Reports & Forecasts: July 2026

Trinity Bay - East Bay - Galveston Bay | James Plaag
Silver King Adventures - silverkingadventures.com - 409.935.7242
James was pretty excited when he gave this report, “Man, you could probably just reprint my report from last month; there’s been hardly any change, except the fishing might be a tad better. We had a really solid day last week. We’d been catching steadily all morning when I went to get the boat. Two of the guys were hooked up again when I pulled up. We’d caught 84 solid keepers by 11:00 am, and that doesn’t include the little ones…we don’t even count them!” The topwater bite has been pretty reliable. James says his groups are throwing tops and tails about 50-50. The trout have been liking the blue and chrome She Pup, and when the wind dies and the surface goes flat, the little Booyah Spook will usually continue to draw some action. As for the soft plastic side of things, James says the 4” Bass Assassin Sea Shads in the shrimp color have been productive, also the Little P&V in anything that looks “shrimpy”, since we have plenty of shrimp in the bays right now. James predicts these patterns will hold through July in the Lower Galveston and West Bay region.

Jimmy West | Bolivar Guide Service - 409.996.3054
When we spoke to Jimmy, he mentioned he was hoping the weather forecast would hold overnight, so he’d be able to get into the surf in the morning. It takes a special weather pattern and he’d been able to fish it several days in the past week or so. “Lots of really nice fish in the surf right now; plenty of solid keepers up to 20-22-inches, with occasional bigger fish up to five pounds and slightly heavier. No monsters, but really quality fish.” Out in the bay, Jimmy says there had been a steady topwater bite until the string of thunderstorms put an end to it. “You can basically find decent trout action anywhere out in the middle, where there’s shell bottom, right now. Soft plastics are producing well enough, but it’s hard to take the topwaters off to explore that pattern. Wading and drifting are both very good, but to be honest I really don’t care to stay in the boat unless I really have to.” In addition to fishing on the best weather days, Jimmy is also busy prepping dove fields with a tractor and a disc. September will be here before you know it!

West Galveston - Bastrop - Christmas - Chocolate Bays
Randall Groves | Groves Guide Service
979.849.7019 - 979.864.9323
Heavy rains falling in the days prior to this report had caused the fishing for redfish in the area around San Luis Pass to become best for people able to locate pockets of salty water. “The reds have been moved around by the freshwater runoff, and they’ve been stacked up in areas holding some of the saltier water. By July, we should have salty water all over, and they’ll spread back out. One of the places with a reliable salinity level is the surf. In the middle of summer, with warm, soft onshore breezes blowing, we get some of the best opportunities for catching easy limits of trout in the surf. As soon as the green water makes it to the beach, we’ll be there. We throw live shrimp under popping corks some, also lures like tequila gold Norton Sand Eels rigged on 3/8-ounce heads. In the early morning hours, we’re usually able to catch plenty on topwaters. Our favorites this time of year have some chrome on the sides and bellies, with darker colors, like blue and black, on the backs. If we get some prolonged calm weather, we might also head into the Gulf in search of king mackerel and other pelagics.”

Matagorda Bays | Capt. Glenn Ging - Glenn’s Guide Service
979.479.1460 - www.glennsguideservice.com
The summer of 2026 has been really good in Matagorda so far. Our trout numbers have improved tremendously, and we’re catching good numbers of keepers with a few big ones. As the summer heat sets in, I’ll be looking for trout in deeper water and in areas with more tidal flow. Drifting with live shrimp and Gulp! shrimp under Coastal Corks will be a good bet. I’ll also be fishing Bass Assassin four-inch Sea Shads and Down South Lures Southern Shads close to the bottom, rigged on quarter-ounce jigheads. Wading the grass beds in West Matagorda Bay will be a good option too, for those willing to get an early start and beat the heat. I like throwing Spook Juniors and five-inch Bass Assassin Sea Shads down there in the summer. Hopefully the surf will give us a few windows of opportunity as well. The times we’ve been able to get in the surf this year have been very productive. We’ve been catching plenty out there on shrimp, topwaters and tails. Tripletail have been fair so far; a few are coming in from West Bay, but folks are working hard for them. Live shrimp under corks has been the best option.

