Texas Coast Fall Drift Fishing Tips
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Autumn is well on its way and you might already be seeing the wildflowers starting to die back, the leaves fading and of interest to anglers, the tides starting to fall. However, drift fishing really comes alive in the fall and from the Lower Laguna Madre to the upper coast of Texas, fall drifting for speckled trout and redfish is getting underway in earnest, with many anglers choosing brown lures to make their catches.
Fall’s cooler temperatures and lower tides mean that bait fish start to migrate from the protected waters where they hide out during the summer. One of the best fall fishing tips is to watch for this migration, when redfish and trout swarm for these prey in driftable waters.
Typically when drifting for speckled trout and redfish, keying on fish attracting structure is a great starting point. Galveston area fishing guide, Captain Cody Maddox stays close to drops and holes within shell bottoms in upper West Bay
“When I say I fish holes within shell, I am drifting a seven-foot area surrounded by a three-foot depth,” states Maddox. “The points of reefs and shell humps are additional fish magnets.”
When doing fall drifting, Maddox prefers soft plastic lures with ? to 1/8 oz riggings. However, he goes with a 3/8 oz head when he makes his way to deeper waters. Other than brown lures, he tells us that morning glory, plum and chartreuse and limetreuse tend to work well for him.
“I have found a little technique to really produce fish in fall,” claims Maddox. “I’ll work bait really fast above the bottom before letting it sit for several seconds.” “If that doesn’t work, I’ll work it a little slower off the top off the shell, sometimes using a weedless-hook setup.” Sometimes the slightest variation in retrieve unlocks the jaws.
Captain Randall Groves, a Bastrop fishing guide says that he finds the fall drifting season preferable. “On the upper coast, it’s all about working the water streaks.” “Once the water gets clear and the temperatures drop, I actually do best in the muddy streaks.”
Groves likes to drift in deep shell areas along with the muddy waters of bayous and creeks. “I do a lot of drifting in deep shell in the fall, but once the wind picks up, I tend to do best in the creeks and bayous instead.”
One of Groves’ fishing tips is to focus on retrieval. “A lot of people will tell you to fish slow with soft plastics in cold weather, but I haven’t found that to be true at all.” Instead of what he calls a “hungry” bite, Groves looks for what he terms a “reactionary” bite. “Slowing down can work, but I get plenty of bites in cold water working my lures fast.”
“I use ? and 3/8 oz lead heads with my soft plastics and use a Laguna Texas Wader III or another whippy rod to get my lures through water column with ease,” says Groves.
Matagorda Bay guide Captain Dwayne Newburn offers the following fishing tips. “In fall, I use a trolling motor to control my drift When you’re fishing around a group of gulls or other birds, your trolling motor can be a great help.” In fall, you’ll often find groups of gulls working groups of bait fish fleeing up to the surface to escape the redfish and speckled trout feeding below.
Newburn is another angler who drifts deep shell in fall. “My focus in particular is drifting dips and indentions in the shell pads.”
“Cajun Thunder Popping Corks above D.O.A. Shrimp work well when drifting. I also like Norton Sand Eel Jr.’s in laguna shrimp and Saltwater Assassins in native shrimp and new penny.” Newburn rigs his soft plastics with 1/8 ounce jig heads in depths to five feet and uses ? ounce heads in deeper water.
Captain Danny Neu, a Lower Laguna Madre guide is an avid autumn fisher. “It’s one of my favorite times to fish, especially for large speckled trout. The bait fish head out of the bays and there aren’t as many of them around, so you’ve got to hug the shoreline for miles sometimes, but when you come on a cluster of them, you know for sure that you’ve got trout and redfish right there,” say s Neu.
When out on a day of fall drift fishing, Neu offers the following fishing tips – “I start out in the morning checking deeper waters to see if there are any bait fish around. I’ll move on to shallow waters once it gets closer to noon and they start to warm up.”
“When it comes to lures for cold weather, I always go for topwater plugs. In fall I can use these all day for redfish and trout; they just work, plain and simple,” says Neu.
“When I’m drifting in the lower coast area, I go with smaller plugs like the Super Spook Jr. I like to have a rod rigged with a red and white soft plastic and another with a Super Spook Jr.,” says Captain Neu.
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