Hi there, friend. Are you stuck in some New England tax trap? Are you sitting in a state that you can’t bass fish year round? Perhaps you’re considering a move to the Lone Star state to cure your fishing woes, and refill your coffers? If you’re going to have a new stomping ground soon where you’ll need to figure out the best fishing spots. There’s few ways you can do that quicker than by joining a few online Texas fishing forums.
Why You Should Seek Out a Texas Fishing Forum
With a state as big as Texas with as many bass fishing lakes, you’re going to want to sign up for a fishing forum or two to cut your learning curve down a bit. After all, visiting a fishing forum is one of the best ways that you can improve your fishing skills in a hurry. Forums are, in my opinion, one of the best places to get honest information about what fish are biting on and where. While you’ll get plenty of folks who talk about “Lake X” you’ll get plenty more who are more than happy to tell you exactly how to catch them. The best part is the information stays there forever, date stamped and sortable so you can see if the best lures in, say, Texas in April held up year after year after year.
Another great benefit of joining a fishing forum is the community. I’ve been a member of several forums for fishing and other hobbies over the past twenty years. I have formed legitimate real life friendships as a result of these. I’ve helped people out and been helped in turn. While you always have to be careful about meeting people from the internet, chances are that many Texans on these fishing forums are going to be in local bass clubs too. You might just meet a new fishing buddy who could teach you a trick or two.
Popular Texas Fishing Forums
Regardless of if you bass fish or like to go inshore in the Gulf of Mexico, with your family or alone in a kayak, there’s a fishing forum in Texas that caters to you. Here’s a few of the best ones I could find across the internet:
Texas Fishing Forum
The largest fishing forum in Texas that I’ve found is the aptly named texasfishingforum.com. This is an impressive space. Their motto is “The best place in Texas to Talk Fishing,” and it seems that plenty of anglers agree. As of writing, there’s well over 29,000 threads for freshwater fishing with an additional 13,000 for saltwater. That would be impressive enough, but if you’re specifically looking for at Texas bass fishing forum, there’s a whopping 176,000+ threads devoted to that species.
Texas Fishing Forum has subforums dedicated to crappie, striped bass, catfish, rough fish, bluegill and sunfish, as well as an entire section just for fishing from the bank. There’s also an inshore and offshore forums for fishing in Texas. Finally, there is a section for fishing reports for all.
There are forums for kayak fishing, boating, electronics, as well as a classifieds section. If you’re not opposed to some civil debate, there is a moderated off topic section with over 3 million posts (just be nice so you don’t wind up on their Wall of Shame)!
The forums are extremely active, with almost every sub forum having activity each day and the longest delay observed as being about a week. If you’re looking for a good fishing forum in Texas, I’d start here.
2CoolFishing
Another huge fishing forum devoted to Texan anglers is 2coolfishing.com. It’s not quite as large as Texas Fishing Forum but is nothing to sniff at, either. While there is a very large freshwater fishing section (including a sub-fishing forum devoted to catching catfish in Texas), the main draw seems to be saltwater forums. There’s a general saltwater fishing discussion board with over 3/4 of a million replies, and a very large sub-forum devoted exclusively to Texas tarpon fishing.
This is actually a pretty good forum even if you don’t like fishing. There’s a lot of great information about Texas in their more general boards. They have over 20 sub-forums for different hobbies that have nothing to do with fishing but might be up your alley.
This too is a very active forum, with almost all of the subsections replied to recently. Only only a few very niche boards going for an extended period of time without a reply.
Bass Boats Central
While it’s not technically a fishing forum devoted to one state, there is a forum devoted to Texas on bbcboards.net. There are 541 pages of different threads to be found here. Most of these have relatively few replies but a few with as many as 332. If you’re specifically looking for a bass fishing forum, this is a good place for that as this entire message board is devoted to bass boats.
Fish Explorer
Fishexplorer.com has a section devoted to the Lone Star State. It’s interesting because many of the posts have a “BLOG” category associated with them. This is a little different than many forums you might be used to. Reading through a few of these, they make for some very detailed fishing reports with photos and descriptions. They don’t always have the easiest title to understand what they’ll discuss, but it might be worth spending some time reading through.
Texas Kayak Fisherman
If you want a fishing forum that focuses on kayak fishing in Texas, texaskayakfisherman.com is your new home. This is a very large forum with sections for both freshwater and saltwater fishing, as well as a subforum specifically for north Texas bass fishing. The forums are very active, with most message boards having recent posts. There’s plenty to read, with some of the boards having over 66,000 topics. It does seem that there is more of a focus on saltwater fishing, as there’s over four times as many posts there compared to freshwater. If you’re specifically looking for a Texas bass fishing forum, there is a small section on texaskayakfisherman.com, but it doesn’t seem to be the focus.
FishingTx
A smaller forum but one devoted to family fishing and with a special place for God, fishingtx.com tries to keep things friendly and civil. As their politics section has a whopping 9 threads, so this seems to be working! While there are a number of sub forums, some of the more niche haven’t seen much activity for a bit. Nonetheless, the main fishing pages as well as the chaplain’s corner are quite active.
Conclusions
I’m sure there’s more out there, but these are the more active Texas fishing forums I found. As you can see, there is a diverse line up and different groups will appeal to different anglers. If you’re new to the state, I’d definitely recommend signing up for a few and introducing yourself. I’ve been visiting various forums for years and they really produce a true sense of community. You can make some lifelong friends out there and better yet some new fishing buddies.
If you know of another Texas fishing forum that I’ve missed, post a comment about why they should be included. I’ll consider updating the post if the new group has activity and is helpful.
Thanks for reading,
John Paxton
