THE YELLOW MOUTHS OF TEXAS

A big speck is not the same fish as a small one. Here's what to know if you're looking to land a trophy.

- By Doug Pike

MANY COLD JANUARYS AGO, BETWEEN Houston and Corpus Christi, I used my suitcase-size cellphone to call Capt. Cliff Webb, who'd invited me to fish Baffin Bay with him on a cold, wet afternoon.

"I'm around Victoria," he heard, "and it's spitting rain. What do you think?" "I had a doctor out earlier; we caught a couple dozen over 8 (pounds), all on topwaters," came the reply. "What do you think?"

The gas-shortage speed limit then was an excruciatingly slow 55 mph, barely tolerable down roads leading to small keepers on shrimp under corks-but this was winter-fat trout on top. The statute of limitations on highway speeding in Texas is two years. I looked it up. That makes it easier to share that I made the back half of the drive in way better time than the front and slid sideways into the marina parking lot around 1 p.m.

My feet barely touched the ground on the way to Webb's boat-jump in, drop tackle and cameras, untie boat, push away, handshake. "Hey Cliff, how you doing?"

And we were off. We throttled down, trolled into Baffin Bay almost an hour later, and managed barely three hours of fishing before flagging conditions and an early sunset forced us homeward. The whole time we were on this flat, those massive fish ate.

In the excitement, we lost count of the number of fish we landed. Through a mix of cold rain and dense fog, we caught one after another-seatrout that averaged 28-plus inches and included five longer than 30. Our "spool 'em up" fish, with daylight fading and GPS in its infancy, taped between 32 and 33 inches.

Success that day had little to do with luck unless you count me not flying past a state trooper en route. Instead, this trip was the product of Webb's experience, timing and singular wintertime focus.