David Wood is a South Padre Island fishing guide with over 20 years of experience. He is the author of three books offering expert fishing advice.
For a quick rundown of a fishing report, oversized reds, flounder and mangrove snapper are being caught around area jetties and bridges. Try finger mullet to lure out some of the bigger snapper.
Mangrove snapper get cagey as they age and larger sized specimens are prized catches. Thinner leaders and free-lined baits work best for them. They’ve always been a personal favorite of mine for their prolific
nature and fine table-fare qualities. In the fall, they make spawning runs on full moons to Gulf passes and mouths of inlets where they form tornado-like formations on bright nights to complete the ritual. Adult
mangroves spend their time on near-shore coastal structures and can be caught on any of the man-made reef structures placed in recent years.
From time to time I get questions from readers. This week someone asked me to better explain some of what I had said about the local forage fish species. When people castnet up a bucket of bait, they are usually
trying to catch mullet, or what is locally known as shiners.
Shiners may be any number of shad and herring species, or other silvery sided, laterally compressed fish, but in our case, it most often refers to threadfin shad. Although threadfin are considered a freshwater fish,
they spawn in great numbers in area ditches and freshwater to brackish areas of the bay.
Schools of them can be regularly encountered anywhere along the Gulf Coast. Shad are a preferred forage species for all piscivorous fish. Experiments have shown predator fish prefer them, likely due to one of their
many excellent forage food qualities: high-fat content, soft and defenseless body, and relative abundance. Shad can make up 90% and more of the total bio-load of some bodies of water. In some instances, they can be too abundant, having little to no competition for resources.
True menhaden and pilchards, also called shiner, are more often encountered near gulf passes and in the surf rather than in the bay and connected systems. I do not think the predator fish distinguish between them,
seemingly loving anything roughly two to three inches in length, silvery/pearly white, with deeply compressed and flattened sides. Flounder, trout, red, mangroves and mackerels equally, readily, and eagerly devour them all. For best results, use them live on a free-lined rig. While they are great bait for desirable fish, they are also favored by less desired fish, like catfish and stingrays. Keep the bait off the bottom to avoid, but
not eliminate, the chances of catching them.
Keeping shad alive can be tricky. All shad and shad-like baitfish are pelagic, or open-water fish. They need to continually keep in motion to move oxygenated water over their rakers. That is the one frustrating part
about using them for bait. Use a cylindrical circulating bait tank to eliminate the problem. There are several manufacturers for shad tanks online if you are interested in upgrading your bait fishing techniques.
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