The View: November 2022

If you hunt and fish and you can’t get excited about November, what are you doing on the coast? This is the month for shotgunners and pluggers – the best combined fishing and wing-shooting month on the calendar.

We will be hunting ducks in the morning and then getting on the water as fast as we can. Afternoons in November are awesome in Matagorda’s bays. Topwaters and soft plastics readily get eaten under the most beautiful autumn sunsets of the year.

Birds will work throughout the month over solid trout. East Bay, West Bay, Tres Palacios Bay, all are players and all will give up limits of trout on topwaters and soft plastics.

Mid-bay reefs have produced heavy trout while wading with topwaters and soft plastics like Down South Lures, Lil' Johns and Bass Assassins. Spots like Boiler Bayou, Don's Pipeline and Alice are holding good numbers of sand trout. Their white fillets are perfect in ceviche and while battered and fried in peanut oil; and, is a great way to take pressure off our speckled trout fishery while we are trying to recover.

The Colorado River is green from months of dry weather, which normally spells good catches of trout under lights at night from the piers. Good numbers of fish will be in the Diversion Channel this month. It's a lot like bass fishing – pitching baits to timber and fallen logs from previous river rises. Don't be afraid to toss a topwater along the bank. Solid trout hang on the edge in 5-8 feet of water and will bang a Super Spook, Skitter Walk or She Pup.

Waders have found good fish in West Matagorda Bay while wading the south shoreline and casting to points of shell. Topwaters and soft plastics have been the ticket. Half-Moon Reef in West Bay is always good when the wind allows. This month soft plastics and topwaters are a good bet and don't be surprised to find birds working near the reef.

Bull redfish have been found along the beachfront and the Matagorda jetties are holding lots of redfish on cracked blue crabs, mullet and fresh table shrimp.

As always, this time of year encourages slot-sized redfish to school in bunches of two dozen or more along the grass line. Spots like Shell Island, Twin Island, Cut Off Flats and Zipperan Bayou in Matagorda are good spots. Mud Lake and Crab Lake are players along the shoreline with live shrimp.

When you see a bird hovering or a shrimp jumping in the grass, cast in front of the V-shaped wake. Few things in this fishing world rival seeing a herd of fall redfish in less than a foot of water with back exposed.

Please respect our trout fishery as we recover from last February’s freeze. If November holds to traditional form, there will be days that seem “too easy” to catch speckled trout. Please consider giving these fish a break and letting them swim away. Yes, I love fried trout fillets, but the betterment of the fishery far outweighs the great taste at supper.

Most attitudes are changing, but there is more work to do. Captains need to take the lead and promote conservation on their boats. Not only is it a great ideology for our estuaries, but also an even better business decision for the health of the charter captain business.