November is here and it’s time for another Rockport fishing report. South Texas fly fishing has been pretty darn good around here, since our last report. So we will fill you in on what we have been seeing out on the water this past week, and what we expect to see for your Rockport fishing report for the week to come.
The fishing this past week continued to be very very good. In fact, its continuing to get better and better most every day. We’ve continued our trend of sunny skies, low’ish winds and cooler nights. This has our water temps holding around 70 degrees throughout the South Texas flats. This is perfect for our redfish and they are loving it.
The water is back down to a mostly normal level. So it’s been pretty nice to see tails, bank crashes and lot’s of backs out of the water. All the things that were a bit tougher to come by with the higher water that stuck with us most of October. But now, things are at a perfect level and active fish are not too hard to see.
Schooling fish are starting to show up more frequently as well. Most schools are in the 5-20 fish range. But we have bumped into a few larger schools as well. Maybe 40-50 fish, working together as they move across a flat. While these schooling fish have been a lot of fun and will easily pick up a fly if you get it anywhere near them, they aren’t the largest of the fish on the flats typically. But it’s nice to see a mass of fish working a bank, or across a flat against the wind.
We have been seeing a lot more big fish this week. All are cruisers, and the largest of the bunch have been swimming solo. Not that there aren’t more fish around, but they will be the larger guy hanging behind another pair or so, slowly swimming a bank. Lot’s of over slot fish are moving around out there these days. One of our boats taped three fish today, all a shade over 29″. Not enormous, but certainly nice fish. And larger fish have been seen frequently as well. This is fairly normal this time of year, with the cooling waters.
Fly selection has been all over the place this week. Often, it has been most dependent on where we are fishing. With so many fish tailing and rooting around in thick grass, unweighted or very lightly weighted flies have been a staple. These have been easy to work above the grass. The Thumper, Eazy-E or Billy Ray have all been good. Once off the shallow grass, dark crab patterns have been lethal. So take your pick there, but any darker colored crab or toad type fly will do. And don’t forget to bring along a few topwater bugs as well. Most days, they are turning fish quite well. Size and color hasn’t seemed to matter too much there. Most tailing fish have been plenty willing to eat on the surface.
With the water back down, we have been fishing all over the place. Friday we had boats up North as far as Seadrift, Today one of our boats found tons of bigger fish in Corpus Christi Bay. And of course we’ve been running everywhere in between. Bottom line, the fishing is just really good throughout our zone right now. So we have been mixing it up and covering a bunch of different water.
As we were wrapping up our day on the water today, you could see our next little system rolling in. It is looking like we will have a quick little shot of rain, or maybe a thunderstorm, tomorrow morning. Then it blows out quickly and things are pretty good to start our new week around here. Temps are creeping back up into the 80’s for most of our week, with the overnights in the low 70’s. Not too bad really, and the longer nights will help the water remain at our desired temps. So the coming week is looking pretty good weather wise, for those hoping to get out.
Also, a friendly reminder that duck season opened today. We didn’t see a ton of people out there shooting this morning, but certainly folks were excited to get out on opening weekend. It’s never a big deal or a problem for us running our trips. But just something to keep in mind if you are out and about, or wading an area that hunters frequent. Lots of decoys around this time of year, so keep your eyes peeled for folks inside the blind nearby.
Now is the time to get down this way to do some fly fishing. Things are in excellent shape around here. We should be able to expect this for the coming month or so as well. So if you are looking to get out on the water email us and we can help make that happen.
And of course you can contact us any time if you would like any up to the minute Southwest Texas fly fishing or Rockport fishing 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.