I've been going to the coast for a number of years myself now and only recently started using a cast net for bait. It's tough at first and there's definitely a knack for getting the hang of it. But once you do, that thing will pay for itself helping you get bait. Toss it a few times at night around the lights of a pier and you'll pull shrimp and all sorts of small bait fish. My last trip I was at a pier in Port Lavaca (some free public pier that went out into the surf), I could see the mullet schooling from the pier. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel! I was the most popular guy on the pier. There's some very sound advice here, but that's my 2 cents.

On a side note I'm thinking of taking a trip around the same week, maybe I'll see you out there.

Thanks..

Heading down there now. Gonna fish out of Aransas Pass tomorrow with slow-ride. Plan to learn a lot. Fish catching report to follow.

Try lighthouse lakes and shamrock areas. I went last month and the fishing plain sucked. Fish weren't where they were supposed to be and the wind was terrible, left 3 days early. Wind is the key on where to go. I bought hundreds of dollars worth of saltwater baits and I caught my fish (trout) on senkos. Go figure, good luck.

Wind is the issue right now. It has been relentless and doesn't seem to want to let up anytime soon.

If you get lucky and find a few days of relative calm then put in before the ferries if headed from Aransas to Port Aransas on the east side and paddle across into Light House lakes. Only about 10% of the lakes actually hold good numbers of reds and those areas are where the food is. I have noticed that areas with a light brown grass bottom mixed with shell in 12 to 8 inches of water is where they seem to hold. Early in the morning you will see them tailing up until 11 am or so. They remain in the flats all day but will be harder to spot later in the afternoon. Fan cast spoons or plastics during this time. Again....light brown grass bottom mixed with shell. If you can find these areas you will find the reds and save yourself a lot of time from not fishing empty water.

If you use a stringer, wear it on a wading belt. I always bring a belt when kayaking the flats anyways just because it can be hard to see the fish sitting that low to the water. But the wading belt allows you to either pull the spike of the stringer out of the belt, or ditch the belt if a shark gets a hold of it. However you rig the stringer up, I dont recommend tying it to anything.

had a great day on the water with Dean of slow-ride guide services out of Aransas Pass. We used Cutters-Loop put in off of highway 361 to get into the lighthouse lakes area and headed north east. We fished the lakes that have the cuts going out to the ship channel on the east side outer edge. Found reds and trout while drifting (wind blown) and fan casting the top water spook type lures across the flats. We also spent time cruising along the edges and up into the coves and were rewarded with several pods of tailing redfish. Wind would come and then ease off. We caught reds up to about 29 inches but had to work hard for them. Cannot wait to go back!

Sounds like u had an awesome time and Thanks for those much needed tips..