Keeping my fingers crossed the forecast continues to to trend toward the lighter winds next weekend so we can go offshore! That said, I haven’t traditionally done much offshore fishing and was looking for some tips on catching snapper, kingfish, and/or ling. Not asking for a secret spot, but how would you suggest we look for structures/fish? What rigs should we use? How far off do we need to go?

Thanks for any pointers you can provide!

Here is the Texas Parks and Wildlife reef locations. https://tpwd.texas.gov/gis/ris/artificialreefs/

You can hit the first rigs to the south for trout, spade fish and mangrove snapper. Any close structure will have red snapper but typically the further out you go the bigger they get. Twenty-five to 40 miles out will produce excellent fish. Federal regulations apply past nine miles so you need to be familiar with federal regulations. Fishing for red snapper is easy. Just drop any bait to the bottom and you should catch red snapper. Their population is exploding in Texas. If you are on the bottom and don’t get a bite then move. Squid, hard tails, pinfish, and cut bait will work. Tie a dropper rig of 50 pound mono with 2 circle hooks and a weight on bottom. You can use steel leader if you want to fight the sharks.

You can catch kingfish using hardtails or Spanish sardines. Use a 12” steel leader. Free line the bait behind the boat. If kings are around you will know soon.

Cobia can show up anytime. They can eat everything you put in the water or be so close mouthed it will drive you crazy. However, they are suckers for a live pinfish.

Remember that safety is the most important issue when fishing offshore.

Good luck and let us know how you do.

Get Rik Jacobsons books.
There are good numbers in his books.

You will need lead. We fished 8oz all the way up to 16oz bank sinkers this weekend.
Also check public reefs out. If you fish big baits and lots of lead there is decent fish there.

Managed to scratch out a keeper on the public reefs. Found it to be really tough to find the exact piece of structure as the GPS coordinates seemed to not show the “exact” spot. Would be curious to hear if anyone has tips for the future. Still fun to be out and see the pretty water!