“Texas is a wild and wonderful place and I’m lucky enough to live here all year long.” – Aaron Gates
My name is Aaron Gates and I live in Corpus Christi, Texas. For people that love the outdoors and particularly fly fishing, this is a great place to live. The waters around here have many different species of fish to target, but fishing for reds on the shallow water flats with a fly rod is my favorite method. 
These past few months since hurricane Harvey has hit the Texas coast we have experienced flood tides and minor cold fronts come through the coast. The cold fronts have started to get the red fish into their fall and winter patterns, which I absolutely love. With the extremely high flood tide we have experience the redfish now have plenty of extra areas to look for food. When my good friend and local fly fishing guide, Marcus Haralson, and I heard that we were going to be getting flood tides we got excited and started planning where we should hunt for these fish.
Luckily the days that we hit the flood tide the sun and wind were in our favor which made for smooth and easy poling through the small creeks and flooded grasses. Once we dialed in what these fish were eating and where they were hiding it was on like donkey Kong.
Reds were gobbling down the Candy Corn Crawler in all different color patterns.
When one color pattern would stop working we’d just tie on a different color and it was game on again. We caught tons of a slot reds and a few upper slot reds. All and all we were blessed with some amazing days of fishing.
NOW…fast forward to when the first cold front hit and the ones that followed.
The water temperature during these few days was from 65 degrees in the morning and would warm up to about 75 degrees as the day progressed which made the fish start moving around a little better. When the water was colder we found that fish were holding on drop off edges close to shallow water flats. The fish were coming onto the flat to feed then cruising back to the deeper water where it was a little warmer.
As we poled down these edges we were running into schools of reds from 5 to 10 fish strong which is usual to see during fall and winter on the Texas coast. I especially like fishing fall and winter because fish are very eager to eat a fly and typically are not as spooky.
The fly pattern and color that these fish haven’t been able to resist is the Candy Corn Crawler in Grape. There is something about that fly and color combo that they just love.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the fall and winter red fishing as it is only going to get better. Stay tuned as I continue to post reports like this in the up and coming months. Tight lines, mis amigos!
To learn more about Aaron Thomas Gates be sure to check him out via his Facebook and Instagram feeds! Trust me, you will be glad you did!
As always…Keep your heart right, and our line tight!
Backwater Fly Fishing / Jesse Males 