Mother Lagoon in Full Bloom

SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER are by far my favorite months out of the year, especially for shing. It’s as if Mother Lagoon and her wildlife have been saving up all year to display their beauty. During this time, anglers can pursue red sh a few di erent ways here on the Lower Laguna Madre. e bull red run happens here as well as many of the je ies/inlets along the Texas coast, and the ats come to life when the water temperature drops a few degrees from the primetime summer months. rowing topwaters in about 12” of water can provide the best fun an angler can dream of. Working a “walk the dog” style lure when there is a nice ripple on the water’s surface will grab the a ention of a brute red sh. Same as throwing jigheads while dri ing the ats, aiming your casts towards sandy potholes sca ered amongst the grass where those sh are waiting for baits to swim by is the ticket. One of the most exhilarating feelings while shing is to see a large push of water waking behind your topwater as you work it. at’s when you know it’s about to go down! My favorite topwater lures to use are the tried-andtrue Shimano Coltsniper and the DOA Lures PT-7. e Shimano Coltsniper comes in a variety of sizes and is my absolute favorite. I’ve caught everything from 30” speckled trout, to snook, to over slot red sh, to aggressive mangrove snapper on this piece of sh candy. I most frequently use the 95mm or 110mm size while using my Shimano Teramar XX 7’6” medium fast action rod and Vanford 2500HG reel. Don’t be afraid to throw a larger topwater. You might not get the most blowups or bites, but when you do, it will be one worth taking a picture of. I usually go back and forth from the smaller 90mm to the 110mm size unless they are clearly interested in a certain one. is lure walks with ease and produces the perfect amount of ruckus. On breezy days, the seagrass collects making the treble hooks on this lure not an issue, but on the calm days when the grass is more dispersed, snagging grass can become more frequent. Some folks switch out the treble hooks for circle hooks to prevent this problem, but I’ll usually switch over to a DOA PT-7 topwater. While this lure might look a li le goofy, it is completely weedless, and sh just love it. e best thing about this lure is that you can bomb it further away from the boat than any other topwater I’ve ever used. And when shing the shallow ats, the further you cast, the likelihood of hooking a sh that hasn’t been spooked by the boat yet increases. e fall bull red run the past two years here on South Padre Island has happened mid to end of October. When this starts to occur, using bo om rigs with the appro- priate weight is the name of the game. is is when the Humminbird Solix 12 Gen 3 comes into major use. e Side Imaging and Down Imaging shows us exactly where those sh are stacked up in the water col- umn, le ing us know what gear to use to put baits in their face. Not only is the je y a wonderful place to target for red sh this time of year, but schools of tarpon, snook, jack crevalle, mangrove snapper, etc. will also be there. is is the time of year when the larger migratory tarpon are making their move back south to the Yucatan. Last year in September when the conditions were right to head oshore a few miles, we would check out some underwater wreckage where schools of ling would pop up to check out the boat. If one of those gets on the hook, there is no doubt we are keeping one to share with the family for dinner.

As the temperatures slowly start to drop a couple of degrees here and there, make sure to get out and see Mother Lagoon in full bloom. Until next time.

TF&G Staff Report

UNTING NEVER REALLY STOPS in Texas, but the heart of the hunting season begins this month. On top of that, fall is absolutely the best time for both salt and freshwater shing and many outdoors lovers choose to combine their pursuits.

For the outdoors lover who likes to do it all there are plenty of chances to hunt in the morning and sh in the evening or vice versa. is article gives you some options and tips to nd action this month and to adjust your strategies as fall turns to winter.

Dove

Dove season kicks o Sept. 1 in the North and Central Zones and Sept. 14 in the South Zone. e special white-winged dove days are Sept. 2-4 and Sept. 9-11.

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE  e Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) for the last couple of decades has been doing something that allows hunters to access hunting at an a ordable rate, especially when it comes to dove hunting. e program’s many accomplishments include the following:

For $48, hunters can purchase an Annual Public Hunting Permit (APH) and have an opportunity to pursue their outdoor passions on more than 900,000 acres of land.

• Since the rst year, the program has found acceptance from both hunters and participating landowners. Participants are enthusiastic.

• e program has grown from 10 units in six counties and 4,375 acres to many times that amount.

• Youth hunts were added in 2002 and TPWD now o ers Youth Only and Youth Adult areas.

• Numerous leases are available near

San Antonio, Houston, and the Dallas-Fort Worth areas.

