Lessons From The 2021 CCA STAR Tournament

As the Assistant Director of Texas STAR, I get questions all the time about catching tagged redfish. We always give the advice of fishing popular spots, easy to access areas and places where they have been caught in the past. With this year‘s new tournament format, we were able learn even more about catching these highly sought-after fish to share with Texas anglers. Even though most tagged redfish are caught not far from where they’re released, we noticed a pattern among the majority of tagged redfish that were caught.

No matter if it was caught on the Louisiana border, mid-coast, or the Rio Grande valley, all but a few fish were caught on the windward side of the bay. The few that weren’t caught on windward shorelines were caught in bayous or drains with moving water. When the wind lays and the temperature starts to rise, fish will seek these areas out not only for feeding potential, but the presence of cooler water with more dissolved oxygen as well.

The second, and most important, takeaway from this years expanded tagged redfish catches is that you never know when that one fishing trip, or one more cast, is going to be the fish of a lifetime. Whether it was fishing while limping a broken boat motor back to the dock, breaking away for a couple hours to fish, or simply going out on the water just to relax and maybe catch a fish after work, you never know what that next cast may have in store.

By Dylan Sassman, CCA Texas STAR Assistant Director