The author used a Super Spook Jr. to catch this great redfish on a falling tide at Sabine Pass Photo by Robert Sloan.

As a blue-green tide rolled out of Pass Cavallo at Port O’Connor, the redfish and speckled trout were really stacking up at a point known as Sunday Beach.

I anchored the 17-foot Pathfinder down the beach and out of the swift current. On the walk back down toward a couple of buddies I’d dropped off earlier, I could see clearly that they were having no trouble finding fish. They were standing knee-deep in foamy surf, one bending over while trying to get a grip on a big trout, the other leading a huge redfish to the beach.

That’s about as good as fishing gets along the Texas Gulf Coast, and it’s the type of action you can tap into from now through October. In fact, last year’s action out of Pass Cavallo was outstanding right through the end of October, mainly because the water temperature along most of the Texas Coast was a warm 70-plus degrees into the first of November.

Two things about the Texas Gulf Coast: The fishing is good just about year ‘round -- especially when the water temperature stays around the 70-degree mark -- and some of the best places in which to find trout and reds throughout much of the year will be in the passes and jetties strewn from one end of the coast to the other. And May is a turning point for a whole lot of anglers there, as it’s one of the best months to be fishing those areas. The water is warming up, fish are active and hunting seasons are way behind us.

I’ve spent the better part of 40 years fishing along the Texas Coast, most of which has been at Port O’Connor. But in the early days of my fishing career, some of my best catches were out of Galveston, where I spent a considerable amount of time fishing the jetties and at San Luis Pass.

I’ll never forget the day I was walking out the south Galveston jetty and ran across a guy in golf shoes, a big straw hat, a baitcasting rod and reel and a stringer of trout and reds slug over his right shoulder; that was a showstopper for sure. It also marks the moment at which I realized that fishing along the rocks could pay big, scaly dividends. Actually, I spent about as much time on the Galveston jetties as I did at the Freeport jetties -- both of them still very good places to fish.

Back during my surfing days in high school, my buddies and I would always pack rod and reel and other jetty-fishing tackle on our surfing trips to Freeport. Flat, green surf would be a bummer for wave-riding, but it’d usually be perfect for chasing trout and reds along the jetties. The same went for the water at San Luis Pass, between the Galveston and Freeport jetties: If the waves were flat at Surfside, we’d head to the pass for a little wade-fishing.

The great thing about fishing passes and jetties is that they’re bottlenecks connecting bays to the Gulf. On moving tides, the currents push all sorts of baitfish, crabs and shrimp through the passes and jetties. That’s why those areas attract so many game fish like reds and trout.