On This Water

Doctrine · not a honey-hole list

Seasonal fundamentals

When a coast, a type of water, and a fish actually line up. If you elected Texas on the list, this page opens on Texas — Seychelles stays off the board until you ask for it. Filter by region, method or habitat, and species. The year bar is peak versus present. Limits cite TPWD and FWC — verify before you keep one.

Texas

Texas — wind is the tide

Seven working bays, one printed table that is often a suggestion.

This coast runs from a brackish border estuary at Sabine to hypersaline rock at Baffin and the clear classroom of the Lower Laguna. The main event is the red. Trout live a foot deeper in the same bays. Flounder own the fall nights at the passes until the November closure. Winter belongs to drum and sheep on mud and granite. Corpus still sees a tarpon along the beach in mid-summer — Port A was once Tarpon, Texas — but that is a bay-boat job, not the skinny skiff. Do not fish Baffin like Rockport. Do not invent Rollover Pass; it was filled in 2019. Birds are GPS for trout. A hard norther empties the shoreline and stacks fish in the guts. Fly when the morning is honest. The gold spoon is what you came for when it is not.

March. The coast wakes up. Reds and trout both peak. Water is finally in the window. Windy, but the fish are on the grass again.

March · peak

What is actually on

    RedfishSpeckled troutBlack drumSheepsheadCobiaFlorida pompano
Peak Present Off

Closures

No coast-wide harvest closure on the board. Still verify before you keep a fish.

Mangrove / gray snapper

Lutjanus griseus

Present MarchTexas

J

F

M

A

M

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

Thermal window

64°92°

68–88°F · best 74–84°F

The snapper that will live in a Texas jetty and a Keys creek. Schoolies on structure. Bigger fish on the wrecks. Not a yellowtail.

Fly. 7–8 wt. Small baitfish along the shade line. 16–20 lb near the roots.

Spin. Live shrimp or a small jig under the mangroves and on the rocks. Night on the lights is legal.

Leads the brief on Corpus, LLM.

Texas. Texas: typically 12 in, 4/day under snapper rules — verify TPWD.

Official source

Long record · Texas gill nets

Redfish per overnight set · spring

Nets are out until April. Showing the spring record. Public file 19822019. Where is the bay system, not a GPS mark.

  • Galveston Bay

    13.8 / set · 182,686 fish

  • Lower Laguna Madre

    13.2 / set · 135,364 fish

  • Sabine Lake

    12.1 / set · 89,946 fish

  • Aransas Bay

    11.8 / set · 138,386 fish

  • Corpus Christi Bay

    11.4 / set · 140,519 fish

  • Matagorda Bay

    9.0 / set · 144,557 fish

  • Upper Laguna Madre

    7.8 / set · 158,886 fish

TPWD still sets spring (Apr–Jun) and fall (Sep–Nov). This public file ends in 2019. It does not update with the tide.

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