Another week in the books here, and time for an updated Rockport fishing report. As we close out the month of October, the fishing continues to get better and better down here on the flats of Southwest Texas. The trend should continue as we move on into November and the remainder of our Fall.
It was a pretty good past week here on the Texas Coast. The redfishing was pretty solid early in the week. Most of our early mornings were spent spotting tails in flooded grass areas. Each provided a good number of shots to fish rooting around in some pretty thick grass. If you could get a fly within their sight line, it would get eaten. You just had to hope the fish got to it before the fly, or leader, got jammed up in the grass or mangroves.
As the days went on, the tails would diminish and most of our action was provided by cruising fish. There would be the occasional small school here and there, usually in the 5-10 fish range. But most were singles or paired up. Very often our best fishing came in a little deeper water. Often almost two feet deep. Not all bad, since most everything was still flooded down here. But there were plenty of shots at reds, drum and sheepshead. With the occasional cruising trout mixed in as well.
Late this past week, we finally had a legit cold front pass through. A full day of cold weather and winds ripping from the North shut us down on Friday. We’ve had a few minor little Northerns blow through already this month. But this was the first that brought high winds and temps down to 50 degrees overnight. It was a much needed reset button for the area and our fish.
We woke up Saturday morning to low temps right at 50 degrees. So it was a bit of a later start to get out on the water for the day. But we were in our spots and fishing by 9:30 that morning, following the cold front. Tails, bank crashers and cruising fish greeted us right out of the gates. Not a ton of movement, but a good bit considering the cooler temps that morning. By mid day, it was on. As we were unhooking one fish, two others were swimming right at the skiff. This continued through the remainder of the afternoon. Tons of happy fish out there. Today (Sunday) was much more of the same. Outstanding fishing out there, from all our guys fishing South of Corpus on up to San Antonio Bay.
The heavy North winds finally blew a bunch of our water out of the system. So things are finally back to normal around here as far as tides. This was a very welcome sight. And water temps dropped a bunch as well. Saturday morning most areas were reading in the 61-62 degree range. Later that afternoon, they still hadn’t reached 70. Pretty darn good for our fish.
Flies this weekend were all over the place. Honestly, the fish were so damn happy, that it really didn’t matter. They were eating everything we put in front of them. But our usual crab patterns were first out of the box each day. In fact, they even worked on a few mackerel and a small spinner shark. So that was something a bit different.
There are still a good number of migratory fish around. Capt. Jeff was offshore today in search of some of them. While we haven’t seen any tarpon lately, they are most likely still around. But a couple mornings we’ve seen very large schools, 1-200 fish, of jacks on the surface. Also, there are lot’s of big bull reds moving through as well. Many of those are staying schooled up in a little deeper water as well. So we are keeping the 10wt. in the boat each day, ready to rock.
The weather the next handful of days is looking pretty good. Easy daytime temps, cooler nights and low winds are looking like the norm for our upcoming week. Combine all that with some lower water and good tides, and the fishing should be outstanding all week. All it took was one decent storm to get us there. But it should fish very well from now on into our Winter months.
We have boats out every day this coming week. So we will keep the info and images coming. If you are looking to get out on the water, you can always contact us any time if you would like to BOOK A TRIP or need any up to the minute Southwest Texas fly fishing or Rockport fishing report type news. We continue to post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. Or perhaps SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel as well. We continually are trying to add more videos and stuff there. We try to keep stuff fresh for those of you that are wishing you were on the flats with us. So be sure to follow us on all our social media stuff. And don’t forget to sign up for our monthly newsletter below.