South Padre: April 2025

April is finally here and I would like to talk about three very significant aspects of fishing this month. First, is the potential for the heaviest trout of the year. Mature female specks are still what we call “winter fat” and they’re also likely to be bulging with eggs. In fact, just before the first spawning event of the season a large female can be packing a pound or more extra weight in the form of roe; which means that early April is a great time to target a career-best specimen. Notice that I said, “target” and not “catch.” More on this in a bit.

Second, is unstable weather. April is often the windiest month of the entire year; pretty much a continuation of March but with stronger gusts. There will likely be some stormy weather coming in from the gulf, and we’re not out of the woods yet as regards cold fronts from the north. So, putting all this weather stuff together, it would be safe to say that water clarity can be a crap shoot most days. Too often we’ll be fishing where we can clarity-wise, not where we should.

Third, April brings us noticeably higher tides. Our back bays, mostly barren of life over the winter months, will now be filling with springtime tides and all manner of marine life. The higher water levels will be like TEXDOT opening new roadways. Fish will be on the move, scattered along every shoreline and piece of mid-bay structure along the way. Perhaps now you can better understand my use of the word target rather than catch!

What seemed like an excellent winter for big trout starting in the fall months turned out to be just an “OK” winter trophy season. It's not what I had expected and even hoped for after seeing all the big fish back in September and October. While we caught our share of really nice fish, we found none of the giants the season is famous for producing and none that weighed more than nine pounds.

A few more tidbits to keep in mind if an April trophy is your goal. You can start by doing your homework. Focus your efforts on solunar majors and minors during new and full moon periods. Two tide days provide potential for the greatest water movement. Incoming or outgoing tidal flows during early morning and late evening hours have been our most productive times during the spawning months.

April is also widely known as the month when the entire ecosystem awakens from winter’s grasp. Undersize and keeper-size trout will become very active in their feeding, quite often attracting flocks of terns and gulls. Redfish, too, can sometimes be found under the flocks of screaming gulls.

Potholes, or sandy depressions, scattered amid solid seagrass beds become ambush feeding zones for both trout and redfish during springtime. Be sure to access this month's video via the QR code for an explanation of what I call “pickpocketing the potholes.”

Our redfish numbers in the Lower Laguna are currently looking very healthy. As tides rise this month redfish will find their way into westside back-bays, feeding on the abundant juvenile shrimp and small crabs that will be their primary diet for the next several months.

I like to utilize early morning and late evening hours when winds are generally lighter to target areas with less-vegetated bottom. Later in the day, when the wind really picks up around midday through mid-afternoon, we quite often find schools of redfish rooting bottom for shrimp buried in the grass and mud on shallow flats. The tipoff to this action will be lots of gulls wheeling and diving to grab shrimp the reds have driven to the surface. Don’t be surprised to find an occasional large trout amongst those rooting redfish.

If you’ve no choice but to fish during windy days, paddletail soft plastics create vibrations in the water that fish can key on when water clarity becomes murky to downright muddy. This is when our DieZel MinnowZ, Big BallerZ, and PaddlerZ from Z-Man really shine. If you prefer to escape the wind, try fishing early in the morning and late in the evening.

Finding protected shorelines, coves, or heavily vegetated areas with clear water, even in heavy wind, can be a plus when throwing artificial baits. Rising water temperatures this month will encourage increased surface feeding activity, but don’t be the guy missing all those blowups because your hooks are dull and rusty. One of those misses might have been the trout of a lifetime.