Mid-Coast Bays: April 2024

Well, just when our trout fishery was showing positive signs of rebounding from the freeze of 2021, Mother Nature went and pulled a fast one on us. Although the freeze we had this past January was a short one it did affect a large number of trout, redfish and black drum. The redfish and drum did not suffer nearly as much as the larger trout. I waded many areas after this recent freeze and saw numerous upper-slot trout carcasses on the shorelines, as well as kicking them up from the bottom in back lakes.

Pre-fishing the 2024 POC Freezeout Tournament in late January, my team and I caught zero trout during three days on the water. Granted we were fishing the POC waters in known big fish haunts that were holding tournament quality fish before the freeze. We did finally find some tournament grade fish further south of the POC area.

This confirmed what I and most everyone else that fishes this area seriously for big trout already knew; our trout fishery has not rebounded from the 2021 freeze and I whole-heartedly believe the 17- to 23-inch emergency slot regulation contributed to the problem. Let me explain.

When we first began fishing the 17- to 23-inch slot regulation it was fairly easy to get your three trout without culling through a lot of small fish. Fast forward a couple of months and we were culling a lot of fish.

While this was going on there were a great number of anglers wading back to the boat with fish on a stringer to verify length on a Check-It Stick. Checking length on your rod and checking on the Stick are two different things and lots of fish were being released at the boat. Most were in good shape and swam away but quite a few were noticeably weak. Still not a large problem until the dolphins got wise. It got so bad, whether releasing while wading or drifting in the boat, the dolphins would hang around and eat everything we were releasing. And not just trout; I watched them take redfish, drum, and even flounder.  It was like they didn’t have to hunt to eat; just shadow a group of waders or follow a boat!

I don’t blame the dolphins; we trained them. Fishermen could have done a much better job of releasing their fish. Shellie and I recognized the seriousness of this situation and began to employ a release technique that I will pass along for others to adopt. Hopefully, if enough people get onboard we can eliminate a lot of the problem.

When wade fishing and dolphins start showing up to get a handout, rather than simply releasing them immediately, place them instead in your floating dip net and release them when the dolphins are not so aggressive. This worked well for us and no doubt saved a lot of fish.

OK, off the soapbox. Let’s move on to what’s been happening on the water recently. Trout fishing is still a struggle in our area – compared to what it was prior to the recent January freeze. We are still catching trout but not like it should be, or even like it was in 2023. Redfishing has been off the hook and thankfully saving many days for us. Although a lot of reds died in this past freeze I really haven’t noticed a decline in the availability of slot-size fish.

I am very hopeful that the new 15- to 20-inch retention slot and three fish bag limit will be a positive step toward rebuilding our trout fishery.

Lure selections heading into spring will remain much the same as we have been using the past several months. The Texas Customs Double D has become a standby for me. I love the action and the ability to run it slowly or with quick twitches over shallow grass beds that are beginning to flourish along many shorelines. Favorite colors are the Crown Royal and Pistachio. Crown Royal has a gold insert and the Pistachio has silver, both are highly reflective and can draw strikes from the most wary trout and redfish. My other standby lures will of course be the tried and true 4” Saltwater Assassin in Purple Chicken and Magic Grass. I rig these on the 1/16-ounce Bass Assassin jigheads.

In closing I would like to make a plea to all anglers to please keep only keep what you think you might need for a fresh fish dinner. If we do not all come together and change our thinking on this our trout fishery could be headed for even worse trouble.

Fish hard, fish smart!