Hooked Up: April 2025

Windy! March has given us some great days of peace on the water, with little reminders that she owns us if she wants to. I do not know the exact correlation between wind and dry conditions, but they seem to go hand and hand. Granted, spring is always a blow down here, and most days it’s workable. But let this be a reminder to you, if you are hiring me or any other guide and the captain phones and says, “It might be a little too western to go out tomorrow,” just take his advice and reschedule it.

There is always a fine line playing the wind this time of year and if I’m willing to give up a day’s income that should be all a prudent man should need to know about our chances of having a successful day on the water. Y'all may be shocked at some of the conditions folks insist on going out in and still expect to catch a hundred fish. Personally, I like to sleep well at night knowing that I didn’t just take your money for a boat ride.

It’s been a long time since I’ve said this; “Baffin is on fire right now for big trout.” Yep, I just said it. Been years since anything close to that has rolled off of my lips. Even before the freeze of ‘21 it couldn’t honestly be said. Anyone who knows, knows that we were in a vortex of decline when it came to having our natural trophy fishery intact. Too many people, too many guides, too liberal regs for the number of users, poor water quality, etc., had set us up for what was about to become the death of the best trophy trout fishery in the country. Although that ’21 freeze set us back even further, it became the catalyst for TPWD to straighten the curve and put the fishery above all else.

Essentially, we have had a limited harvest since the freeze and new, conservative bag limits enacted just over a year ago. This spring we are seeing what good management and conservative bag limits can do for a fishery. Big time catches of all classes of fish are plastered all over social media on the daily. In fact, Capt Brett Caron landed a 10-plus and an 11.84 trout during the same wade at the end of February. Folks, those are some old school numbers we haven’t heard of in almost twenty-five years. As of this writing my groups haven’t topped the double-digit mark but we are smelling the bacon on the griddle and are optimistic that our name is about to be called to pick up our order.

Something special is happening in our bays and I know without a doubt it’s attributable to the new regulations combined with catch and release ethic being practiced today by so many anglers. There are still some aspects of how some use the fishery that are disagreeable to me but the attitude of so many younger anglers toward CPR and fishing for sport rather than killing all they can gives me great hope for the future.

Speaking of sport; I’ve been doing something that I haven’t been a part of since 2012 and that is participating in the Saltwater Legends Tournament Series. I was super active in that scene for thirteen years but once I started guiding full-time it was hard to keep clients in the action and be 100% committed to scouting tourney fish. The two just don’t mesh well. I’m a purist and fair chase guy and could never find it within myself to use a tower boat to find fish. To each their own; but to me it short circuits the tradition and basic sport of fishing.

This is by no means insinuating that the guys doing it aren’t skilled, as most of those guys are excellent sticks and still have to catch the fish they see from the tower. I just know going into it that they are very hard to beat when availing themselves to that advantage. The real truth of the matter, and all things considered, I’m having fun and didn’t realize how much I missed the competition, plotting, and planning.

April is a monster month to catch a lifetime trout. Y'all should make every effort to get down and try it if that’s on your bucket list. Always a few cancellations every month, so try me on short notice if you get the itch. Also, my charter books for May and into summer are officially open. Text me for dates: 361-960-0340.

Remember The Buffalo! -Capt David Rowsey