Well we gave it another try this weekend in our quest to catch some reds and trout and I simply dont know what I am doing wrong. If you can allow me to vent for a bit....... I fished both sides of Shamrock, I fished Pita Island, near Emmords Hole along the intracoastal, as well as several other spots and did not catch a single keeper fish. We caught no reds and about 6 dink trout, several catfish and a lady fish. I just dont get it, I would never have imagined that it would be this hard to catch trout and redfish in the bays. I spent a lot of money on live bait too, between shrimp piggys and croakers. We used popping corks with the shrimp, live croakers and piggys free lined. And of course the sour note of the trip.... I ended up yesterday afternoon trying to tie off to the Fina docks area off an old rusted pillar and as my boy was trying to wrap the rope around the rusted pillar he got his hand caught between the boat and the pillar trying to stop us from hitting (he took one for the team) , and an hour later we were at the Corpus Hospital Emergency room getting him 10 stitches in his hand. This really sucks cuz he is losing interest very quickly, and yet each time we return to the docks at the ramp there are guys with a dozen or more keeper trout and reds, man this is frustrating! We are heading back down in two weeks so any and all advice would be much appreciated.What can we be doing so wrong?

I would think about going out with a guide once or twice, not to learn his spots, but to learn how to find those spots. Gotta ask a lot of questions.

Yeah thats what I have been thinking about doing, just hard to swallow that $450-$500 fee, but I guess I have easily already spent that with poor results!

I have been hearing from my buds down there it has really slowed down.
The were limmiting out daily in may. Now they are only catching a couple of keepers a day.

Hope your boy is okay. I receintly did the same thing myself. Motor died when i tried to slow down more. Ran up and thought i could stop the boat from hitting.

My boys have lost interest in salt water fishing from the boat. They either want to go catfish or surf fishing. I have gotten to where i always bring some dead shrimp so if I cant find schooling fish, the boys will at least catch something.

Yeah, summer's here. Water temps are going up. That wind we all grumbled about... long gone. Won't be long before salinity becomes an issue, if things do'nt turn around. THERE, I said it!
But has the bite really slowed down? In some instances, evidence at the landing and else where would suggest otherwise.
Fish early, work into deeper water as the day wears on, and above all fish any kind of moving water you can find.
Shamrock, Emmonds Hole, and Pita are good spots... but are notorious for shutting down when traffic picks up. Chances are some cowboy tore those places up before you got there. Unfortunately, this holds true for much of the bay from Rockport to the JFK causeway.
Getting discouraged? Your son losing interest? Take a break. Save your money. Come back down in Oct. an' try some fall action.
My problem is I've been tied up since March, and can't wait to get back to it. Fish or no fish, just want to smell salt again!

No worries. Our weekend started really bad too. We tried alot of the type of fishing you are talking about with horrible results.............then we woke up monday morning at 5:30 and cruised to the back of a bay that nobody was in. We put the trolling motor in the water and we threw live mullet under popping corks in the reeds. In our first hour we caught 3 reds ranging from 24-28 inches. In the previous 2 days we caught 2 keeper trout and a few hardheads while fishing all the "hot spots". I truly believe it had everything to do with getting out early and getting out of all the traffic of the "hot spots" that everyone else fished before me. All morning long I only saw 3 other boats in this bay and none of them came within a mile of me. The most popular places to fish are often the most fished and 99.9% of the time they are extremely pressured on weekends and holidays. We almost lost hope and didn't go out Monday morning. Don't lose hope. Thar be fish in them thar waters. Only thing I kinda regret about this weekend is that I didn't stick to what I know works and tried to fish the spots everyone else was fishing. Won't do that again. Happy fishing.

It was a difficult weekend for my father and I as well. We got a late jump Saturday and fished a bunch of spots in Aransas Bay with minimal success.

We woke up really early Sunday to fish Dagger Flats, a spot that has done well for me in past summers, and came up with undersized fish. Though we did have a several large blow ups on topwater. The wind went flat, we started swimming in our sweat so we pulled out of the water.