Archery Only Whitetail

e archery-only season for whitetail deer kicks o Sept. 30.

In several parts of the state, bowhunters get to hunt deer in the rut, which begins in October in certain parts of the state. Whitetails in the southern part of the Pineywoods start ru ing in October with heavy activity centered toward the end of the season.

e rut o ers the best chance to score on a big buck as their defenses go down while they are in pursuit of does.

Secondly, it gives those hunters who pursue deer on public land a great chance at targeting prime areas. e National Forests and numerous wildlife management areas are packed with hunters during the general season but see relatively few bowhunters.

e acorn crop in much of the region should be strong which could keep many deer from hi ing feeders. Targeting natural food sources during bow season is o en best anyway and is certainly more consistent for taking big bucks. ey don’t get big by running straight to a feeder when it starts dispensing corn. is of course is not legal on certain public lands.

Otherwise do your best to scout both in the eld and using tools like Google Earth to check out travel corridors and food sources.

Set up your blind with the wind in your face and hopefully the deer coming out in front, and you’ll be just ne.

Take time to enjoy the woods. Listen to the sounds of morning breaking as the birds send out their wake-up calls and squirrels scurry up the trees.

Early Teal

e early teal season spans Sept. 9-24. Hunters can expect areas along the coast with freshwater to hold plenty of birds, especially on the front end of the season.

Hunters should not however overlook stock tanks and reservoirs in Central and North Texas or reservoirs and sloughs in the Pineywoods. ey don’t get nearly the pressure that the coast gets and there tend to be plenty of teal.

Speckled Trout

Fall is feeding frenzy times for speckled trout. Look for specks under the birds during October and November a er cold fronts.

Diving gulls lead to good catches of trout feeding on shrimp. row silver spoons, so plastics, and live shrimp under popping corks for best results. is is a fun time to throw a topwater because you’re likely to get lots of hits by smaller sh. If you want a bigger trout, try using a popping cork with a large swimbait so plastic under it. You get the surface popping action like a topwater but something for big trout which tend to be shyer to hit beneath the surface.

Largemouth Bass

Bass shing gets overlooked in the fall. And that’s a shame since some of the best bass shing of the year happens during autumn. row spinners and wacky worms during the midday period; sh topwaters and buzz baits early and late. Another viable option is to sh the riprap and bulkheads along some of the big marinas, especially in the evenings. ese areas will hold many bass, especially a er a front blows through.

Main-lake points and creeks entering the main body of the lake are the important areas to sh at this time of year as they give the sh access to shallow and deep water and hold fair to good amounts of shad.

If the bites don’t come easy, use a slow-sinking lure like a Senko because they appeal to both temperatures stunted slow moving sh and aggressive feeding sh as well.

Between fronts, look for shad bunched up around the secondary points and start shing a crank bait with a slow retrieve. If you nd sh and they are active, switch to something like a Rat-L-Trap and boost the retrieve up to medium speed. Sometimes the shad are spread along the shorelines, stacked horizontally instead of vertically. If this is the situation, the bass can be scattered as well. is is a good time to throw a square bill crankbait since you can cover lots of water. If the sh are a li le deeper try something in the medium-diving range.

Bull Reds

All the je y systems in Texas will hold lots of huge bull red sh beginning this month. e action ranges from lukewarm to excellent depending on the presence of cold fronts and tidal ow.

On the passing of late cold fronts target the eddies that form at the end of je ies. Typically, all je ies have an area at the southern tip where the current washes out a large bowl area. When the tide is strong and when it is going out, eddies form and a lot of the smaller bait sh gather in these spots. Red sh will stack up there and gorge themselves.

Probably the all-around best bait that is easily accessible at bait camps in the fall is a live mud minnow (the bigger, the be er) hooked through the tail and shed on a drop-shot rig. Croaker is killer for the bull reds but for slot-sized mud minnows are great.

With the sh hooked through the tail it will swim upward and struggle a lot which draws the a ention of the reds. e disadvantage is tail hooking makes it easier for the red to take the bait without ge ing hooked, but it tends to draw more strikes.

Free-lining a mud minnow with a splitshot rigged six inches above the hook is also good but sometimes currents even in the eddies can be such that it’s hard for the bait to get down to the sh.

Another spot to try at the je ies are the boat cuts. ey are good on both outgoing and incoming tides and can be full of reds of slot size and epic proportion.