Palacios | Capt. Aaron Wollam
www.palaciosguideservice.com - 979.240.8204
With lots of fresh water running into our bays in days prior to this fishing report, our fish loaded up in salty areas in the bay. Our trout have moved out to the deep shell in the middle of West Matagorda Bay and onto the grassy shorelines across the bay from Palacios. When fishing the deep shell, we’ve been doing best on live shrimp rigged about four or five feet under Coastal/Harvey corks. We’ve also had good luck wading the shorelines early, throwing small topwaters like blue/chrome She Pups and bone Spook Juniors. As the sun warms up the flats, the fish have been moving out into the guts, and we’ve been catching them pretty good on Down South Lures in Color X and purple reign. The runoff has pushed the reds out of the local rivers; we’ve been finding a few on shorelines over shell and they’ve been hitting three-inch white Gulp! shrimp under Harvey corks. Surf fishing should turn on any day now, and could be epic in July, if we continue to have lots of freshwater in the back-bays. She Dogs and Super Spooks will work great on the beach as the sun comes up.

Port O’Connor | Lynn Smith
Back Bay Guide Service - 361.935.6833
In July, Lynn expects to head into the surf as much as possible. “We love to fish the beachfront during the summer heat wave. Early in the mornings, we like to stay tight to the beach, throwing topwaters in the shallows. Normally, we get plenty of blow ups from some of the bigger trout using that plan. As the days warms up, we wind up wading out onto the bars and working the deeper guts, using either slow-sinking twitch baits or soft plastics. When we’re not able to get out there, we will be working some of the sandy flats close to the pass, where we have plenty of grass beds lying adjacent to guts with much deeper water and good currents. We throw a lot of topwaters while working this pattern too, also the classic slow sinkers like Paul Brown Lures and others. Several areas offer great potential for catching some of the strong, healthy trout that venture through the pass and into West Matagorda Bay. Depending on the wind direction and speed, we’ll adjust our location accordingly. Some of these spots produce plenty of bites on both incoming and outgoing tides. It’s a great time of year to fish Port O’Connor.”

Rockport | Blake Muirhead
Gator Trout Guide Service - 361.790.5203 or 361.441.3894
“In July, I’ll be mostly wading the shorelines in Aransas, Mesquite and San Antonio bays, fishing in places where we find plenty of visible bait activity. Early in the mornings, I usually start off working in the knee to thigh-deep water, throwing topwaters and twitchbaits, then move out deeper once the sun gets higher in the sky and temperatures rise. I like to stay in areas with a combination of hard sand and grass on the bottom this time of year, as the trout and reds seem to prefer those areas over places with soft mud and shell. That said, we will be fishing the oyster reefs in all the bays some of the time. We usually find the best bite around the oysters when winds are light and the water is calm and green. The bite is normally better on soft plastics when we’re fishing the shell. The surf is always a great option when winds calm and the breakers fall down to about a foot or less, allowing the water to run green to the beach. I expect to be out there a lot in July and August. The bite’s often great on topwaters early in the morning along the beachfront.

Upper Laguna Madre - Baffin Bay
Captain James Sanchez Guide Service - 210.260.7454
July offers excellent fishing for those best prepared for the hot days. Redfish can be caught early in the mornings in the shallows along shorelines and on expansive flats. Smaller topwaters like Spook Juniors work well in the morning hours when the winds are light. Four-inch paddletails also work well to catch the reds. When the grass gets thick and makes working them difficult, rigging a Wig-A-Lo weedless helps. When targeting trout, especially larger fish, getting an early start is essential because of their short feeding window before water temperatures rise. With typical lower summer tides, focusing on areas adjacent to deep drop-offs with concentrations of mullet is always a good bet. Good numbers of trout will also be caught by anglers wading in thigh to waist-deep potholes on flats and around spoil islands. Using a Mansfield Knocker can create exciting surface action at sunrise. From mid-morning through the afternoon, trout will move toward deeper, cooler water. To catch them when they’ feeding less actively, we use soft plastics and work them slowly through the deeper potholes. I recommend using KWigglers Ball-tail Shads rigged on eighth-ounce jigheads in colors like Texas melon, bone diamond, plum perfect, and Laguna lemonade.

