Last week was a little unpredictable with strong southwest winds at 20-25 mph by mid-mornings, with strong tides that brought the mud deep into East Bay, which slowed fishing. Early mornings before strong winds and strong tides, we had good numbers of trout with an occasional slot red on bay reefs. The bay system is slowly recovering from the past rains and is becoming saltier, which is changing the patterns daily, One of the hot spots right now is along the Houston Ship Channel fishing shell pads around gas platforms. Excellent numbers of trout coming from these areas and they should continue to produce good numbers as the summer goes on. Other hot areas are Pelican Island and Sand Island but fish are running smaller (15-17 inches) with a lot of undersized mixed in. Bait of choice is still free-lining live croaker but good numbers also reported on live shrimp about 3 feet under a popping cork. It would be a good idea to call your local bait camp ahead of time because live bait has been hard to come by. Until next week, see you on the water.
Capt Ronnie Scheck
