Venice, LA vs. Texas Coast

We live in North Texas and have been going down to Venice, LA at least annually for almost 5 years. We take our bay boat and fish inshore and around the rigs. Always have a great time and catch lots of fish. Seems to get easier and better ever time we go down. Especially on the navigation side of things. My preference is to continue doing this and ultimately expand into offshore fishing there. However, part of our group wants to go explore the Texas coast. I think mainly because it's closer. I prefer to stay with what we know. Anyway, how does the fishing compare to Venice?

Not much in Texas compares to the fishing in LA. It's just different over there. I fish from SW LA all the way down to Port A. Still prefer LA

There's nothing on the Texas coast that compares with Venice for redfish quantities. There's no place in North America that compares either.

The further south you go in TX, the more different the water is. It gets shallower, clearer, with more opportunities to wade, and sight fish.

The boat you run in Venice would be an aggravating tub in Port Mansfield.

I grew up fishing in Hopedale/Delacroix. I live north of Dallas now and it's an 8 1/2 hr drive down there, but I would rather drive the extra hour because of the familiarity with the area and the quality of fishing.

Bay fishing is better in Venice. Offshore fishing is different. In Venice you have a 30 mile run from port just to hit open water, while in Texas I can fill the boat with red snapper in 5 to 20 miles. Tuna fishing is better in La., but expensive because of the distance. Before they removed most of the mid-range oil rigs in Texas, I would stay with Texas. Now it is a little harder to find fish in Texas than it used to be. But, there are plenty of king mackerel, snapper, sharks, amberjack, grouper, jacks, massive stingrays, etc. to keep you busy. If time and money is not an issue, then Venice may be for you.

I have fished Venice multiple times and used to say nothing compares.....until I fished Port O'connor this year. My Tawakoni guide has been telling be for the last few years that we should try Port O. Wow was it a great couple days fishing with Matt this past October!!

Matt Carwright??

Yes

A picture is worth 1K words. PS -Louisiana on fly

That is a beautiful red on a fly.

I’ve never fished in LA. I’m sure there’s plenty of boat traffic but POC is probably the busiest bay on the Texas coast on weekends. Rockport is almost as bad. In December on a Saturday morning I drove 4 miles along San Jose island and saw a continuous line of boats. There was not one spot along that stretch that I could stop and fish. At Conn Brown harbor in Aransas Pass it’s common to see a long waiting line at the ramp and at least 4 boats at a time can be launched there.

Traffic and fishing pressure is also something to consider.

You are getting valid advice. If you are driving that far you want good results. If you go to the Texas coast unless you are a guide or go out every day you wont' catch much. 10 years ago I used to enjoy going to POC but now its like a James Bond action movie with so many boats on the water. Now I go out to the highland lakes and catch more pounds of black bass than I can catch on the coast. No problem with hardheads either.

We go to Venice every year around Memorial Day. Stay a week at Venice Marina on house boat. Usually about 8 guys and 2 or 3 boats. It’s always great fishing there. Some of the guys don’t go that often and want to have a big fish fry so the big limits work there. Everyone gets their 50 trout at some point and guys have plenty of fish for a big fry when they get back. Staying at the Marina you can sit up at the bar, have a drink and check out the offshore fish coming in daily. We wade fish there. Rarely ever fish out of the boat. Also go to Cocodorie and Calcasieu and mainly fish out of the boat. Great fishing in LA for sure.

I have been most everywhere on the Texas Coast. They are all somewhat different. I prefer the LLM to Baffin for wade fishing. Lots of grass areas to fish. Your going to see more crowds and less fish in Texas. However, you can still get on them pretty good when things are right and you figure them out. New areas can take some time to figure out.

In Texas the boat you run makes a difference. Basically the farther south the shallower running boat you want. I have a 22 Majek Extreme. It works pretty good from Venice to Port Mansfield.

It’s always good to see and experience new areas. That’s all part of fishing. Figuring it all out. Venice is the best place we go. It’s about 6.5 hours to get there for us. So a day there and a day back. Usually rent a house off VRBO or other wherever we go for a few days or more. Where you stay has a lot to do with trips.

45 minute bite in Venice. 25 trout limit. Average trout is about 15” on that stringer. Didn’t string anything shorter than that. It was even better last year. They went off pretty much every cast at one point. Released 18”+ trout back cast after cast for 1.5 hours. That can happen in Texas too. Generally when it does a lot of under sized ones in the mix.

Thanks for all the posts it's been very helpful.

That sounds about like our Venice trips. Interesting that you say you wade fish in Venice.

Thank you for the post. You caught my interest when you said you mainly wade fish in Venice. The only area I've considering getting out of the boat there is at Breton Island. Tell me more. We stay there at Venice Marina and stay at "The Perl" boathouse. We have been going in the fall in years past, but we went in early June and late December last year. We are booked again this year in early June. We like the rig fishing if the wind allows it. We haven't had a lot of success with the speckled trout, but we have loaded the boat on many occasions with big white trout. Bull reds are fun at first then we start trying to avoid them. There are just a lot of options in Venice. We are going to try to target triple tail this year.