Hooked Up: March 2025

Seems that our winter, if you could call it that, turned out to be short-lived, and the few cold spells experienced were equally short as well. March has come upon us fast and I only got to use my electric socks a few days this winter due to water temps in the 40s. The good news is that I can now trade my socks in for topwaters. Not a bad deal.

I’m asked often about the best month to book a trip for the largest trout of the year. March and into April are hands down when their winter belly fat and roe development are maxed out and therefore at the heaviest they will be all year.

For me, it’s an extra special time of the year, as it took what seemed like a lifetime to learn how to deal with the March winds and all of the curveballs that they can throw at you. Eventually, cracking the code to some degree, certainly made all the efforts worthwhile but, trust me, the trout gods still humble me daily. One thing that I try and sell my clients on is that, “the wind is your friend.” Anyone with any salt on them in this area knows that if the wind is slack we are in for a nice boat ride, but the bite may be somewhat of a challenge. Looking at the glass half full, slack winds are rarely an issue in March; so you will have ample opportunity in the conditions that are coming.

Catching mature trout during spawning season with consistency is full of trials and tribulations. I’m lucky enough to get more than my share of it, but humbling it can be. A perfect example was zeroing on Day 2 of a big tournament after leading on Day 1. My good friend and fishing hero, Jay Watkins, said, “Rowsey, what’s the moodiest, most irritable and uncooperative thing on the planet?” Having no idea where he was going with that, I asked him to humor me with his fish sense, “Well, you don’t have any kids, but let me tell you, it’s a pregnant woman. And that is exactly what you are trying to coax into playing with you.” Which got me to thinking…maybe he's right!

I still remember that little analogy when I find them feeding one day, only to be shut out the next. Yep, chasing big females this time of year can be that tricky, but the reward certainly makes it worth the effort. I’m always writing about my home water, Baffin and the Upper Laguna, but the same plays out in other grassy bays up through Port O’Connor. In one sense the largest of trout become somewhat predictable as they seek shallow grassy areas to release their eggs, but the flip side is just getting them to eat when they are in “one of their moods.”

If you are an impatient sort, being consistently successful could pose some challenges when chasing the best of the species this time of year. Having said that, though, something that works for me now and also when sight-casting during summer is downsizing my baits and sticking with natural colors when the fish are right under my feet but won’t eat. What I have eventually concluded is that all the cool lures and colors work great when the feed is on, but that is a best case scenario and hardly a real-world test.

The Bass Assassin 5” SW Shad (rattail) is about as big as I go in these scenarios and their Little P&V lures are just perfect for the situation. I’m a huge fan of MirrOlure’s Fat Boy and MirrOdine XL, but for this kind of bite I’m scaling back to the original MirrOdine 18 series or the floater diver known as the Double D (made exclusively by MirrOlure for Texas Custom Lures). In the bass realm I believe they call this finesse fishing, so I guess their big girls get moody, too. One thing I know for certain is that if you’re not casting you have zero chance of success.

Conservation Alert: If you fish between Rockport and Baffin you need to keep an eye on the proposed water desalination plants between Nueces Bay and Port Aransas. A reliable water supply for this area is definitely much needed, however, discharging the super-saline effluent into the bays would be about the same for bay ecology as spraying Roundup on weeds. Please get educated on this and get involved. Voice your opinion to local and state government!