South Padre Island fishing locations

I was asked about places to fish on South Padre Island. I didn't make it to the unofficial nude beach since I was with textile friends but can report how my luck was at other places. Most of the locals who fish have boats so a good place is hard to find if you don't have one. Most of the shore like is taken with hotels and condos on the Gulf side and restaurants on the Laguna Madre side. I tried surf fishing in the guif by our condo but the waves were so high and there were rip tide warning the whole time I was there I didn't fish much there and didn't have any luck.

We did some fishing off the concrete walll along Laguna Madre, just drove to end of street and found a place to park. We caught a lot of hardhead catfish so had some good fights. I hooked one that was about 20 pounds had it almost to the wall when the pin holding my reel handle broke and I lost it. We did get a couple of spotted rays come by in the evenings and swim right up to the wall where we were.

We did some surf fishing at Isla Blanca county park and caught a lot of small croakers. It is where the Laguna Madre joins the Gulf. We also caught a few small red drum that were not legal to keep.

The best luck we had was from the walkway under the Queen Isabella Causeway. There is a sign that used to say no fishing from walkway but the no was marked out and we talked to locals who said you could fish there al long as was not during super busy time like spring break or Texas week. We caught a lot of small red drum there and a very nice speckled trout from there. It was also very productive for blue crabs in our crab nets. One of the locals I spoke to said he has hooked some big jack crevale there in mid afternoon but was always losing them since they would straighten out his hooks or break his line since he only had 30 pound line on his rod. Next time I go I will make sure I have my offshore rod with me and will try for some of them using the mullet I caught with cast net from the walkway.

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