Mansfield Report: May 2025

Greetings from Port Mansfield! Here we are better than halfway through spring with summer just around the corner. I can honestly say we’ve had an exceptional spring, specifically as it related to our trout fishery. We were able to ditch our waders for wet-wading about the first week or so of April, right about the time our larger trout began to show signs of spawning. We capitalized on this and concentrated on key areas where trout were likely to spawn; we were successful, but that came with some challenges. Just as we were dialing in on this Mother Nature blessed us with two days of torrential rain. My rain gauge overflowed within the first eight hours and some parts of the RGV received eighteen-plus inches. The Arroyo Colorado River crested over twenty-nine feet, shattering the previous record of twenty-five feet. Needless to say, our bay took on an abundance of freshwater runoff in short order. Our water rose at least sixteen inches within three days and levels remained elevated for some time. I say all that only to point out some of my targeted areas for spawning trout were inundated with freshwater and super-high water levels.

With all this in mind, the east side of the bay remained relatively salty, so we focused our efforts on that side of the bay. This was relatively easy for us to adjust since we were dialed in on good trout in those areas. We found good spawning zones, deep guts surrounded by sand bars that tapered into big flats with scattered grass beds. There was plenty of current in these areas, especially when the southeasterly winds were cranking.

This all sounds like a great setup for anglers targeting trophy trout, and it was but it was also easy to walk through the fish if you were not paying attention. I learned this recently when one of my anglers, Kerry Holliday (see below) caught his personal best trout coming in well over nine pounds. We simply were on good fish but like many, we walked through them.

I mentally caught myself during this time and started walking back into the wind and ended up parallelling the ridge the fish were holding on. This would not have been an easy task had the fish not been eating topwaters, simply because they were holding tight on a ridge. I was forced to cast into the wind since I had passed them up. Additionally, I had to cast crosswind to cover as much water as I could without wading back through the zone.

Two things to consider, having good equipment during this time is crucial to being successful. I was loaded with my Corky G2 Green Rod by FTU which was paired with a Shimano Metanium reel. A Mansfield Knocker is easy to throw into the wind which helps a lot versus trying to toss a soft plastic into the wind. If you are not that experienced with a baitcasting reel then a good spinning setup would get this job accomplished easily.

We had remarkable success with this “pattern” so when I picked up my guys, I had two other locations in mind that mirrored this location. We replicated our success, and you might already know, we did not walk through the fish a second time. We might have even circled back around but I figured we would use this opportunity to validate a pattern and that is just what we did on two other spots on our way back to Port Mansfield.

In closing I will say summer is almost here so expect more boat traffic on the water. Keep in mind you can still catch fish during high traffic times, but you must be patient. If fish are eating, you can sometimes catch them in or near propwash from another boat. I have learned this throughout my fishing career. Most of the time the angler (me included) becomes frustrated with boats cutting off our wade more so than the fish refusing to eat because another boat came plowing through and cut us off. The best anglers I know are the most patient anglers. Keep that in mind on the water and off.

Be sure to check out the QR code below regarding the latest Turtle Box, a great audio alternative to putting an entire radio/stereo system in your boat.