Rockport Fishing Report – May 17th

It’s the end of another week, and time for an update to the Rockport Fishing Report. We got behind a bit on our reports. Mainly due to a complete computer meltdown here at the mothership. But after a lot of cursing, and pounding on things, a shiny new computer or two are the newest additions to the family over here. So, we are back in action and will be keeping our Rockport Fishing Reports up to date once again.

Things on the Coastal Bend of Texas are pretty good right now. All of the marinas and boat ramps are open again. Although you may notice that most have kept their restrooms closed still. But other than that, things on that front are pretty much normal. The crowds still remain a bit more than normal. But that is to be expected, as people are sick of being stuck at home. But when it comes to the fishing end of things, the virus stuff isn’t really jamming us up any. Of course things are a bit different in towns still, with things being closed and such. But no big deal.

As for the fishing… Things remain really good down here. There have been a couple of exceptions recently. We’ve had a couple monster thunderstorms roll through this past week. That threw the fish out of their groove a little bit. We had trips Friday, following a pretty nasty storm on Thursday. We found plenty of fish all day, but most were laying up in the grass and not doing much. We still got our shots and put fish in the boat, but nowhere near what you would hope for this time of year. The same thing happened Saturday, following another heavy thunderstorm. A few fish to hand, but far from good. Probably to be expected.

Today was the first really nice day we’ve had in about a week. No wind, sun and not coming off the heels of a large storm. The fish were much happier. By the time we killed the motor in the marsh we were fishing this morning, we could see tailing fish. This turned into a couple dozen schools of tailing fish in this particular lake this morning. Most of the schools were 10 or so fish. Although we did have a couple that easily had at least 25 fish in them. But all were working up against the outgoing tide and moving aggressively. Definitely a nice sight, after a few days of kinda funky weather and fishing.

We were in our spot and fishing by 7am this morning. Again, with fish active right out of the gate. By 10am or so, the schools of fish had tapered off for the most part. Instead, we found a good number of solo fish banging banks or tailing solo as they moved across the flat. Another couple of hours later, around noon or so, that had slowed down a good bit as well. Most likely, it was coinciding with the tide going a bit slack on us. But we also had the water temped at 85 degrees at noon, in the particular marsh we fished today. That is pretty warm. So it would make sense that the fish might mellow out a bit more as the day warmed up.

Outside of the back marshes and lakes, daytime water temps are usually around 81 degrees or so in the bays. Not terrible, but certainly warm enough to slow things down in the later hours. So mornings are definitely the better fishing hours out there. Then it’s just a matter of picking it apart a bit more noon and beyond. With our daytime air temps around 86-90 most days, you can expect this to be the norm as we are getting close to our Summer season.

Our fly selection has still been pretty much the norm. Crab patterns work great, as usual. We are still preferring the darker colors. But usually these come off after the first fish or two. Then its pretty much a topwater game from then on. With this many fish tailing and banging away on bait, the topwater is just way too much fun not to throw. And most of the fish are plenty willing to come up and get it. But if the topwater isn’t for you, you can expect most of your shrimp or baitfish patterns to work just fine.

The past two weeks have been pretty much nothing but 15-25 mph wind. So we haven’t been able to get out and offshore at all. But we will be out there a few days this week, with calmer winds and plenty of sun. We do know the water is warming up a bit more on the outside as well. Currently, we have about 77 degrees for the current water temps. Far better than the 73 we were at before all that wind started. So hopefully this will kick up a bit more activity offshore. We will have to report back with more on that later. But it will be nice to get out there again and look for some other suspects.

Our weather all this week is pretty great. Calm winds and plenty of sun are pretty much the program all this week. So we have boats out on the water every day. We will report back at the end of the week with what all is going on out there. But we expect the fishing to be really good. If you are looking to get out on the water, you can always contact us any time if you would like to BOOK A TRIP or need any up to the minute Southwest Texas fly fishing or Rockport fishing report 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.