In Texas, ladyfish can turn up in bays, estuaries, channels, and flats and around piers and jetties from Sabine Pass to Port Isabel. They will take flies and other artificials aggressively and will take to the air when they are not making sizzling runs. Ladyfish fill the Padre Island surf in vast numbers during the late summer and early fall, going on feeding sprees that in turn attract flocks of terns and gulls. Suggested fly patterns range from poppers to streamers to shrimp imitations.
Durability is the most important quality in fly selection.
It is a good idea to use a bite tippet for ladyfish. Twenty-pound monofilament is fine, but the line should be checked and retied often. On the lower Laguna Madre, ladyfish can provide fast midday action after trout and redfish have dropped into deeper, cooler water, says South Padre Island guide Eric Glass. You can go up in them on a falling tide in the summer, when there is just a slight current trickling off the flat, and somehow a school of ladyfish has found it. Glass says he also looks for ladyfish on the back side of South Padre Island, where they patrol the edge of white sand flats in clear water.