Baffin Bay & the Upper Laguna Madre

Kaufer-Hubert Memorial County Park pier

A lighted county pier on Baffin Bay, in a Kleberg County park that also has a boat launch and dock access, large RV camping sites, picnic areas and restrooms. Anglers fish it for speckled trout; birders work the shallows for shorebirds and waders. Length, build date, fee and hours are not published by the county anywhere we can cite. Kleberg County has closed and reopened its beaches and piers as a unit during emergencies, so check before a trip after weather. One common misconception to clear up: it is a county park, not a state park, whatever the review sites say.

Riviera Fishing Pier

Listed separately from Kaufer-Hubert as a shore-fishing option on Baffin. We cannot confirm whether this is a distinct structure or the Kaufer-Hubert pier under a local name, and we would rather say so than invent a second pier. Assume one pier at Loyola Beach until someone on the ground says otherwise.

Bird Island Basin (access, not a pier)

There is no public fishing pier inside Padre Island National Seashore that we can find. Bird Island Basin is the region's main wade and launch access to the Upper Laguna instead: a small picnic area with tables and shade structures, a gravel parking lot, vault toilets and dumpsters, popular with birdwatchers, anglers, campers and windsurfers. Paddlecraft launch straight off the shoreline; motorboats use the Bird Island Basin Boat Ramp about five minutes away, which carries its own boat ramp pass. Tidal mudflats near the day-use area draw shorebirds. An adjacent primitive campground has no hookups. The Worldwinds Windsurfing concession rents and teaches windsurfing, kayaking and paddleboarding here. Current dollar amounts for the entrance fee, the ramp pass and camping are not something we publish; check the park.

No jetties in this region

Baffin Bay and the Upper Laguna Madre have no pass to the Gulf of Mexico and therefore no jetties. The nearest jettied inlets are Packery Channel to the north and Mansfield Pass, the East Cut, to the south. What Baffin has instead of rock jetties is natural rock, described in the reefs section below. That is the defining structural fact of the region: it fishes like a jetty system with the jetties scattered randomly across the bottom and none of them marked.

The serpulid worm rock reefs natural reef

Natural hard-bottom structures built by tube-dwelling polychaete worms that secrete calcium carbonate tubes. Like coral, the tubes accumulate into reef masses over centuries. The Baffin reefs run 300 to 3,000 years old, much younger than the area's beach rocks at 20,000 to 30,000 years. They take two forms: patch reefs, small isolated rocks 1.5 to 6 ft high and sometimes exposed at low tide, and reef fields, large irregular areas extending several feet or more into the bay bottom. TPWD says the structures are unique and found nowhere else on the Texas coast, and the Harte Research Institute says serpulid reefs are very rare worldwide and, along the US Gulf coast, are found only in Baffin Bay. Now the correction that matters: the popular claim that Baffin holds the only living serpulid reefs in the world is false as usually stated. TPWD's own wording treats the Baffin reefs as relict, no longer actively growing, and notes that living, actively growing serpulid reefs exist in a handful of locations worldwide. The reefs are rare enough without the embellishment. On why fish hold there, TPWD is candid: the reefs provide shelter, food and protection for many organisms, but although anglers report catching large spotted seatrout near the rocks, scientific documentation of that benefit is lacking. Condition is deteriorating. Reefs are damaged by boat strikes, wading anglers stepping on them, dredging and seismic work; Harte reports that Baffin's serpulid reefs have degraded compared to historic levels, with many areas already reduced to rubble, declining in both size and distribution, likely from wave action and increased boat traffic. Harte researchers are now testing alternative substrates, comparing colonisation rates and running cost-benefit ratios on restoration approaches. Local names for individual rocks are in common use and we do not publish a gazetteer of them without a citation.

No artificial reefs artificial reef

There are no TPWD artificial reef sites in Baffin Bay or the Upper Laguna Madre. The program operates in the Gulf of Mexico, not the bays. Baffin's structure is all natural rock plus scattered private and oilfield remnants, and we have no source that inventories the latter.

Baffin Bay (Upper Laguna Madre)

Weight Records · Rod & Reel · All-Ages

Weight Records · Rod & Reel · Junior Angler

Catch and Release Records (by length) · Rod & Reel · All Ages

Upper Laguna Madre

Weight Records · Rod & Reel · All-Ages

Weight Records · Fly Fishing · All-Ages

Weight Records · Bow Fishing · All-Ages

Weight Records · Rod & Reel · Junior Angler

Weight Records · Fly Fishing · Junior Angler

Catch and Release Records (by length) · Rod & Reel · All Ages

Catch and Release Records (by length) · Rod & Reel · Junior Angler