From fall redfish runs to spring trout bites, and all the fish stories in between.
There comes a morning every year around Port Aransas when you step outside before daylight and realize something has changed. The air feels a little cooler, the breeze no longer feels like somebody aimed a giant hair dryer at your face, and for the first time in months, you can enjoy a cup of coffee outside without sweating through your shirt before the second sip. You stand there holding your coffee in one hand and the boat keys in the other, take a deep breath, and think, “Well, would you look at that. We survived another Texas summer.”
Fall is finally here. Or at least it’s thinking about showing up.
Now, I’m not talking about the calendar version of fall, when coffee shops start pushing pumpkin spice while it’s still 93 degrees outside and the mosquitoes are big enough to carry off a Chihuahua. I’m talking about real Coastal Bend fall, when the bays begin changing, the bait starts moving, and the fish apparently receive some secret memo the rest of us weren’t copied on. That’s when fishing around Port Aransas starts getting especially interesting.
September: Summer’s Last Stand
September around here is basically summer wearing a different shirt. The water’s still warm, the sun still has an attitude, and by ten in the morning you’re wondering why you didn’t bring another gallon of water. But the fishing can be outstanding, particularly early in the day.
Before sunrise, the flats can be alive with mullet, shrimp, redfish pushing wakes through skinny water, and speckled trout working grass lines and shell reefs. You might catch three nice trout before the sun clears the horizon and start thinking you’re some kind of professional fishing guide. Then the sun comes up, the bait scatters, the fish slide into deeper water, and suddenly you couldn’t catch a fish if you handed it a shrimp on a silver platter. You start wondering whether the fish quit biting or simply got smarter than you. Usually, it’s the second one.
As September wears on, the nights get a little longer and the bays slowly begin losing some of the heat they’ve been carrying all summer. Then the first real norther blows through, the wind swings around, the humidity drops, and everybody in Port Aransas digs out that one sweatshirt they haven’t needed since February. Out on the water, though, things are just getting started.
October and November: The Dinner Bell Rings
Those first strong north winds can push water off the shallow flats, forcing baitfish and shrimp that were scattered across miles of bay to move toward drains, guts, cuts, and deeper channels. Suddenly, places that didn’t look particularly interesting a week earlier become underwater feeding stations, and just about everything with fins and an appetite seems to know where dinner is being served.
Shrimp are a big part of the fall fishing story. As water temperatures cool and seasonal migrations pick up, shrimp begin making their way toward deeper water, passes, and eventually the Gulf. Trout know it, redfish know it, drum know it, and I’m pretty sure the hardheads have a group text about it. This is when paying attention to moving water and natural funnels can make a big difference.
It’s also when watching the birds can save you a whole lot of guessing. You might be cruising across open water when you spot a handful of gulls dipping over the surface. Suddenly, everybody in the boat becomes an air-traffic controller, pointing and shouting directions. Underneath those birds might be feeding trout, redfish, or a full-blown circus of ladyfish. Occasionally, you’ll find enough hardheads to qualify for a family reunion. That’s fishing. Sometimes you find the fish you’re looking for, and sometimes you find their less desirable relatives.
Mullet are another major part of the fall story. During summer, they’re everywhere, jumping, splashing, and occasionally launching themselves out of the water right beside your boat just to see if they can make you spill your coffee. But as cooler weather settles in, mature mullet begin gathering into larger schools and moving toward passes and offshore waters for spawning.
Around Port Aransas, that movement can create major bait concentrations near the ship channel, jetties, Lydia Ann Channel, Aransas Pass, and nearby Gulf beaches. And where the mullet go, the predators are rarely far behind.
Redfish: When Fishing Becomes an Emergency
Redfish are around the Coastal Bend all year, but fall brings some especially good opportunities. Slot reds continue cruising the grass flats, shorelines, shell, and drains, while the larger bull reds become more active around passes, jetties, and Gulf beaches.
A chunk of fresh mullet sitting on the bottom during the fall run can turn a perfectly peaceful morning into complete chaos. One minute you’re watching the sunrise and telling your buddy a story he’s already heard six times. The next minute, the rod doubles over, the drag starts screaming, somebody knocks over a drink, and four grown adults are hollering instructions about the net, the cooler, and the anchor rope like they’re landing a helicopter on an aircraft carrier.
