Where would you go?

I could use a little help picking a fishing area. I live in Fort Worth and I have an old 15 foot boston whaler sport that gets pretty shallow. Not a true flats boat but she gets the job done. I fly fish for the most part and I'm looking to zip down to the coast, do a days fishing for reds mostly and get right back. My question is where would you go if you were me? My choices are from Galveston down to the Port Aransas area. I really have never fished for reds on the Texas coast but plenty in LA and Florida. I put a premium on being able to sight fish. Areas with endless flats are what I have in mind but I'm very much open to suggestion. So, where do you think I should go in the next month? Thanks for the help!

Nalband

Port O'Connor.

Rockport- you can fish Traylor Isle easy or anchor up and wade.

Trout are making their run right now on the drop off of grassbeds, so your Whaler can do that, especially if the wind is at your back when ya anchor.

If you want to wade right now, my clients have been on some trophy trout that have made their stringer for a mount or released.

i would fish east and west matagorda in the back lakes and bayous. this high water is letting the fish get up into grass they never get to. all the grass in the back waters has hermit crabs on the stalks that crawled up out of the water.

Port O'Connor/Seadrift is some of the best sight fishing and flats fishing there is, BUT (big ol But) a non-tunnel hull just won't get you where it's really happening. Rockport/Estes is much easier to navigate, and lots of grass flats to fish easy to get to.

Wandering further south, the shallower the fish get, but the more grass flats you'll find.

Pat, how shallow do I need to get for the good stuff? The whaler has a draft of 8 inches. Also, can you clarify what you mean here:

"Wandering further south, the shallower the fish get, but the more grass flats you'll find."

Thank you again for the help.

Im a fan of the corpus area, you can head south (not all the way to baffin) and there are miles and miles of grass on the inside just out of the intercoastal. it will be a boat show on the weekends, so be ready to get up early.

Tides of course vary every day, BUT...if you're wanting to SITE fish the back lakes, getting into/out of Contee, fifth lake, power etc will require you to be on plane and run through 6" of water to get in/out of them. Once you're there you've got more water to fish in of course, but you gotta get back out.

All those areas are great. Can't go wrong with any area of the Texas Coast. Lavaca, Matagorda, and Galveston will be a better fit for that boat. I have a 19'6 whaler low pro and it drafts 12 floating.. you can get into a lot of area with 8 inch floating draft. it's the running with the motor down that will make the above areas a little easier to navigate. Galveston has the healthiest fishery on the Texas Coast, it might be a little tougher to learn but they are all going to take some time.

t

Thank you for the responses. Extremely helpful.