Texas Trout Roundup
TAKE YOUR PICK FOR TOP TROUT FISHING ON THE TEXAS GULF COAST
THE BEST AND MOST WINNING TROUT FISHERMEN ALONG THE GULF COAST HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON: THEY FISH STRUCTURE.
On the bays and in the surf, trout gather over reefs, wrecks and rocks — all magnets for baitfish — and where you find the food, you’ll find speckled trout from May through November.
Capt. Jerry Norris has been fishing Sabine Lake on the Texas-louisiana border for more than 40 years. “The middle and upper areas of Sabine Lake are 3 to 7 feet deep. But on the lower end, we have about 100 acres of oyster reef in 10 to 27 feet of water. It holds trout just about year-round. In fact, the cold winter months can be best. But during the fall, it’ll load up with trout, and they are stupid easy to catch on jigs.”
Norris’ favorite jig is a Saltwater Shad Assassin, a 5-inch rat-tail soft plastic. His top color is Red Shad.
Fishing them is simple. Rig ’em up with a ¼-ounce jig head and bump them along bottom. The contour of this reef is kind of like swells in the Gulf. Trout hold in the deep part of the reef and come up to ambush shrimp, shad and mullet.
NUMBERS GAME
Another well-known trout producer to the east, Lake Calcasieu has pumped out big numbers of trout for decades.
“We catch probably 80 percent of our trout on the oyster reefs here,” says Capt. Buddy Oaks with Hackberry Rod and Gun. “During the summer months, we’ll use live shrimp over shell in about 5 to 8 feet of water. We’ll fish them under a popping cork or with a slipweight rig on bottom.”
STRUCTURE-RICH
One of the most unusual bays along the Gulf Coast, West Matagorda Bay out of Port O’connor, on the middle Texas coast, offers a variety of trout structure. In the middle of the bay sit several natural-gas wells. On the lower end of the bay lie a couple of shrimpboat wrecks. On the upper end of the bay, spoil banks built up with oyster shell line the ship channel. There is also a man-made reef on this bay that’s about 500 yards long and 100 yards wide. That’s a lot of trout-holding structure, and a lot of variety of habitat, offering abundant options, which is why this bay remains so popular with anglers.
BELLY UP
About 20 miles south of West Matagorda Bay, a big-time producer of oysters for restaurants across the U.S., is San Antonio Bay, which holds abundant shell reefs and is a go-to hot spot for lots of guides.
One of the most unusual places I’ve ever fished is Baffin Bay, located on the upper end of the Laguna Madre, just south of Corpus Christi Bay. This particular bay’s claim to fame is the number of 8- to 12-pound trout it produces each year. It’s probably the No. 1 trophy-trout producer along the entire Gulf Coast. And it’s no secret where those big trout can be caught — around rocks, big and small.
DOUBLE-TEAM
Baffin Bay’s rocks are far from normal. These reefs, or rocks, were formed from the calcareous tubes of serpulid worms. Formation of the reefs began about 3,000 years ago and ended about 300 years ago. They are like fish magnets.
This shallow bay is a hypersaline estuary with no access to the Gulf. Lacking tides, the water level is determined by the wind. But two guides have figured it out, a husband-andwife team of Capt. Aubrey Black and Capt. Sally Black of Baffin Bay Rod and Gun.
“We drift-fish and wade,” says Aubrey. “Finding big trout is not difficult. It’s mainly fishing around the rock formations with the right lures.”
One of his go-to lures is a chartreuse Gulp! 4-inch Swimming Mullet. Rather than using the standard ⅛- or 1⁄16-ounce jig head, they designed their own. It’s a 1⁄32-ounce screw-lock jig head on a 1/0 Gamakatsu hook. It’s called Black’s Magic.
“We catch a lot of the trophy trout here on topwaters,” says Sally. “A couple of our favorites include the Yo-zuri 3DB Pencil and the One Knocker Spook. When the big girls want a slow-sinking jig, we use the 1⁄32-ounce jig head. It keeps the tail in front of the fish longer and draws more strikes. Some of my favorite soft plastics are the Saltwater Assassin 4-inch Sea Shad paddle tails in Mighty White and Sugar and Spice.”
As of the first of June last year, Sally reported their guides and clients had caught 167 trout over 25 inches and 14 in the 29- to 31-inch class. That’s about as fine as trout fishing gets along the Gulf Coast.
WIDE OPEN
Numerous man-made reefs dot the Gulf Coast, and since many are expansive, they are best fished with a drift sock such as the Lindy Wave Tamer. The spring-open design and flotation keep them off the reef, slow your boat in windy conditions, and allow a slow and quiet drift.
The surf offers another productive option for fishing visible wrecks, especially when the water is clean to the beach. Shrimp-boat wrecks in the surf from Louisiana to south Texas offer angler-friendly access from Port O’connor south toward Port Aransas. They attract a lot of baitfish and, in turn, productive fishing for trout in the 2- to 4-pound class. The best option is to anchor from the bow and feed out rode until you are within casting distance.
Once you find a wreck that’s giving up trout regularly, you’ve found a fishing hole that’s dependable for years to come.
One particularly productive wreck, the Darlington, a concrete ship, sits just off Matagorda Island, about 15 miles southwest of the lighthouse. Around the wrecks, top lures include soft plastics such as a Yum Money Minnow, silver spoons and topwaters such as the Super Spook Jr. Topwater lures cover any reef along the Gulf Coast in 5 to 15 feet of water.
Popping corks prove deadly as well over shallow shell and man-made reefs.
WELL, WELL, WELL
Hundreds of gas and oilproduction wells within 1 to 10 miles offshore attract lots of baitfish and schools of trout. But not all wells produce. The best wells in the bays have a shell pad surrounding them.
Fish the wells with live shrimp or croakers under slip corks, or on a Carolina rig. Once you catch a couple of trout, you can pretty much pinpoint the area where they are feeding. That’ll usually result in a quick limit of speckled trout.
Norris has been fishing them out of Sabine Pass on the Texas-louisiana border for years.
“We’ve got several rigs about 10 to 12 miles off the Sabine jetties,” he says. “The water is anywhere from 20 to 25 feet deep around them. During the summer, big schools of trout feed around the reef formed by the substructure of the rigs. The best way to catch those trout is with a ¼- or ½-ounce jig head and a soft-plastic tail. And I’ll usually be fishing a Saltwater Shad Assassin with a vertical presentation. Two of my favorite colors around the rigs are Glow Chartreuse and Red Shad. Most of the time, trout hold tight to the substructure on the down-current side.”
Fishing the reefs, rocks, wrecks and rigs along the Gulf Coast is a surefire tactic that’ll keep you on trout throughout the summer and fall months. It’s relatively easy fishing, and the biggest challenge is where to go first.