Port Mansfield's East Cut open for business

Big trout back in waterway after long-awaited dredging

By David Sikes (Contact)
Sunday, May 10, 2009

Trout fishing in Port Mansfield

PORT MANSFIELD — This community's troubles appear to have ended.

Up until recently the good folks of Port Mansfield and the anglers who fish there had struggled for several years with a difficult campaign to dredge a shrinking East Cut. Also known as the Mansfield Channel, this jettied pass through Padre Island is the only gulf outlet between Corpus Christi and Port Isabel.

An open pass, once maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, means a healthier bay system. A closed pass, removed from the Corps' to-do list, could kill one of the finest and most remote shallow-water fishing frontiers on the Texas coast.

Lacking political clout and funding, and armed only with reason, the fight seemed all but lost until several months ago. That's when Port Mansfield found hope in the form of hurricane relief funding. This sum still wasn't sufficient to scoop enough sand and silt from the neglected channel to make it viable again. But they were closer to their goal.

Salvation came last year from a vague source. The project had been mysteriously included in a supplemental funding package from the U.S. Congress. No politicians claimed credit for this. Apparently it was the Corps' decision.

And soon after the pass began flowing to full capacity, this funding mystery was replaced by another. Large trout, lots of them, swam into Port Mansfield waters on the new tide. This welcomed surprise loosely coincided with the unusually high tides we endured for weeks during winter.

But the trout inundation seemed to persist even as tides subsided. And as recently as several days ago lure anglers continued catching solid upper-class trout with remarkable consistency, even during these crazy high winds. My research this past week -- you know what I mean -- validated these claims.

During the previous eight years, large trout within this age class had been increasingly avoiding Texas Parks & Wildlife gillnets. A distinct and steady decline in big trout is what prompted the department to reduce the Lower Laguna Madre trout limit to five fish in late-2007, while keeping the daily bag at 10 everywhere else in Texas

The folks of Port Mansfield, in large part, favored the rule change. And now they're smiling.

Few anglers would believe that Port Mansfield's sudden stellar trout fishing is a direct result of dredging the pass in November or a result of the five-trout rule implemented in September 2007. The effect comes too quickly after the cause.

So maybe it was the 25-inch rule that turned the trend. In 2003, the state imposed a trophy trout rule, which restricts anglers to a single trout 25 inches or better as part of a 10-fish daily bag. At the same time, the state prohibited guides from keeping fish during charter trips.

TPW biologists told us that we would likely not see a measurable benefit from this change until after three years, maybe even five years. So the time is right. Maybe the measure is working better than most folks expected. Where else might these trout have come from?

I turned to Greg Stunz for answers. Stunz is a fisheries biologist with the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The Coastal Conservation Association-Texas provided Stunz with funds to research the Lower Laguna estuary's dependence on a sustained pass at Port Mansfield. Included in this study, Stunz hopes to provide insight on fish movements and whether tide-runner trout from the gulf mingle with trout in our bays.

Stunz warns that it's too soon to form conclusions. But he's encouraged by "strong evidence" that suggests a substantial exchange of fish between the surf and the bay. Finally the tide-runner mystery may be solved.

So maybe all those upper-class trout in Port Mansfield really did ride in through the deepened pass on those high winter tides. And maybe the previous trout decline was a result of trout leaving the bay because of the shrinking pass.

There's a possible glitch in the second half of this theory. Port Mansfield's redfish population did not decline alongside its trout population, according to TPW's gillnet surveys. And for some unexplained reason, redfish have been difficult to catch near Port Mansfield since the big trout surge began.

For now, it's a mystery with too many clues. I expect Stunz will sort through much of this. His team of biologists is tagging fish and wiring the Aransas Pass, Packery Channel and East Cut with listening devices that can chart fish movements through these inlets,

Meanwhile, the early spring gillnet surveys for the Lower Laguna have mirrored trout reports from anglers. They're recording more big fish and healthier trout. TPW's leader for the lower coast, Mark Lingo, suggested that many factors may have lined up to create what Port Mansfield is enjoying.

They had two rainy years, which resulted in good baitfish production and improved trout recruitment. The 25-inch rule has matured and is paying dividends. The five-trout limit has reduced angling pressure. And a wider deeper East Cut is allowing a greater exchange of water and fishes.

Or it could just be a coincidence.