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Topp-Dogg Guide
Service provides specialized fishing in the
Galveston Bay/
Trinity
Bay complex. Known to inhabit these areas are speckled trout, redfish, flounder, sand trout,
gulf trout, golden croakers, gulf whiting, black drum
and
big bull reds. No matter what time of the year it
is, these fish are abundant in most parts of the
Galveston Bay Complex.
These are
the Marinas & Docks that we leave from. Click on the marker of choice -
then click on To here - put in your address & print the
directions.
View Larger Map
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Eagle Point Fishing Camp Inc |
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Topwater Grill |
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Galveston Bait & Tackle |
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Linda's Sylvan Beach Bait |
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Galveston Yacht Basin |
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Texas City Dike / Boat Ramp |
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Bolivar Yacht Basin Bait Camp |
Galveston Bay, the center point of which
is 29°34' north latitude and 94°56' west longitude, is part of Harris,
Galveston, and Chambers counties. It is the largest estuary on the Texas
coast and the seventh largest in the United States. It extends thirty
miles south to north and seventeen miles east to west. The bay is seven
to nine feet deep. It has a mud bottom and about 600 square miles of surface.
Fresh water from the Trinity and the San Jacinto rivers mixes with the
tidal salt water from the Gulf of Mexico through the channel between Galveston
Island and the Bolivar Peninsula (Bolivar Roads). During the 1980s the
bay provided nursery and spawning grounds for 30 percent of the state's
total fishing products.
Galveston Bay has been declared an estuary
of national significance by the Environmental Protection Agency National
Estuary Program and the area surrounding the bay system is bordered by
coastal plains and marshes. The Christmas Bay Coastal Preserve, a shallow
embayment located in its southwestern portion, is a unique high quality
subsystem of estuary that has not yet been greatly altered by human activity.
The preserve is one of the most ecologically productive bays of the Galveston
complex. Important natural resources in Galveston bay include finfish
and blue crab and it is also estimated that seventy-five percent of the
bird species in North America spend some time in the bay.
Red drum and spotted seatrout are the premier
recreational game species of the bay. Both were already in a state of
reduced abundance due to overfishing when intensive scientific studies
of these populations were initiated. Regulations passed to protect red
drum and spotted seatrout included: no commercial sale since 1981; banning
of all nets in 1988; implementation of minimum and maximum sizes (maximum
limits for red drum only, to protect spawners); and daily bag limits for
recreational fishermen in 1982. These species showed increases in first-time
spawners and remaining adults after these regulations were implemented,
despite several adverse natural events, including a freeze in 1983, a
red tide in 1986, and two more freezes in 1989.
Trinity
Bay is 25 miles from the open Gulf of Mexico. This distance from the Gulf
coupled with the bay's expansive watershed cause a considerable fluctuation
in the salinity of the water. This is negligible as far as some fish are
concerned but quite critical for others.
Speckled trout fishing
and the movement of specks is influenced by the saline content of the
water. The specks move from Trinity Bay to lower Galveston Bay and Galveston
East Bay when the salinity of Trinity soars during drought periods or
plummets when heavy rains on the bay's watershed cause a massive fresh
water runoff. When the saline level goes to extremes on either end of
the scale, speckled trout and their less regal cousins, sand trout, move
into adjacent bays that are closer to the Gulf of Mexico.
In the case of redfish,
there is another reason for them to linger the year around along the north
and northwest shoreline. It's the Houston Lighting and Power Company'
s Cedar Bayou generating station. The plant's cooling canal flows into
the north side of Trinity Bay. The warm water flows over a spillway and
into a small lake, which in turn spills into the bay. Some of the best
redfish action of the year occurs in the warm water outflow during the
winter months. Until a few years ago much of the-canal, the spillway and
the lake were open to the public, but disregard for property and littering
caused the power company to close off much of the area.
Trinity is also a bay of
the future, one that in the years to come could provide Texas saltwater
fishermen with an exciting new fishery: striped bass. Texas has a bountiful
number of coastal bays, but Trinity Bay is the only one with the environment
that has the potential of supporting striped bass. There's enough potential
for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to make three striper fry
stockings near the marshline on the north side of Trinity Bay. The first
stocking was made in the spring of l982.
But don't rush out to bone
up on striper fishing techniques for salt water because fruition of these
stockings is still years down the road. Trinity Bay's strong suit is fishing
for speckled trout and redfish. Under normal weather conditions the bay
is a very good producer of speckled trout from late March through September.
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