhaps the change in bag limit was a factor in there being so many boats in the areas known for producing flounder Saturday.

The only report in at press time Saturday was from Moses Lake, where Vicki Pike, at the Fish Spot Bait Camp, had customers return with some nice fish.

Neil and Norman Wirth fished Moses Lake with artificials Saturday and caught three flounder and two trout.

Using dead shrimp for bait, Clarence Mosley and Nathan Norman caught two flounder, two drum and a sand trout. Again, Moses Lake was where the action took place.

With the reduced bag limit on flounder during November and the fact that it is a big month for redfish activity, I expect to hear a lot of complaints about anglers cheating on the bag and size limits.

Last weekend, a reader, who was quite upset at the flagrant violations taking place in the vicinity of Seawolf Park, sent a note telling what he did to discourage the cheating. This person observed several violations involving retaining oversized reds without tags and undersized flounder.

Several violators were placing the flounder in floating bait buckets since the game warden had not been looking inside the floating buckets. A call was made to Operation Game Thief, and soon wardens were on the spot issuing citations.

Another incident involved an individual who placed untagged reds in an ice chest and drove off. A description of the car, license number and individual driving the car was relayed to Operation Game Thief. The car was stopped near Dickinson and an arrest made.

Violations occur by anglers fishing on shore and in boats. If you observe an incident in progress, call 800-792-4263 (game) and report it. Give as much information as possible, boat registration number, location, description of violators and violation observed. The same holds true for bank and pier fishermen. In this case, the license number of a vehicle would be helpful.

Working together and with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, anglers can help game wardens find the cheaters.

To get your catch in the Reel Report, phone Capt. Joe Kent at 409-683-5273, or send an e-mail to reel.report(at)galvnews.com. There’s no charge for this service.