Typical fall patterns on Texas middle and upper coast bays continue to produce, as conditions return to normal.
Story and Photography by Nate Skinner

The end of the 2017 hurricane season was a doozy for the Texas coast, particularly from the Corpus Christi/Aransas Bay complexes to Sabine Lake. Hurricane Harvey brought damaging winds and dumped as much as 60 inches of rain in areas to close out the last few days of August. This left estuaries connected to major upstream watersheds with salinity levels more similar to a river or lake than a coastal bay.
The natural disaster brought concerns to the minds of anglers. Many wondered, “What in the world would freshwater inflows of this magnitude do to our systems?”
From Sabine Lake to San Antonio Bay, just about every bayou, creek and river flowed at a flood-level stage for some period of time as a result of Harvey’s ridiculous amounts of precipitation. And all of this water eventually drained into these bays.
Even in the midst of a historical flood, our estuaries and the fish residing in them proved they were just as resilient as the Texans that suffered great losses from the storm. In many places the fishing action picked up rapidly within a week of Harvey’s passing. Now things are returning to normal and fall is surely upon us.

continue article»