On Monday we launched early again and hit the reefs in Aransas Bay. Finally got into the keeper trout. We boxed 5 on strawberry/white soft plastics before the bite died around 8:30. I had the long drove back to Dallas, so we pulled off the water.

Conditions are getting tough. Obvious being a holiday weekend the waters were crowded. I don't think I've ever seen Rockport this crowded for the 4th. With the on going drought the bays are saltier than they should be. The hurricane that hit Mexico caused the tides to be 6-8" higher than usual, but looked to have returned to normal heights by Monday.

It seems to me that the trout were holding on to Oyster reefs. We weren't targeting reds, but I suspect that they were up shallow with the higher tides. Live bait definitely out fished artificals. The most productive time was before 10 when the waters were cooler. A lot of guys are running down to Baffin to catch fish, which is better right now than anything up around Port A.

I'm sorry you had to take your son to the ER. I would wait a bit longer than two weeks before heading back down to fish to allow plenty of time for that injury to heal. The waters are very hot and there would be an increased chance to he could get Vibrio, which is bad news.

Around July 4th fishing pressure is high. A lot of people run their motors to close to the fishing holes. With all the boats out there, fish dont want to bite. Last week when I went out we didnt catch much. After loading the boat I looked in a lake by the boat dock. Reds were up in that shallow water chasing mullet all over. I parked the boat and we waded right behind the boat launch. Caught five reds in around twenty minuets. My boys were like, why did we even take the boat out.

When your fishing the Fina Docks you gotta fish this place on a hightide. I use my depthfinder to find them, alot of fish move through there during a hightide, high winds can mess you up here though.
When I'm looking for trout in the Laguna Madre during the summer it's driftfishing time using corks and soft plastics. Depending on who is on board I will bring live shrimp, but thats it.
Concentrate your drift off of grassy areas dropping into the Intracoastal. I normally don't have to run more than 15 minutes south of bird island basin to find my fish.
That grass flat at Emmords next to the Intracoastal can hold some nice trout, I've caught some quality fish there on a drift.

this past week has been a tough time for most, (me included). Lots of lil trouts, very few keepers for us. I know of some folks that trailered over to packery from rockport that limited out in 2 hours and that was for four fishermen. So, I guess at least some found fish.
Thank goodness that my son encouraged us to throw some baits in the surf....he saved the trip so to speak and I had a better time catching whiting and rat reds in surf than chasing trout for the last two weeks...and we saw the largest trout caught 25" than the last month in the bays...witnessed a lot of fish on wade stringers along 361 from Port a to Aransas Pass wading around the crab cuts...unknown what they had caught as we didnt fish there this trip.

Yep, I stay away during a holiday weekend there is too much traffic going on, and alot of tournaments during the summer weekends. Weekdays for me normally, and fish less frequently during the summer months.

Glad you didn't get skunked!

From what I understand, fishing has been just plain tough for a couple of months. I was there last in mid-May, and while we caught fish every day, we never saw a limit of anything. I hired a guide the last day of the week we were there thinking that I was doing something wrong, and we put fewer fish in the box than what we were doing on our own. Our guide was a trooper and kept my little bride and I out for over 10 hours to box 2 reds and one speck, so to say it was tough fishing might be an understatement. I'll be taking the family back the last week of July to try 'em again, tough or not. The worst thing that could happen would be not to go!!! It's pretty easy to choke down a beating in Port A.

Ouch, that had to have sucked. Fishincuts in the grass flats leading to the intercostal is where we've been catching some nice reds. FHaven't hit any trout however...

Overall, I think the Aransas Bay System has suffered a lot from weather and increasing fishing pressure the last 5 or 6 years.

In the 80s and 90s, we used to do good there regularly, regardless of what time of year it was. Nowdays, even with the amount of water we understand down there, we can grind hard all day for just a few quality fish. In the winter, we can still find em stacked up on occasion, but summer fishing there has been tough for me the last 10 years or so, so we have relocated to other bay systems in the heat.