GET PROFESSIONAL HELP
For anglers willing to invest in a quick education and better odds at filling a cooler, Rockport has more licensed guides than does any other port on the entire coast.

When hiring a guide, don’t just ask for references: Talk frankly about what you want to accomplish. If catching a limit as fast and as easy as possible is on the agenda, don’t restrict the guide to tactics or locations.

Expect to pay $300 to $600 for a day of fishing. But if you choose your guide wisely, you’ll learn more in those six to eight hours than you’d learn in a couple of summers on your own. But if you have a favorite tactic or tackle, spell that out, too.

In summer, many guides have come to rely on live croakers almost exclusively for taking big trout. Whether you believe this is because the sow trout are trying to kill a potential predator on their eggs, or if they just see a loud and slow-moving meal, a wiggling croaker is not long for this world if there’s a big speckled trout nearby. Big reds love ‘em too!

The best of these professional anglers will travel as far as it takes to find you fish. For years, my favorite trip outside Rockport was to meet Capt. Don Hand in Corpus Christi, then run 30 to 40 miles south to Baffin Bay or the Land Cut. We caught more big trout and redfish on those trips than on any others I can recall -- and often the run took longer than the time to catch limits of fish!

One incredible May morning, my son Will, Don and I anchored in one spot in Baffin Bay and caught limits of big trout up to 30 inches and redfish in less than three hours -- without ever moving!

Speaking of boat rides: Some Rockport guides also specialize in running north through the shell-and-reef-infested waters of St. Charles Bay to Cedar Bayou. This sometimes-open pass to the Gulf can provide incredible action on a moving tide.

HOOFING IT
One real benefit for occasional anglers fishing the Middle Coast is the amount of water: Hundreds of thousands of acres are accessible to the shorebound. Just park on the shoreline and hike a few feet or yards, and you can be casting to reds and trout.

One great, easy-to-reach wading spot for shorebound anglers is Goose Island State Park. From the park’s pier, several stairways provide easy access to the shell reefs at the entrance to St. Charles Bay and prime redfish territory.

I remember the first time my family fishing Goose Island, 35 years ago on an early-summer afternoon. We were chunking live shrimp from the pier when a weary angler came staggering up the pier under the weight of a truly mind-boggling stringer of speckled trout. In those pre-limit days, he’d found a school of big sows working the birds just off one of the Goose Island reefs. We were too polite to stop him and count, but it appeared he had 25 or 30 specks weighing from 3 to 6 pounds on that stringer!