Texas Gulf Coast Report
Oct. 7 - Slow trout, fast reds and improving flounder could change overnight
By Doug PikeEditor's note: Doug Pike spent 23 years as the outdoors columnist at the Houston Chronicle, nine years and counting on radio (he's the host of the Doug Pike Show on 790 the Sports Animal), two years and counting as back-page humor columnist for Saltwater Sportsman, 10 years and counting on the masthead for Field & Stream, two years and counting on the masthead and as columnist for Texas Fish & Game, 10 years editor of Tide magazine for CCA. He has won more than 100 state and national awards for writing, photography, broadcast and editing.
It would have been too much to ask, really, that the Texas coast be spared from tropical weather this entire summer season and that trout fishing maintain a wild pace for more than a year.
David Copperfield could not have made speckled trout disappear from the middle Texas coast more surely or thoroughly as did an unfortunate stack of circumstances. Pro guides from Matagorda to and beyond Rockport (and even some farther south) continued this past week to wrestle and struggle against fish that barely a year ago were said to be in unprecedented numbers.
The number of specks on most stringers thus far in October, however, can be met without using any fingers on a second hand. And that's for the pros. Amateurs, who even in a good year average barely one keeper per day of the state's most popular marine gamefish, are falling shorter still.
It's still early to press any panic button and declare that Texas' trout were abducted by aliens, but if action doesn't improve behind one of the next two or three good cool fronts that lumber across the bays and into the Gulf, fishermen will start asking an entirely new batch of questions.
In consolation, at least, redfish continue to provide reliable entertainment even in the absence of inshore fishing's featured act. There are redfish shallow, redfish deep and redfish in between. There are redfish in the marshes, redfish in the bays, redfish along the beachfront and redfish out to a couple of miles offshore.
And on the whole, those fish are hungry. They'll eat live bait fished under corks, dead bait soaked on bottom and most anything off the metal and plastic menus. Day or night.
The Big 3 fishing tournament out of Galveston this past Saturday, despite less-than-favorable conditions that included a strong, steady wind, saw more reds than any other species hauled to its weigh station.
Also helping to distract fishermen from disappointing trout action of late are increasing numbers of flounder that are moving deliberately toward major passes and ultimately will winter in the deep Gulf.
It's mostly smaller males now, but with each degree of drop in water temperature, the average size of flounder being intercepted along their migratory routes will increase by an inch or so. The biggest females may not move en masse for another month, depending on weather, but they will be worth the wait.
Slow trout, fast reds and improving flounder summarize this past week's action. Don't be surprised this time of year if everything changes overnight.
