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.

May. Still excellent if you beat the heat. First light on the grass, then deeper. Jacks arrive as noise.

May · peak

What is actually on

    RedfishSpeckled troutSnookTarponMangrove / gray snapperLane snapperGag grouperCobiaFlorida pompanoTripletailKing mackerelSpanish mackerelGreater amberjack
Peak Present Off

Closures

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

Red snapper

Lutjanus campechanus

Present MayTexas

J

F

M

A

M

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

Thermal window

60°88°

64–84°F · best 68–78°F

Gulf wrecks and snapper banks. Texas and Louisiana live on this fish in a short federal window. Not a Galveston grass headline. Not a Keys yellowtail.

Fly. A deep jig is the honest tool. This is not an 8-weight on the flat.

Spin. Federal bottom. Heavy jig or cut bait. The season is announced, not assumed.

Texas. Texas / federal Gulf: season is announced each year. Verify NOAA and TPWD the morning you leave. Do not invent an open day.

Official source

Want this week’s weather on top of the doctrine? Read the Saturday Letter.