ROCKPORT

Reported by CAPT. JARED McCULLOCH

 

Turkey, Reds, Santa!

 

 

IT IS FINALLY ONE OF my favorite times of the year. A lot of people have moved to the woods to chase after their monster. The water has many fewer boats, pressure is low, and you don’t have to be up early to go catch either. You can leave the early mornings to the duck hunters, and I guarantee they will appreciate that as well. 

If you’re looking to expand your knowledge, the lower water levels will help with navigating and spotting things in the water. So get out there and learn a new area. Up north of Rockport, all the reefs and ledges are full of fish, easy tactics. Shrimp and popping cork, if you’re staring at tails up on top of the reef, tie on some braid for a leader on the popping cork and fire out a chunk of mullet. There’s no rules that say your leader has to be mono. For the wader, the back lakes and slightly muddy bottoms will start to become your friends again. I like to downsize my lures, 1/16 oz jig heads, 3” lures, a small natural presentation especially if we just had a good cold front push through and drop the water a few degrees.

Hopefully everyone’s family has Santa planning to visit them at the end of December but there’s other big bellied red fellas coming in big numbers in the winter as well. Playing the tides and time to your advantage with the water already at low winter levels is taking the game and leveling up. Deeper channels out of the skinny flats will load up with red fish and black drum when the tide falls out heavy. Under the water in these small channels it looks like Black Friday morning outside Walmart before the doors open. These days will come and go, stretches of 2-4 days and the tides will shift or change and then you’ll have to wait again, but with tide apps and the improved accuracy will help you with planning out when this is going to happen. 

Stay safe, stay dry and tight lines this winter!

 

 

 

•  •  •