May Is Gonna Be A Hoot!
Don’t look now but one of the prettiest and best fishing months of the year is sneaking up on you. I’m talking about May, of course. People who live on the coast will be quick to tell you how pretty the weather can be. But don’t be surprised if they keep that part about great fishing to themselves. Even the most generous of sorts can become tight-lipped and downright stingy about sharing the when, where, and how details they’ll be enjoying the next several weeks.
One of my favorites this month is wading Middle Coast shell reefs for plump speckled trout. Never mind those grunting little pencils, male trout are hardly what May on the reefs is about. We gotta have them to fertilize the millions of eggs those females are releasing but when they get too thick I won’t be long in packing up and finding another reef with lots of mullet and shrimp flipping along the crown.
I see lots of people fishing, or perhaps I should say taking casting practice, on the reefs. Especially those who wade. First thing you have to realize is that it’s not a footrace. Slow and easy is the name of the game, even if you’re in the boat riding the troll motor. Couple more things to watch out for – don’t crunch ‘em off, and for Heaven’s sake stand still when you get a bite. I feel like I need a lasso sometimes, to keep my wading companions from taking a couple steps forward every time they catch a fish, and ignoring my warning about crunching. I cannot tell you how many times we found nice fish and everybody caught two…when we should have caught twelve. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy.
May is full of fun events for the fishing community. The kids will be getting out of school toward the end of the month and I cannot imagine anything they’d enjoy more than a few days at the coast to get the summer kicked off. A trip to your nearest outdoors store is definitely in order to replace last year’s too small PFDs, and some new wading boots and belts. If you really want them to become serious anglers you need to get them outfitted properly. And, by all means, get them registered for the CCA Texas S.T.A.R. Tournament. Failing to register and missing out on a S.T.A.R. scholarship makes for one really sad tale.
May is gonna be a hoot. Make safety and caution your bywords on the water…and take a kid fishing every chance.