If you're into fly-fishing, bream will take just about any type of fly whether it "matches the hatch" or not. Small curly-tailed soft-plastic grubs and a variety of small artificials also can provide good action on spinning or spincast tackle.

JULY
Channel Cats -- Lake Tawakoni
West Tawakoni was named the "Catfish Capital of Texas" by the state legislature for a reason: The little community sits on the banks of a lake that has consistently produced large catches of channel catfish day after day and year after year. Most anglers who've fished it several times go home from each trip wondering how it can continue to produce so many fish.

Tawakoni guide George Rule consistently takes his customers to catches of 75 to 100. Generally, the numbers of catfish per trip depends on the number of customers on his boat. The limit for channel cats and blue cats in the aggregate is 25 per person. Although some blue cats are taken along with channel cats during July, most are small. Tawakoni does produce a lot of big blue cats, but Rule waits until about December to go after them with cut shad.

During July, the channel cats are through spawning and begin to head to deeper water. Rule baits out several holes in 16 to 23 feet of water with soured wheat or maize. He also chums the area occasionally with cattle range cubes. He broadcasts the soured grain around trees that he can tie up to and fishes vertically for the channel cats.

Using a No. 4 treble hook and egg sinker rigged Carolina-style, Rule baits his hook with Magic Bait Company's new Stick It punch bait. Many other punch baits are on the market, but Rule prefers Stick It, one reason being that extra fiber causes it to stay on his hook longer than other baits.

According to Rule, all an angler needs to do to find channel cats at Tawakoni is to bait out a hole regularly. Set the table and the fish will come.

AUGUST
Redfish -- Port Mansfield
Whether you wade the flats south of Port Mansfield or drift them in a boat, you'll be fishing in some of the best redfish waters on the Texas Gulf Coast. Live bait works well most of the time, but I, like Port Mansfield fishing guide Mike McBride, prefer artificials.

Also like McBride, I enjoy wading and either sight-casting or blind-casting for those tough-fighting redfish that prowl the grassy flats. Port Mansfield has some of the clearest waters anywhere along the Coast. August is a great time to find tailing reds feeding in the ultra-shallow waters, but even if you don't see a lot of those bronze-colored tails protruding above the surface, you can still hook up with some great action.

McBride watches the water closely as he motors across the flats. If he begins seeing several mud "boils" caused by spooked redfish, he knows that a school of fish is there, and he sets up to wade for them.

You can catch redfish on a variety of lures, but the old standby is a lead-head jig and soft plastic such as a Bass Assassin or something similar. In the past, if I were using spinning or baitcasting gear rather than my fly rod, I spooled my reel with monofilament. While wade-fishing with McBride last summer, I learned a new trick from him. "Try this spinning reel with braided line," he said. "The redfish have been hitting the lure really light, and you not only will feel the strike better, but you will get a better hookset."