Corpus Christi Inshore Fish

In the nine months I spent in Oklahoma, I had only fished once. It was at some dam north of Enid with fish jumping out of the water every few seconds. Not even a bite. Stupid fish. So moving to Corpus Christi, which was rumored to have excellent fishing, I doubted I would catch anything. After moving in and getting settled I decided to walk to the local pier - Bob Hall Pier, which was about a mile away. I decided to try fishing at sunset...because fish are supposed to be more hungry at dawn and dusk or something. First few casts I didn't get any bites, but then my line started moving around and I pulled up my first fish in a really long time.

A catfish! Hooray. This is known as a Hardhead Catfish because it has a giant bone in its head, just like a lot of people. It was pretty small and pathetic looking and kept making a weird noise. I didn't know fish could make noise, but apparently they do - especially when you squeeze them. I ended up letting it go and resumed fishing. A little while later the line started moving again but this time with a lot more force.

Two fish! The top one is a Croaker (because it makes a croaking noise - even when I don't squeeze it), and the bottom one is a useless Piggy Perch. The orange sticker is from the apple I ate. I ended up keeping the Croaker and cutting it up to use as bait, but threw the perch back because it makes awful bait. At this point it was getting late, but I was still excited with my luck. A few more casts and I had another fish on the line.

This catfish looked like a mutant version of the first one I caught. It was covered in white slime and had really long iridescent-colored fins. Some local standing around warned me not to step on it because it had hidden spines that would "make you want to die" if it pierced your skin. This catfish is known as a Gafftopsail Catfish and apparently tastes decent. I ended up taking this one home with the intent to fry it and eat it, but in the process of gutting it, I found out it has a really weird bone structure that makes it a huge pain to take apart. I ended up throwing it in the trash.

Several days of fishing at dusk yielded about the same type of fish so I decided to try fishing during the day. First cast off the pier around one in the afternoon and I landed this thing.

At the time I had no clue what it was, but later found out it is known as a Ladyfish. This one is wearing lipstick. I cut it up and tried it as bait and within a few minutes, I had a three foot Hammerhead shark on my line. When I tried to lift it up onto the pier, the shark's teeth severed my line and it swam away, laughing at me. Another day of fishing in the early afternoon yielded one of these - a Spanish Mackerel.

I found out a good way of cooking this is to place the fillets in bacon grease, which I did. Good stuff. The rest of my time in Corpus I tried to catch another one of these to eat raw. (Apparently in Japanese, a Spanish Mackerel is known as Aji, which translates to tasty according to some food site). No luck. A weird fish I caught off the pier that looked like it belonged in an aquarium is known as a Spadefish.

It tasted like chicken. I also caught a baby Jack Crevalle, which makes excellent shark bait but tastes awful. I ended up giving it to some shark fishers.

Closer to my house, I caught this while fishing at the inlets. Another aquarium-looking fish that I got to taste. It's known as a Gray Triggerfish and tasted like lobster. Seriously. The only problem with these is that they're so hard to gut and fillet and don't have much meat on them...kind of like a skinny, bony human. Anyway, here it is:

I'm getting tired of writing so here are the rest...with captions! You're probably only looking at the pictures anyway.

This is a Mangrove Snapper. It hates me.

A sheepshead. Look how fat I look. Its the wind. Sureeeee.

Sand Trout. He wasn't happy.

Atlantic Stingray. Pretty disgusting.

See?

Here we have the elusive Redfish. Corpus Christi is the Redfish capitol of the world, and I only managed to catch one. This one was too small but I ate it anyway. Right there.

Back on the pier that was destroyed by a Hurricane. These were three or four pound Gafftopsail Catfish that I didn't bother eating...but this guy did.

What kind of fish is this?! This bastard kept stealing our bait then flying away with it and laughing at us. He snagged his foot on one of our hooks and started screaming as we reeled him in from the sky. Who's laughing now?! He tasted like chicken. Just kidding, we let it go.