Both shorelines consist of shallow sand flats that are perfect for wade fishing and sight casting.
These ranches consist of millions of acres of undeveloped land that was once called the Wild Horse Desert. On the west side of the Laguna Madre you’ll find the mainland largely covered by the legendary King and Kenedy mega-ranches, where cattle and deer greatly outnumber people. Most fly fishers visit the hypersaline lagoon looking for redfish, but there are also snook, speckled trout, and tarpon.
Much of it is very shallow and not accessible by V-hull boats. The Laguna Madre estuary covers 280,910 acres with a average depth of about 4 feet. The island is largely unchanged from the days when Karankawa Indians called it home and Spanish shipwrecks dotted the coast. Most of the island consists of the pristine and uninhabited Padre Island National Seashore. The Laguna Madre is protected from the Gulf of Mexico by the longest barrier island in the world, Padre Island. This is an immense and productive bay system that serves as a nursery and feeding ground for redfish and many other species. The Laguna Madre is a hypersaline bay, consisting of hundreds of miles of shallow, clear flats extending south of Corpus Christi for over 100 miles to near the Mexican border. Sight casting to redfish on the flats with a fly rod is not only exciting, it is one of the most effective methods to consistently catch fish when the flats heat up in June through September in Texas’s Laguna Madre. So much for the photo, but it was the beginning of a memorable day.
When my fly hit the water, several 30-inch reds raced at the fly, and the “winner” screamed off across the flats, causing a half dozen jealous companions to follow. So I decided to live in the moment and catch a fish. I had my camera bag over my shoulder, but decided there wasn’t time to take a photo and still make the cast. They were going to pass very close, and I thought the early morning light and excellent visibility would make a great photo. A herd of more than 50 redfish meandered in the shallow water, moving steadily in my direction.
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