The Texas Coast at Sunrise, Perfect
T.J. Greaney

The sun rises just across the horizon in a beautiful array of pinks and blues and gold. The warm breeze off the saltwater bay has a slight musty smell – a light mist from the thin fog completes the encapsulating emotion. It’s the Texas coast at sunrise, perfect.The night before was exciting. I love fishing piers, docks and jetties under the lights and Shoal Grass Lodge has one of the best bulkheads for fishing in the area. Mangrove snapper are a delicacy not well known or fished for here along the Texas coast and finding the right place and times to fish for them is a trick in-it-self. At just before sunset a live shrimp baited on a free-floating circle hook proves to be irresistible to Mangrove here at lodge. The Mangrove can be filleted, breaded and fresh fried for dinner – does it get any better?

The channel leading into the lodge from Redfish Bay is a gateway for large trout, flounder and red fish. On the right nights under the lights in the spring you will becatching fish as fast as you can re-bait and launch your line into the soft glow reflecting off the pier lights.

Spring trout and redfish fishing can be phenomenal in the grass flats of Redfish Bay. Live bait shrimp or artificial baits are both highly effective and can produce legal limit quantities before lunch. On this day we found the trout early and loaded up. But the spring pods of redfish were the kicker. Groups of 20 and 30 swam lazily across the shell reefs and found our plastic shrimp baits to be irresistible. Four fish on at one time was an adrenaline rush that gave us plenty to talk about as we lounged that afternoon. Now, a year later as we plan our next outing in just a few weeks, the stories have returned and the fish have grown in size and quantities when told to the new guys coming with us.

Shoal Grass lodge is a 10,000 square feet facility that has 12 bedrooms, game room, great room, bar, commercial kitchen  a large conference room and the meeting room can accommodate up to forty. If you need to get away, take a few favorite clients or relax with a couple of your best buddies check it out.

The fishing is fantastic year-round in the Aransas Pass area and I don’t know about you, but I for one need a good shot of sea breeze a couple times a year. I also like it when my feet have tan lines from flip-flops, ah yes…

Go to www.shoalgrasslodge.com for more on the lodge or go to www.texasoutdoorzone.com and click on Guides and Services for links to other great hunting and fishing opportunities in Texas.

T.J. Greaney is an award winning outdoor writer and photographer from Austin, Texas. You can reach him through his web site at www.texasoutdoorzone.com.