Fishing is one of the few activities where catching exactly what you hoped to catch can immediately create an emergency. And that’s part of what makes fall redfish fishing so much fun.
Speckled Trout: Same Fish, Different Address
Speckled trout don’t pack their bags and leave the Coastal Bend when the weather turns cool. They just change neighborhoods. During stable fall weather, you’ll still find them around shallow grass, shell, and shorelines, especially when bait is present. But after a strong norther, those same fish may slide toward deeper guts, channels, and other areas where water temperatures are more stable.
That flat that was loaded with trout last Tuesday might look completely lifeless on Friday. The fish didn’t necessarily disappear; they just moved down the street without leaving a forwarding address. Learning to follow the bait and locate nearby deeper water is one of the keys to staying on trout as the seasons change.
Of course, sometimes you do everything right and still don’t get a bite. That’s why they call it fishing instead of grocery shopping.
Flounder: Flat Fish With Plans of Their Own
Fall also brings the southern flounder migration. As the season progresses, flounder begin moving toward the Gulf to spawn, often concentrating around drains, channels, passes, and sandy edges along the way. Finger mullet and live shrimp are excellent choices during open seasons, and any place where shallow water drains into deeper water deserves a closer look.
Flounder are sneaky little characters. They’ll lie there half-buried in the bottom, looking like an old doormat, waiting for something edible to swim past. Then they inhale it. And if you’ve ever caught one, you know the excitement often starts when you try to get it into the boat. For a fish shaped like a pancake, they can put up a pretty respectable argument.
One important reminder: Texas has special seasonal flounder regulations, including a fall closure period. Always check the current Texas Parks and Wildlife rules before targeting or keeping flounder.
The Great Bait Debate: Buy It or Catch It?
Every fall, fishermen face one of life’s great questions: should you buy bait or throw the cast net?
Live shrimp remains one of the most dependable all-around baits on the Texas coast. Trout eat it, redfish eat it, drum eat it, flounder eat it, sheepshead eat it, and mangrove snapper eat it. After a while, you begin to wonder whether the entire Gulf of Mexico runs on shrimp.
Most bait stands continue carrying live shrimp well into cooler weather, but supplies can become unpredictable after strong fronts or rough conditions. Calling ahead is a pretty good idea, because there’s nothing quite like getting up at 4:30 in the morning, loading the boat, filling the truck, and driving to the bait stand only to find a handwritten sign that says NO LIVE SHRIMP. At that point, even your breakfast taco seems disappointed in you.
Croaker can become harder to find as summer fades, but finger mullet can be outstanding fall bait. That’s where a cast net earns its place in the boat. There’s something deeply satisfying about spotting a school of mullet, throwing a perfect net, watching it open into a clean circle, and pulling it back loaded with bait. For about thirty seconds, you feel like a professional outdoorsman who could survive off the land. Then your next throw hits the side of the boat, wraps around your ankle, and comes back with one dead leaf and half a jellyfish. That usually restores the natural order of things.
The trick is knowing when to quit. If the bait’s there, throw the net. If it’s not, buy something and go fishing. Nobody wants to spend three hours catching bait for a fishing trip that lasts forty-five minutes. Texas regulations also allow certain shrimp to be caught with appropriate cast nets under specific rules, but shrimp are generally less predictable than mullet, so for most folks the bait stand is still the easier option.
December and January: Slow Down and Sleep In
By December and January, the Coastal Bend settles into its winter routine. The water gets colder, the fish become less aggressive, and the number of people willing to climb into a boat before sunrise drops considerably. Can’t imagine why.
One of the biggest adjustments is figuring out when to fish. All summer long, we’re conditioned to believe that if you aren’t on the water before daylight, you’ve already missed the best bite. But winter can turn that idea upside down. A shallow flat may be too cold at sunrise, yet after a few hours of sunshine, the water can warm just enough to bring baitfish and hungry redfish back into the shallows.
Sometimes a difference of only a couple of degrees is enough. Apparently, redfish are a lot like the rest of us. They don’t particularly want to get out of bed when it’s cold, but once things warm up and somebody mentions breakfast, they’re ready to move.
