I will be in/near Rockport Tx June 5th through June 12th. We are staying in a condo at Holliday Beach. I am wondering if anyone has some fishing experience at that pier and what bait/times I might have the best luck? I have a guide set up to help me track my favorite fish, the speck trout, but I have some young ones who want to toss out a line, reel it in, toss it back out.....

Any tips would be appreciated.

If you're fishing from a hotel pier, night time is usually pretty good in the summer months under the lights. You can normally tell if the trout are around as you can hear or see them pop at bait and shrimp. The outer edges are usually best but you can still catch some in the middle of the lights. You can go with live shrimp, free-lined or under a cork. Or, a myriad of artificial baits and tandem jigs will get you a lot of bites. Most fishing under the lights with artificial baits tend to do better with smaller baits like jigs and such but I sometimes stick to mirrorlures and such to weed out smaller trout. Depending on how young your kids are it can be challenging if the pier is narrow or uneven so be careful. You don't necessarily have to go to the end either, many times the lights on the walkway out will have plenty of fish. Granted, you will normally catch a lot of short trout but you should catch some. Dead shrimp will always get you bites but you also catch a lot of hard heads, fun for the kids to catch, but be careful handling those. Daylight on the piers can be good too. Anytime during the daylight hours you can get bites with dead shrimp, just a lot of head heads and piggy perch but that will keep the kids busy.

I fished that pier 3 different summer vacations before moving here.
I can tell you that late summer the Gafftops & hardheads are thick on bait.
Trout were always scarce for me there on lures, but I was probably not doing it right.
did catch a rat red on a topwater from the adjacent bank.
I am now located on the other side of the bay bridge. fishing is better here.
might give the fishing piers on either side a shot.

If you want to have some fun put on a whole crab (take the pinchers off) and throw it out there at about midnight in the lights. Big black drum in there on Copano bay pier. Have never caught one I could keep. They are all slot fish, but it is fun to try to get them, and it is a great picture. We caught 5 the last time we went. Take a pier net and move with the fish when they run. They will take you under the bridge and break you off. Using the crabs live will keep the bait stealers away although you might catch a gaftop or two. They will eat the crab as well.

From my experience with these big fish, make long casts. Don't horse them in too quick because if they are live when you get them to the pier, under the pier they go, and sometimes they break you off on the pilings. They are really fun to catch. I like to go late at night when there isn't too many people on the pier because sometimes you have to run down the pier so you have a favorable angle on the fish. You want them right in front of you or you will lose them. 35 - 60 pound fish is not uncommon, and there are a lot of them. You have to throw them back, so they just keep swimming in there.

Here is one of several we caught that night. My daughter caught this one. They were spawning when we were there a couple of weeks ago so we didn't try, but the bite may be back on now.

The rental page says we have access to the neighborhood lighted fishing pier and can also fish in the canal out back of the rental. I have stayed in rentals before and it is always slow in the canal. I have come across a reds and some black drum in the canals but far and few between.

I will try the crab off the pier; about what size crab should I shoot for?

My 11 hr drive starts tomorrow but I am looking forward to getting there, its been about 3 yrs since my last taste of spec trout!

Just a thought. Kids love crabbing. Try that too.

Just an update

Fishing behind our condo we have caught several hard heads and im guessing croaker. Ive also caught 2 flounder but both were too small. All caught on shrimp and shad that came out of my cast net. Also catching crab in the ring nets.

If there is any lights at all, the kids should be able to throw just about anything in those lights and catch a few trout. Small shad body lures are good and easy to work.. just cast and reel. Otherwise, live shrimp under a small cork should get bit as well.

No trout at our lights so far but only fished them an hr before the blood sucking bugs sent us in. We did fish the community pier and had a blast catching specs but they were all small, 10 to 12 inch.