Speckled Trout

Featured articles, content and commentary about speckled trout in Texas

The Texas saltwater fishing community is entering uncharted territory when it comes to speckled trout fishing: an overall reduced daily bag limit that spans roughly 400 miles of coastline. The now-statewide five-fish bag limit -- which takes effect beginning Sept. 1, 2019 -- is years in the making, mostly due...
COASTAL BEND, Texas -- Redfish may fight harder. Flounder may taste better. And black drum is everyman’s fish. However, for inshore saltwater fishing die-hards and even the average weekend angler, the speckled trout in Texas is hands down the game fish of choice along the coast year round. Whether it’s chunking free-lined...
The Texas speckled trout fishery is in for historic changes due to lingering effects of the severe winter storm in February 2021 that killed millions of different fish overall. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission in late January adopted proposals reducing the slot limit and daily bag from the Matagorda...
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has proposed a slew of saltwater and freshwater regulation changes, including an extension of the daily speckled trout limit of five fish up the coast. Other noteworthy changes would alter harvest regulations for flounder and rainbow trout on the Guadalupe River below Canyon Lake...
The vibrant afternoon that held promise only a few hours before had morphed into a shadowy evening crammed no shortage of frustration, as well as no fish. The sloping sand flat littered with waving grass and oyster shells had produced a number of good fish in the past, but on...
Fishing during the middle of the day isn’t just tough — it’s downright dangerous. It doesn’t take much to overheat and take all the fun right out of the pastime. However, if you’re looking to find the magic hour, any success you have clearly will be both audible and visible. Concentrating early...
MUSTANG ISLAND -- No matter what the square said on the calendar, school was in session. The surface in the summer shallows popped and squished as horse mullet zoomed back and forth amid stands of waving seagrass and sandy potholes dotted with the occasional oyster shell or crab. The rising...
Water, and more importantly water-quality issues, have never been more important in Texas, and state biologists are hoping that an assessment of South Texas and coastal locales provides insight into improving inflows and estuaries. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries biologists began the two-year study of the Arroyo Colorado, a...
ARANSAS BAY -- The top fishfinders in the world don't come with built-in GPS. Nor do they offer crystal-clear displays or boatloads of programmable options. In this dog-eat-dog ecosystem, one of the best ways to entice scaly delight to the end of your line is to follow the food chain,...
The Texas coastline stretches from the Louisiana border to the Mexican border and harbors game fish of all shapes and sizes -- and tastes. With that in mind, here’s a summer saltwater fishing guide, featuring more than a few reasons why it’s worth making the trip south or east, at...