Best Place for Fishing in Texas
Texas offers an incredible opportunity for anglers, both visitors and locals alike. The main reason that we like Texas as a fishing destination is its geographical location. Not only is Texas huge and therefore potentially open to more fishing spots, but its also located in a warm enough climate that you can fish in the winter, and it also has a good amount of ocean access along the Gulf of Mexico.
All of these advantages are also coupled with one disadvantage, albeit one that isn’t too bad to have. The variety of fishing environments can make it really difficult to narrow your selection down to a few spots. Like we said, having an abundance of places to fish isn’t exactly a problem, but with such a large state, the last thing you want is to show up at a promising fishing hole, only to realize you wasted your time.
Therefore, in this article, we would like to provide an overview of some of the best and most popular places to fish in Texas. We don’t have these ranked in any particular order, as they each offer something different that will appear to anglers seeking different locations and styles of fishing. We hipe this helps you narrow down where you would like to cast your next line!
Guadalupe River
Guadalupe River is usually up there as one of the best places to go fishing in Texas. It is extensively stocked, so much so that the local communities are calling for even more stocking because it has benefited their economy so much. It’s usually trout that is stocked here, about 20,000 per year, so there is certainly a lot of opportunity! This area is good for most types of fishing, but fly fishermen are especially keen.
The Guadalupe River is also pretty big, at least big enough that different parts of the River have different regulations. Additionally, not only are there different regulations, but in a river so large, you can expect conditions to change throughout its length as well. Some areas are largely absent of crowds, such as the upper end of the River, while further down stream you can find more charters and local anglers either wading, casting from shore, or exploring the area for nooks and crannies in their boat. Regardless, there’s something for everyone!
Overall, Guadalupe River is a good spot for a group of buddies to explore, a solo angler to peacefully cast a line, or you can choose to hop on one of the local charters to gain a sense of your surroundings and how the river conditions affect the fishing. Depending on where you are coming from, it can be quite convenient, as it’s only about an hour North of San Antonio, a good balance between getting away from it all, and being close enough to home that you can go for as long or as short as you want.
Sabine Lake
Sabine Lake is a huge saltwater estuary with a total size of about 90,000 acres. It’s located along the Texas/Louisiana border, so it’s in a bit of a weird spot. The lake sits between a bunch of different cities both in Texas and Louisiana, but it’s not overly close to any of the major urban centers. For example, it would take about 1.5-2 hours to drive to Sabine Lake from Houston. Nevertheless, it’s a really nice setting with some good fishing, so it’s definitely worth considering, especially if you live, or are visiting, Beaumont, Orange, or Port Arthur, which are all very close to Sabine Lake.
Many anglers like Sabine Lake as a place to practice kayak fishing, and it’s also a hot spot for anglers who like to cast from their boat. The main reason for this is you have much better accessibility to some of the better hidden gems in the lake, and with water access, you can explore a lot of these areas in a relatively short amount of time. Some of the most popular spots that a lot of anglers tend to gravitate towards are Lighthouse Cove, Stewts Island, the north revetment wall, and anywhere along the jetties. For reference, the picture at the start of this article is of Sabine Lake (beautiful, right?).
This lake holds a lot of different species including, but not limited to, striped bass, speckled trout, sand trout, catfish, red fish, bull shark, sheepshead, Southern flounder, and much more. Furthermore, Sabine Lake isn’t as crowded as you may expect for a great fishing spot, so it can be really nice for angler who hate crowds. If you don’t feel comfortable just rolling up and casting a line on your own, you can try hopping on one of the local charters. Some anglers find charters to be a huge turn off, but they can often be worth it, especially to get local advice from knowledgeable anglers.
East Galveston Bay
East Galveston Bay is a really deceiving spot to cast a line, but in a good way. Located about 70 miles from Houston (by driving around Trinity Bay), this area is highly popular, with many anglers worrying that there is too much pressure being placed on the Bay to continue supplying beautiful trophy trout in a sustainable manner. Fortunately, even with the fact that it’s highly popular, East Galveston Bay continues to produce lots of big fish for those epic strikes.
One of the reasons this Bay continues to live up to its fame is that many anglers in the area practice catch-and-release. This ensures that the big females continue to inhabit the waters without a sharp decline in the population. This leads to optimal conditions for local anglers, as good spots to cast are numerous and easy to find, you can cast from shore, wade, kayak, or boat, and success is abundant!
With a huge area worth exploring in its entirety, it’s easy to keep coming back to East Galveston Bay without always returning to the “same-old”, which is why we really like this spot. On your first go, it could be worth hooking up with a charter, or at least a guide, as this will definitely benefit your future visits. If that’s something you prefer to avoid, there are lots of bait shops in the area and the people there can provide some of their local knowledge of where could be good to start on any particular day.