Summer Fishing Opportunities

Transcribed with permission from the Port Isabel/South Padre Island (Texas) Press Parade -- June 1996

We weighed the first kingfish of the year at Hi-way Bait Stand this week. A big old, fat one that went 37 pounds. This means the water has finally warmed up and late spring-summer fishing is upon us.

So, if you get tired of catching speckled trout (and this is a banner year for it), you can change your area of fishing and your pattern to go after the fish that make up the "other" fishery for our piece of heaven on the lower Gulf Coast of Texas.

Snook, tarpon, mangrove snapper, spadefish, giant redfish and, of course, king mackerel - around here we call 'em kingfish - are all takable in these parts.

Area and Pattern

Of the two (area and pattern), the most important would have to be area. It is very uncommon to catch any of the above-mentioned fish drifting behind Three Islands, or on Gas Well Flats. Where you do fish for most of these species is around structures that will hold a lot of bait. The three most prominent areas will be what remains of the old causeway, the new causeway near the high part, and the best fish attractor in the area, the Brazos-Santiago Jetties.

Fishing the jetties

The jetties are full of shad, mullet and real soon, Spanish sardines, not to mention that is also the gateway for all of the shrimp that have grown up in the bay and are migrating out into the Gulf of Mexico. So really all a fish has to do isit there and open his mouth. And sometimes it seems that easy to catch them.

Lately (in the last few years), we have been having a lot of fun with kingfish using the same tackle we use for trout and redfish. Expect to have a reel stripped of line once in a while but that's part of the fun. You can either anchor or make short drifts from the sea buoys to and past the end of the jetties. I prefer drifting but sometimes there are so many boats you have to anchor.

What tackle to use

The terminal tackle is real simple: use 110-pound piano wire using either a 3/0 long shank hook or a 2/0 or 3/0 wide gap hook. Once in a while the kingfish are deep, so use a 1/2-ounce barrel weight letting it slide on the 12- to 14-inch leader.

My bait of choice is live mullet or live Spanish sardines freshly caught the morning of use. If you don't know how to use a cast net, find the freshest frozen mullet available. If it's fresh, the eyes of the mullet won't be clouded over.

OK, now you are rigged and baited, cast down wind or down current if its real calm, and slowly retrieve the bait back to the boat. You will know when you have a strike as they hit and run.

Don't set the hook, the fish will set it for you. It is very common using this rig to also hook up with tarpon, redfish and snook. All of the snook we hooked last year were in the 30 to 35 pound range, and were released. In fact, I try to have all my guides release all of the snook caught. The biggest tarpon we caught this way last year was an estimated 95 pounds and the largest redfish was 47 inches. As you can see, this type of fishing can provide a lot of fish stories.

Don't overlook the smaller species

The other two fish caught around the bait-holding structure are mangrove snapper and spadefish. Again, we use light tackle but vary the terminal tackle slightly. Instead of using piano wire, use 30-pound mono with a 1/2-ounce egg weight. Make it about 16 inches long using a #1 or #2 wide gap hook.

Mangrove snapper come in all sizes and we try to not keep them until they are at least 11 to 12 inches long. But don't think they are just small fish. Last year, we had a lot of four to five pound fish with the biggest being nine pounds.

The bait to use on these fish is usually live shrimp, the larger the better, but you can also do real well and catch bigger fish with small finger mullet.

No boat, no problem

This fishing isn't just for those of us lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a boat. Every year, "rock hoppers," people fishing from the jetties, account for a lot of kingfish and mangrove snapper. And the techniques explained here will work equally as well on the jetties as in a boat.

Calling on a lot of years fishing the lower Gulf Coast, I predict 1996 to be a banner year for fishing in general. Remember, our fishery is very delicate, so only keep what you can use, return everything you can't use back to the water, and leave it as good as you can. This way, maybe our grand babies will have the thrill of landing the "big one."

Good fishing
Capt. Lou Austin

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