Rockport Fishing Report – April 19th

A little later than planned, but here is your Rockport fishing report for mid April and Southwest Texas fly fishing. Spring is most certainly here, and all that comes with it. Maybe we should just say, all the wind that comes with it? So in this Rockport fishing report we will discuss the wind, as well as everything else we are seeing out there these days.

Fly fishing in Southwest Texas has been good lately. Some days great. Some days… not as much. But overall, it is fishing really well. We are finding tails with consistency. Schooling fish as well. Good topwater action many days, and all else that Spring fly fishing on the Gulf Coast brings.

But Spring can, and has, brought with it a fair bit of wind. This year seems to be a little on the windier side of things. We know it’s gonna blow a fair bit. But more often than not your mornings are pretty mellow, then you know it is going to blow annoyingly hard in the afternoons. Lately, its just kinda ripping by the time we get our boats in the water most days. Not a deal breaker by any means, but certainly annoying for both angler and Captain. Plenty of days lately with winds upwards of 20 miles per hour. Not quite ideal for getting your fly to fish 30 feet away.

There have been some very nice days mixed in as well. Some with light and variable winds throughout the day. These have fished very well. Or maybe “we” have just fished very well on those days. Either way, they have been a lot of fun. We have been going early most mornings. This enables us to utilize the least windy portions of the day. Also, tailing fish are common place from sun up to almost 9am most mornings. As the sun creeps higher in the sky, the schooling tails tend to wain and cruising fish become the norm.

When we are seeing the schools and tails in the mornings, a topwater fly is very often one of the first out of the box lately. We like the Tube Top. Its easy to cast, cuts through the wind well and makes a lot of noise when stripped through the water. But a larger Private Dancer has moved quite a few fish as well. If the topwater thing isn’t your bag, the schooling fish will eat most anything in front of them. The Rockport Reaper, Crabcake Special, Spicoli or Carrot Top Crab are all fan favorites lately. As the day goes on and fish begin cruising the flats, many of the same flies are working well. But we have been throwing quite a few baitfish offerings while fishing above shallow grasses. The Tube Sock and Rocket Pop are our favorites. Of course any clouser type fly would work well also.

Our tailing fish have been best found in pretty thick grass. They are working hard foraging for food, and often leaving lengthy mud streaks in their wake. Yesterday was a day with lighter winds, but mostly cloudy skies and even a few spurts of light rain. We had a dozen or so schools of tailing reds in the early morning hours. With the cloud cover during the day, we continued to find schools of fish. Most were working with larger schools of hardheads. We would see streaks of mud, a hundred feet in length. At the top end, a good sized school of hardheads digging in the grass. If you were patient and watched the mass of fish long enough, a few redfish tails would emerge here and there. Some schools had ten or more reds in them, others just one or two. The trick, getting your fly to them without the whole lot of them blowing up the scene. Most of the schooling reds were not our largest. But certainly a lot of fun to fish them.

Our water levels have been all over the place lately. At our last report, we were just a touch on the high side of things. As we write this, we are now on the lower side of the spectrum. And we have been everywhere in between. With the winds coming and going, from the South and North, the water has been all over the place. Not a bad deal at all, just something we watch each day while selecting our spots. We have a couple more days coming with North’ish winds. So we don’t expect to get a whole lot of water back anytime soon. But as this front passes, and the winds return to the Southeast, we can expect a bit more water back in the system.

The warmer temps and water continue to pull in a bunch of fish. There are a lot of big reds being seen these days. Sharks, jacks and pompano have also been spotted with fair regularity in the area. Some days we get shots at them, some days we don’t. But a good excuse to have that heavier rod ready to roll in the skiff each day.

We have a little front passing through Friday night and Saturday down here on the Southwest Texas Coast. They continue to downgrade the storm, so it’s looking like we will be able to fish right on through it. The weather next week is looking pretty solid as well. Keeping our fingers crossed for a little less wind each day and plenty of sun. Of course we will just see what we are dealt.

Spring time is busy time around here. So we are on the water every day. We will do our best to stay on top of the Rockport fishing reports for the coming week. We will try to keep you all informed with what we are seeing out there on the Texas flats. You can always email any time if you would like any up to the minute Southwest Texas fly fishing or Rockport type news. We continue to post on  Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. Or perhaps SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel as well. We continually are trying to add more videos and stuff there. We try to keep stuff fresh for those of you that are wishing you were on the flats with us. So be sure to follow us on all our social media stuff. And don’t forget to sign up for our monthly newsletter below.