Port Mansfield offering its best fishing in years

A 7-pound, 28-inch speckled trout taken on a chartreuse topwater plug is enough to make even seasoned guides like Terry Neal smile.

By Ron Henry Strait - Special to the Express-News

PORT MANSFIELD — For decades, this tiny South Texas coastal fishing village has been a magnet for hardcore saltwater anglers.

Situated 60 miles south of Corpus Christi and 25 miles east of Raymondville, the little port has all the right stuff for fishing.

This summer, it also sits at the crossroads of its fishing history that experienced anglers will appreciate.

Over the years, Port Mansfield has developed a unique reputation among saltwater enthusiasts.

Its combination of remote location, tidy marina, well-maintained boat ramps, easy access to nearly endless saltwater flats and ample supplies of redfish and speckled trout has kept the village of 350 residents near the top of go-to destination lists for serious bait casters and fly fishermen alike.

Add to its fishy attractions dozens of harborside condos and cabin rentals available for long-term visits, as well as several motels such as the Sunset House and Dave's Lodge that host weekend visitors, and its recipe for satisfaction is nearly complete.

Keep in mind: What there is not a lot of here are things to do other than fish.

The port fronts on Redfish Bay, a six-mile-wide expanse of the Lower Laguna Madre separated from the open Gulf of Mexico by Padre Island National Seashore and South Padre Island on the east.

From the harbor mouth eastward runs a channel called the East Cut. The cut dissects the bay and connects the port with the gulf at the Mansfield Jetties.

The shallow bay, which extends north more than 15 miles to the Land Cut and about 20 miles south toward Port Isabel, provides a mix of crystalline water, grass flats, sand bars, shell reefs and meandering guts ideal for wading anglers, bait soakers and drift fishing.

Dissecting the bay north to south is the Intracoastal Waterway. The ICW is a deep channel maintained as a marine roadway for commercial barge traffic, among other things.

The East Cut and the ICW intersect in front of the harbor, putting the port at the crossroads for both boat traffic and fish movement in the Lower Laguna.

In recent years, however, shifting sand has choked the East Cut so severely that boat traffic and fish movement through the jetties has ranged from difficult to dangerous, and the mouth of the harbor was all but blocked by a sand bar.

Last year, help arrived in the form of a dredging barge that since has cleared the jetty channel to 24 feet deep, opened the mouth of the harbor and is now working on the ICW at the crossroads of the two channels. The beach on the North Jetty corner has been expanded by thousands of square feet, and the refreshing ocean water exchange into Redfish Bay continues.

Down at sea level, the results of the $6.5 million dredging project are everywhere, as witnessed close at hand with a morning drift on the Laguna with veteran guide Terry Neal.

“The fishing this year has been the best in years,” Neal said. “It has been consistently good and getting better as the year progresses.”

Neal credits two factors: the new five-trout bag limit in the Lower Laguna and the renewed access to the gulf through the jetty channel.

“The pass being open has brought us so much good water,” Neal said. “The water north of the (East) Cut has been incredible. The flats have been invaded by thousands of huge horse mullet. We haven't seen that in years. They are so big it looks like schools of redfish.”

The return of bait species complements the abundance of redfish still roaming the flats, but it is the trout fishing that is making news as summer begins.

“There are more big trout here than usual,” Neal said. “Lots of big trout, more like it used to be.”

We spent two hours recently south of the cut making five drifts on a 20 mph wind and scored big trout on topwaters with every drift.

We kept five trout, but our three largest specks, 23, 25 and 28 inches, were released alive — each a bit more evidence that the little port is on the right road to a great fishing future.

Ron Henry Strait is a freelance outdoors writer.