Everything’s bigger in Texas, and the Lone Star State’s fishing potential is no exception. Amassing more than 80 thousand miles of rivers and streams (second only to Alaska), dozens of major lakes and over 400 miles of coastline, these historic waterways host more than a few lifetimes worth of honey holes for anglers to explore. The Coastal Bend of Texas is celebrated for its seemingly endless stretches of shallow bays, auspiciously sheltered from the Gulf of Mexico via a series of barrier islands. This is where you’ll uncover one of the healthiest Red Drum fisheries in the state, with massive schools of tailing Reds patrolling the flats in the early morning. For its own part, the beloved Sea Trout can typically be found dominating the deep flats and various channel edges, while the southern portion of the Bend is a prolific, if not painfully overlooked Snook repository, one of the only reliable Snook concentrations outside of Florida. And although it’s been a while since the Texan nearshore fishery boasted over its Tarpon stock, the Silver King definitely seems to be on the rebound, with massive summer migrations passing regularly through Galveston’s ‘Tarpon Alley’. The offshore waters introduce the visiting angler to another world entirely, where a plethora of Shark species, Tarpon and Kingfish aplenty only a few miles from the shoreline. It only gets better from there, as venturing further offshore means testing your skills against the likes of Amberjack, Red Snapper, Dorado, Grouper, Wahoo, Tuna, Sailfish, Marlin and many more.