Corpus Christi & Baffin Bay | Capt. Chris Elliott’s Guide Service
[email protected] - 361.834.7262
As we head into the dog days of summer after the 4th of July, look for our tides to drop to some of their lowest levels of the year, while water temperatures continue to increase. This is the time of year when getting on the water before daylight or fishing the late afternoons until sunset makes more sense than fishing during the middle of the day. In the first few hours of the morning, we look for redfish and trout to be up shallow on the flats and on top of sand bars and spoil banks, but we’re also prepared to follow them into deeper water as the sun rises and temperatures increase. Throwing topwaters the first thing in the morning will continue to be our primary game plan, but as the sun rises, we will be transitioning to soft plastics rigged on light jigheads as the fish slide off the flats into deeper, cooler water. We like to work the lures slowly, keeping them close to the bottom, once the sun starts to heat up the water closer to the surface. This is also a great time of year for sight-casting redfish and black drum in super shallow water.

P.I.N.S. Fishing Forecast | Eric Ozolins
361.877.3583 - Oceanepics.com
The speckled trout bite has been in full force lately, with many caught on topwaters, spoons, soft plastics and hard baits like MirrOlures. This is the time of the year where the baitballs really start to materialize offshore; on some afternoons they venture all the way to the beaches. These frenzies can involve jack crevalle, Spanish mackerel, skipjacks and tarpon joining forces to obliterate the bunched-up bait. Throwing spoons or topwaters into the fray should result in fast bites from a variety of fish. Despite skipjacks being a non-edible species, they’re extremely fun to catch, especially on light tackle or fly. Shrimp and Fish-bites thrown out will mostly result in bites from whiting or hardhead catfish, but a pompano or drum is not out of the question. As we get into shrimping season in July, a lot of the smaller blacktip sharks move offshore, looking for easy meals behind the nets. Meanwhile, the hot stagnant nights will produce some monster tiger, bull and hammerhead sharks. This time of year it is best to put out big baits if big sharks are the target. Running smaller shark baits like whiting usually results in bites from scalloped hammerheads and large rays.

Port Mansfield | Mike Frazier
Mohawk Mafia Charters - 956.607.4681
In July, we will find ourselves fishing our normal summer patterns. Because we usually get calm mornings and breezy to windy afternoons, we have to adjust our tactics during the days. In the calm lull during the mornings, we normally focus our efforts on the west shoreline north of Century Point. If we’re drifting, we stay in three or four feet of water, using live shrimp under popping corks. If wading, we like to spread out and use soft plastics and topwaters, throwing them toward the bank. My favorite topwater this time of year would be a Ruby Tuesday Mansfield Knocker. On some days, we wind up walking all the way up on the shoreline, into ankle deep water, to work the sand line up there. Using a KWiggler Bail Tail Junior rigged on an eighth-ounce Knotty Hooker jighead, we’re usually able to land a flounder or two. When the wind picks up, we normally move to the east side of the bay, and venture up onto the sandy areas between Butchers and Dubbs Islands to chase reds, throwing topwaters, four-inch paddletails, and weedless gold spoons. The Saucer Area south of town is always a good choice this time of year as well.

Lower Laguna Madre - South Padre - Port Isabel
Aaron Cisneros | tightlinescharters.com - 956.639.1941
In South Padre in the month of July, the trout fishing is usually best when winds are calm during the morning hours near the Intracoastal drop-off, on the tops of sand bars. Lately, trout of all sizes have been mixed together in the same areas. We’re catching everything from slightly undersized fish up to 28-inchers. In the afternoons, as the winds pick up, the color changes where the green water meets the brown water on flats on the east side of the bay in three to four feet of water produce best. Slicks and active bait will help eliminate dead water and pinpoint locations holding feeding trout and reds.  Z-Man Big BallerZ in the motor oil color rigged on quarter-ounce jigheads are a great choice during windy conditions. The heavier jighead helps us feel a soft bite using a light, fast-action rod. As tides drop from their super high spring levels, redfish are showing up in drains and on flats in water less than three feet deep. Spook Juniors rigged with single hooks work great for the reds early in the mornings. Later in the days, as the winds start to blow, Z-man DieZel Minnows work better for them.