On Galveston: May 2007

Late March and early April were just flat awesome; when the wind stayed down. Wade fishing was the ticket in Trinity Bay. There was a stretch of about five or six days when caught over one hundred trout. I am not bashful to say a couple of days we caught over 200 trout! We used top waters, tails and Corky's, the fish liked them all. The weather that hit us Easter weekend broke the pattern, though. The wind, cold temperatures and rain trashed everything.

I'm thinking the rest of April will be a little spotty. Fishing success will come from stable weather; we need another pattern to emerge. Right now passing fronts and strong wind are controlling things. We're really not all that far away though; Trinity Bay is still in good shape, even with the freshwater in the back. Both shore lines are holding a lot of fish and there are fish in the middle, just hard to get on them in this wind.

East Bay is the most consistent bay right now given these winds, but you still have to get lucky and walk into them. The signs are like always, bait and slicks. The wind keeps them stirred up, they are very fickle right now. One day you can work your tail off and catch 15 and the next you can go out and catch over 50.

May will look real good once the winds lay; you can wade in the mornings and work the slicks and go out and work the deep structures in the afternoons. May is usually the first of our really consistent months. Big trout are a bonus right now, even if we cannot find numbers of fish.

Don Farmer, good friend and former partner in Troutmasters, went out and walked into a real good school in East Bay the other day and had his career best stringer. Every fish was too big, he had to release them. They were all over 25-inches. He caught about 14 fish with his biggest one being 29.5" There are some good fish out there to be had.

Soft plastics are the best right now; we are using 1/8 and 1/4 ounce lead heads. Work the drop offs down the shorelines and the primary points. Top waters are working but by far the greatest number of bites are coming on plastic. Anything red, purple or black; the darker baits are working real well with the bigger fish.

West Bay has been a little spotty. It has been hit or miss in the coves and out in the middle working the shell and the streaks. It will bounce back; we have a spring transition every year over there and sometimes it just turns on a little behind Trinity and East Bay. From what I understand some of my buddies down in Rockport they are going through the same thing.

We have a lot of fish out there and the water is looking pretty good considering all the rain we have had. Outlooks are very positive. Upper and Lower Galveston Bay, around Texas City Dike and Dollar Flats, there are some good fish there, you just have to catch the right wind so you can work those areas over. Our upstream fishing towards the San Jacinto River and all those little back bays like, Burnett and Scott's are still holding a lot of small fish. Drift fishermen are getting out of the winds up there and are catching a lot of pencils, trying to see if they can make a day on it. Water is in good shape up there too.

That pretty much sums it up for the Galveston Bays, all we need right now is the right weather and we'll have lots of bites. It is springtime though and that can mean a rollercoaster so just hang on. If today was tough tomorrow might be your career best day!