I am looking for a nice place to tent camp on or close to the beach this weekend and get some decent fishing in! I have never really salt water fished before so any tips would be appreciated. I will be probably just be surf fishing from where ever I end up. Any suggestions or tips are appreciated, thanks!

I.B. Magee County Park in Port A.

http://www.portaransas.org/

Are you or anyone in your party a veteran?? IF so, the camp ground at NAS Corpus is pretty hard to beat.

Nope, any thoughts about Goose Island State Park?

I used to camp there a lot. Nice camp sites, good restroom facilities, boat launch, and a really good pier some nights. Seemed best between midnight to 2am lots of times.

Lots of construction going on there. The water front campsites were closed when I was there a few weeks ago. Ever since the state has started talking about budget cuts the quality of stay at Goose Island had kinda dropped IMO. Mustang Island State Park is right on the beach and one of my buddies who frequents there says it's still really nice and no mosquitoes......Goose has alot of those pest...and they ignore bug spray.

I have never camped on the beach, I will be tent camping. Would there be anything extra I would have to do?

face the door of your tent away from the prevailing winds to avoid sand blowing in. Take a rubber maid wash tub large enough for your feet. Place by the door of your tent to rinse the sand off of your feet before entering.

There's very little shade at Mustang Island SP so an EZ-Up canopy is nice to have on hand.

is there a designated area for camping or is it just find a spot on the beach? and if its just finding a spot on the beach do i have to worry about tides or what not?

Mustang Island SP has designated camping sites with water, electricity, covered picnic table and I think bbq pits. Otherwise you can camp anywhere on Texas beaches. Make sure you don't set up inside the most recent high tide mark. I've seen lots of camps washed away in the middle of the night because people didn't know to do this.

TPWD website will have all the info regarding Mustang Island and Goose Island SP's. That Port A site should have links as well. Check it out.

I will probably end up staying at Mustand Island State Park, any tips on fishing there? I will probably stick to surf fishing, maybe look up some info to catch some shark also.

You may have to have a Port A Beach parking permit also, I don't recall, but it is worth looking at before you go.