Hooked Up: November 2023

Good morning from Baffin Bay. I hope this finds y’all enjoying all this great state has to offer this fall. I’ve been squeezing every drop of juice out of the turnip; lots of dove hunting, sitting in trees with a bow, campfires, and good food. It was good to hit the reset button, but the water has been calling me home since a couple of fronts have arrived.

I’m writing this article from the boat as I watch my clients catch and release some solid trout to six pounds. I just happen to have a very talented crew of sportsmen today and can just turn them loose on the structure holding the fish. In fact, I caught the first few trout, and they sent me “to my corner.” Hope I’m not jinxing it but looks like a glorious day is developing on Baffin.

As most of you are well aware, there is so much taking place in the future of our Texas trout fishery. Scoping meetings have just been conducted to obtain public input on what the users want from the fishery. Outside of the guiding community, the large majority of users seem to want a change in bag limit and retention slot. I’ve been fighting for this for years, but the slow recovery from the February ‘21 freeze and number of users on the water seems to have opened some eyes to the fact that change needs to happen, or at least considered at this point.

Who knows where it will end up? I have every finger and toe crossed that permanent steps will be taken to ensure we have not only great numbers of trout back in the bay, but old school quality to go along with it. If you were fortunate enough to fish these waters from 1990 through 2015, then you clearly understand why I am so passionate about trying to get it back to where it used to be and break this monotonous mindset that everything is OK… when in fact it is surviving on a barely fuzzy image of its former self.

I’m so thankful that so many of the younger anglers have listened to the stories from their salty old mentors and want to do the right thing to get it back so they can live some of those days that we post-50-year-olds got to experience. If present day users ever get a taste of that, I can see the catch and release mantra in the speckled trout fishery becoming as celebrated as the bass fishery. Wouldn’t it be magical if you could go out and catch thirty trout a day between 4- and 8-pounds? Used to be pretty commonplace.

Winter and spring of ‘22 showed great signs of what this year will be. I certainly think you will hear of more trout over 8-pounds this season than you have in a long while. When the bag limit reverted to five trout on September 1, 2023, there were a lot of guides hanging them back on nails for social media exposure. As much as I hated to see it, there was an abundance of upper-slot trout displayed, which tells me a couple things.

First, we are definitely on the road to recovery and the bay has some up-and-coming stud trout for the future (if they can survive the croaker gauntlet). Second, is that “guides” just aren’t the brightest apples in the barrel. Blows my mind that we are still very much in recovery from that freeze and guys making money from the fishery feel the need to kill the very thing that provides their livelihood. Reminds me of the inefficiency in D.C. Pre-freeze, this same group was specializing in black drum during the summer months as the average trout size had gotten so small that it wasn’t worth buying croakers to catch them. How quickly we forget!

By the time y’all read this you will likely have begun donning Simms waders to work the grass and potholes of the Laguna Madre. It’s the beginning of a glorious time of year and this cooler season will turn some everyday fishermen into legends amongst their peers. I hope everyone reading this seizes that moment when it arises. My clients and I will be digging deep for the best big trout bites available down here to claim our moment of God’s daily blessings… whether it be a giant trout, a light bulb learning moment, or just making memories with best friends.