Hooked Up: August 2023

I know we have all experienced it now, but can y’all believe the heat this year? I’ve been kicking rocks in Baffin now for about thirty-five years and I cannot ever remember a June so hot. July wasn’t much better and some days worse. There are just no “gimmes” for a lure fisherman, it seems.

When I was much younger, and not guiding, somehow or another I became a nocturnal fisherman for about eight years during the summer months. I’m not sure who sparked the idea in my head, but it took off like a raging forest fire.  

Now, before I go any further with this, I no longer recommend this activity, at least the way I was doing things. 

Those years taught me much about all saltwater species in the area, but especially trout. The most important lessons were that trout just feed better in the dark nights of the hot summer months versus the sun beating down on them, including that first light feed we so count on every morning we launch the boat 1.5 hours from making our first wade. The real lesson was in the importance of the moon’s position in relation to the earth, with regards to fishing (major and minor feed periods). So many calm, quiet nights would be just that…calm and quiet! However, when the moon started to get overhead or fall from the western sky, all hell could and would break loose. 

Many nights you could almost set your clock to the feed periods. That was wonderful stuff and still exists, but just not in my wheelhouse anymore since I started guiding.

The point of sharing that is because fishing is downright tough during the daylight hours of August. The best bite in any 24-hour period right now is well after the sun has gone down, and usually before it breaks the eastern horizon in the morning. So often on these days we will pull into an area and find everything looking perfect, on paper anyway. Decent bait activity, slicks, etcetera; only to find that the bite is tough. Well, those slicks are telling you that the trout are still around, but they also tell me that they have already gotten their bellies full in the dark and are now just offshore of us, relaxing and burping up all the work they have been putting in before we arrived. 

Fishing offshore of the more shallow feeding grounds is just about always the best bet during this warm season. Scraping bottom with Bass Assassins is perhaps the best way to trigger a bite from trout that are laid up in the depths and just want to be left alone. And, while I will readily admit that it’s not always the sexiest way of pluggin’, nonetheless, it is the method I find to be most effective when the water temps are sustained at 90° and above. It’s not an easy assignment though, if your goal is to turn a tough bite into a good day, it will more than likely require a good deal of fortitude on your part. One truth that cannot be denied is that if you don’t have your line in the water the chances of catching are zero.

The TPWD commission is meeting this month and has a couple days built in to hear public comment. I intend to be there and plead the case for a permanent lower bag limit on trout. We have certainly made gains since the big freeze, but we still have many miles to go to get back to historic numbers. 

Taking the current bag limit and length restrictions back to the pre-freeze regulations (5 trout at 15-25” with one over 25” per day) is no longer sustainable with close to two million users. All of the gains we have made since the freeze are going to be handed back over…potentially putting almost every spawning-age trout back on the fillet table.   

In the event that we have another freeze in the next few years, we will be forever trying to make up lost ground. TPWD needs to plan for such events, and keep “operating expenses” in the bank account for stormy days in the future. Being proactive towards the fishery versus reactive just makes common sense for the future of every Texas bay system.  

So, in closing, y’all do what you can in the water. Educate, lead by example, and let your voices be heard via letters and emails to TPWD Coastal Fisheries and the commissioners.