Mid-Coast Bays: October 2025

Fishing in the POC/Seadrift areas has been slowly improving each year since the devastating freeze of February 2012. By fishing I am generally referring to the hardest hit of our game fish species – the spotted seatrout. With each passing season I have been noticing a significant increase in the number of areas that hold “good fishable” numbers of quality trout and, of course, our areas that always seem to hold plentiful numbers of juvenile trout – which is also a very good sign. I have fished all the major bays in this area regularly and that statement holds true in all of them.

My clients and I were able to make a record number of trips to the surf through August and September because of the calmer winds. The trout fishing slowed down in the latter half of September but the redfish action more than made up for the lack of trout action. The lower numbers of trout encountered during September gave my clients and I more time to focus on other species such as Spanish mackerel, bluefish and black drum along the beachfront.

During October I will not be making trips to the surf unless clients have their heart set on getting into some crazy redfish action – they will certainly be out there in full force. The only issue we will have is catching “keeper” reds that will measure less than the twenty-eight-inch mark. They will primarily be bull reds at that time.

Instead of the surf in October you will see the bow of my Shallow Sport X3 headed to San Antonio Bay and the areas at the north end of that bay – Hynes, Guadalupe, and Mission bays. The reason I will be targeting these upper reaches is because the annual fall migration of white shrimp will be taking place and, believe me, you do not want to miss out on that action.

Every fall, after the passing of a few strong cold fronts, the tide will decline sharply and the backwater regions of the estuary will be draining, bringing literally tons of white shrimp with it. This will create a feeding frenzy of trout and redfish and a few other species, like you may have never witnessed before. The fish will be pushing the shrimp to the surface where hordes of screeching gulls and terns will be wheeling and diving, fighting for their share of the scraps that escape the gorging game fish.

When searching for bird activity, never pass an area that has birds just sitting on the water. What sometimes happens is the fish have sounded deeper and are waiting on the shrimp to get bunched up again so they can continue their feeding. When you find birds working over shrimp you will want to motor upwind and then drift or troll motor into casting range of the birds, making long casts so as to not get too close and spook the fish off. This is not normally a wading thing as most of the bird activity happens in the open bay waters, too deep to wade. There are occasions when the birds push the shrimp into the edge of a reef and we are able to hop out and have a great wade catching trout one after another on literally every cast.

Another way to enjoy the fall fishing in San Antonio Bay is to wade the many oyster reefs that are located on the north side of the ICW. I usually concentrate my efforts on the side of a reef that tapers off slowly to deeper water, which is usually the western side of the reef, if the reef is running north to south. On the reefs that run east to west, the slow taper will typically be on the south side of the reef.

If wading is not your thing, then you can drift or troll motor around the reefs, throwing your lure down the reef and into the many points and fingers that jut out from the main reef structure. This sometimes works better than wading a reef as you can cover more water faster.

There are many different angling options for finding fish in October. I didn’t mention the back-lakes of Matagorda Island and that is always a solid option during cooler fall mornings.