Winter fishing also requires a little more patience. Cold-water fish aren’t always interested in chasing a lure that’s moving like it’s late for work. Artificial baits often need to be worked slower, and it can pay to spend more time on a productive stretch rather than constantly running around the bay looking for something better.
That patience can produce some excellent speckled trout, including some real trophies. Sometimes you make twenty casts without a bite and start questioning every decision you’ve made since breakfast. Then your lure suddenly stops. At first you think you’ve hooked a clump of grass, until the grass shakes its head. That’s one of the better feelings in fishing, and it’s usually enough to make you forget how cold your fingers are.
Black Drum: The Underrated Winter Workhorse
Winter is also a great time to pay more attention to black drum. They don’t get nearly the publicity that trout and redfish do, but they’re strong fighters, smaller legal fish can make excellent table fare, and they can absolutely save a slow fishing trip.
Live shrimp around channels, bridges, shell, and deeper structure is hard to beat, although fresh dead shrimp works just fine, too. Black drum aren’t exactly known for being particular about whether their groceries were swimming five minutes ago.
When everything else has decided to take the day off, a good black drum bite can make you look pretty smart. And let’s face it, most of us can use a little help in that department.
February and March: Spring Starts Teasing Us
By late February, things begin changing again. A few warm afternoons show up, mullet become more active, bait starts appearing along shorelines, and redfish begin nosing around shallower water. You put away your heavy jacket, start talking about spring, and might even wear shorts.
Then another norther blows through, reminding everybody that Mother Nature has a pretty good sense of humor.
Spring in South Texas doesn’t arrive all at once. It negotiates. You get three beautiful days, one cold front, two days of wind, another beautiful afternoon, and then a forecast that looks like somebody threw darts at a weather map.
But by March, the overall trend is usually headed in the right direction. Water temperatures begin climbing, trout gradually move out of their deeper winter hangouts, and redfish spread across warming flats. Sheepshead also become an important part of the fishing conversation around jetties, bridges, and other structure.
Sheepshead are wonderful fish. They’re strong, they taste great, and they’ve mastered the art of stealing shrimp off a hook without ever letting you know they were there. You can go through fifteen pieces of bait and never feel a thing. Then you finally hook one and discover that the little bait-stealing thief can fight like a bulldog.
April and May: Everybody’s Hungry Again
Then April rolls around, and the Coastal Bend really begins waking up. Shrimp become more common in shallow water, mullet spread across the flats, small baitfish show up everywhere, and both trout and redfish become more active as the water warms.
Popping corks start sounding like dinner bells again, and topwater lures become increasingly dependable. There’s nothing quite like watching a speckled trout explode on a topwater plug, although watching the same trout miss it three times and then disappear forever is a pretty close second. You stand there staring at the water, wondering how a fish with a mouth that big managed to miss something moving six inches in front of its face.
By late April and May, fishing around Port Aransas is getting hot again in every sense of the word. Live shrimp is productive, croaker becomes more available, soft plastics work across grass and shell, and everybody starts talking about where the trout are biting.
The boat ramps get busier, the parking lots fill up, and somebody inevitably backs their trailer down the ramp with the tie-down straps still attached. Before long, the humidity is back, the mosquitoes are organizing, and summer is knocking on the door.
And Around We Go Again
That’s the fishing year around Port Aransas. September starts the change, although summer doesn’t surrender without a fight. October and November bring migrating bait, aggressive redfish, moving flounder, and some of the most exciting fishing of the year. Winter slows things down but still offers excellent opportunities for anglers willing to adjust their tactics, slow their presentations, and occasionally sleep past five in the morning.
March begins waking things up. April gets good. May gets even better. And before you know it, you’re standing on the boat ramp in July, sweat dripping off your nose, wondering why anybody voluntarily goes fishing when it’s a hundred degrees in the shade.
Which is pretty funny, considering that just a few months earlier you were standing in a cold north wind, shivering, and saying you couldn’t wait for summer.
But that’s fishing around Port Aransas. Every season gives you something different to chase, something new to figure out, and another perfectly good excuse to buy fishing tackle you probably don’t need.
And no matter how many years you’ve spent fishing these bays, you still head out every morning thinking, “Today’s the day. I’ve finally got these fish figured out.”
The fish, of course, have heard that one before. And somewhere beneath the surface, they’re probably laughing.
