Bay Flats Lodge

After arriving at Bay Flats Lodge either via shuttle or by private car, you’ll get settled into your room and gather up your fly gear. Appetizers ranging from bacon-wrapped Gulf shrimp and fried quail legs to some serious Tex-Mex offerings are served in the outdoor bar at 5:30 each evening. The dinner bell rings at 7 p.m., and you’ll make the short walk to the main lodge to enjoy some home cooking and meet with the lodge manager who will let you know who your guide is for your first day on the water, which usually starts right around 8 a.m., after a delicious breakfast.

On your first day, you’ll meet your guide right outside the lodge and take the short drive over to Charlie’s Bait Camp, where you’ll launch right into the Intercoastal Waterway. This launch site offers unfettered access to a host of fishy oyster beds for shallow-draft flats skiffs. The redfish like the oyster beds because they attract both crabs and shrimp, and, for fly fishers, the area is ideal, because deeper-draft vessels can’t access it. 

And, like it was meant to be, as your guide steers the skiff onto the flats from deeper water, you notice the tell-tale mud-puffs of redfish spooked by the motor. You hop up onto the casting platform and begin your adventure. It starts moments later when your guide, from atop the poling tower, whispers, “redfish, 10 o’clock, 80 feet.” You look to your left and, sure enough, you see a pair of burly reds cruising slowly over the oyster beds in slightly stained water. 

“Put the fly right on them,” your guide says quietly. You’ve been on the flat less than five minutes, and you’re already in cast mode. It’s going to be a good trip.

The ride out to Matagorda Island across San Antonio Bay is stunning. The sun, still low in the sky, gives the flats a gorgeous shimmer, and the morning is soft and a little muggy. Before you know it, you’re navigating through mangrove channels and looking into the clear water of the flats. Your guide cuts the motor and you coast into the shallows. And, before you’re even in position on the casting platform you see the tell-tale flash of redfish tail catching the morning sun. The fish are here, and they’re feeding. 

“Let me see your fly,” your guide says. You flip the big, purple streamer to the back of the boat, and your guide clips the tippet. Reaching into his fly box, he pulls out a foam Gurgler. Today, you’ll fish reds on top. “You don’t want to pop it,” he explains as he knots the big dry fly to your line. “Just keep it moving and kind of make a wake. If they see it, they’ll eat it.”

And, when it all comes together a few minutes later, the involuntary giggles that come from the depths of your belly can’t be stopped. It’s here when you get absolutely hooked on fly fishing for redfish. 

The spooky sheepshead is a prized flats fish along the Gulf Coast. While they come to hand often for bait anglers throwing live shrimp, they are notoriously crafty and difficult to catch for fly fishers. Often dubbed the “prison permit” because their vertical bars resemble the stripes of prison attire, these wily fish are rare catches for fly fishers in San Antonio Bay. 

But, you’ve managed to catch a mess of reds, including several on Gurglers the day before. The next challenge? Sheepshead. The guides know where to find them, but catching them? That’s gonna be up to you. 

It’s your last day at the lodge, and, while you weren’t able to bring a sheepshead to the net, you did get a solid take and a few seconds of tight-line action. Today, though, you want to relive the top-water bite, so your guide motors you due south to Matagorda Island. It’s a longer run, but you’ve yet to tire of the marshy viewscape and still appreciate how the morning sun makes the flats shimmer like liquid gold. 

You spend the morning tempting big reds with your Gurgler, but your guide slides to the boat to the edge of the marsh. “Hear that?” he asks? You hear high-pitched whoop coming from a nearby island, and, like clockwork, a mating pair of whooping canes wanders into view. It’s one of the most unique wildlife sightings on the planet, and you’re one of the few lucky anglers to be within camera range. Pretty cool, huh?