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Home › Waters › Texas › Chocolate Bayou
Bayou · Upper Texas coast, Brazoria County, the coastal prairie south of Alvin draining to Chocolate Bay · Texas

Chocolate Bayou Fishing Guides

A Brazoria County bayou running from the prairie south of Alvin down to Chocolate Bay, fresh and bass-filled at the top and a redfish and flounder fishery where it meets the marsh.

Bald cypress hung with Spanish moss standing in still bayou water in Louisiana
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Chocolate Bayou

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About the Chocolate Bayou

Chocolate Bayou rises on the coastal prairie south of Alvin and runs southeast to Chocolate Bay, a shallow arm of the upper Texas coast system behind West Galveston Bay. The name describes the water honestly, which is a fair introduction to a bayou that is more productive than it is pretty. The gauge near Alvin reports both discharge and stage, and it is one of the few bayous in this set where a real flow number is available, because this upper reach still behaves like a prairie stream rather than a tidal channel.

The bayou changes character along its length. Above the tidal influence it is fresh, narrow and often slow, running between prairie and scattered woodlot, and it holds largemouth bass, bluegill, catfish and gar. As it drops toward the coast the channel widens, salt works in, and the fishery shifts to redfish, speckled trout, flounder, black drum and sheepshead. The transition zone moves upstream and down with rainfall and tide, and the most interesting fishing is often found right where the two fisheries overlap.

Structure is bank wood, cut banks, shell in the lower reaches and the mouths of drains and cuts through the marsh grass. Bottom is the soft mud the bayou is named for. Wind and rain both change conditions quickly, and the discharge reading is genuinely useful for judging how much fresh water has pushed the salt line down, which in turn tells an angler whether to rig for bass or for redfish before leaving the house.

Industrial development sits near the lower bayou, but the marsh between the highway and the bay remains largely intact and fishes well.

Access runs through Alvin and the bay side ramps, and the bayou is small enough through its middle reach that a kayak is often the most practical boat.

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The photo at the top of this page is not Chocolate Bayou.

It is a regional stand-in, honestly captioned but generic — we will not put a name to a river we cannot prove. Send us a photograph you took here and it replaces the stand-in, with your credit on it.

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  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Chocolate Bayou.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Chocolate Bayou cfs

Now: 14.3 cfs, read 5:15 pm CDT, Sun Oct 18, 2026 (USGS 08078000, Chocolate Bayou nr Alvin, TX).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Alvin - the nearest town, with lodging, fuel, tackle and food.
Highway 35 crossing - bank and small-boat access near the gauge.
Chocolate Bay - the shallow receiving bay, reached by boat.
Bastrop Bay - the adjacent bay system, connected through the marsh.
West Galveston Bay - the larger bay system beyond, a short run for boats.
Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge - public marsh south and west of the bayou.
Houston - the metro area north, within easy driving distance for guides and supplies.

Seasons

Spring: warming water brings bass onto shallow spawning flats and redfish up into the lower bayou.
Summer: trout work the lower grass edges, while the fresher upper reach fishes best at first light.
Fall: flounder run toward the bay and redfish school, making this the strongest season.
Winter: fronts drop levels and fish stack in the deeper channel bends, with drum most reliable.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Chocolate Bayou?

As of Oct 18, 5:15 pm, the USGS gauge Chocolate Bayou nr Alvin, TX reads 14 cfs. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Chocolate Bayou?

Anglers target Alligator Gar, Black Drum, Blue Catfish, Bluegill, Bowfin, Channel Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Longnose Gar, Red Drum, Sheepshead, Southern Flounder, Spotted Seatrout on the Chocolate Bayou in Texas.

Where can you access the Chocolate Bayou?

Alvin - the nearest town, with lodging, fuel, tackle and food. Highway 35 crossing - bank and small-boat access near the gauge. Chocolate Bay - the shallow receiving bay, reached by boat. Bastrop Bay - the adjacent bay system, connected through the marsh. West Galveston Bay - the larger bay system beyond, a short run for boats. Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge - public marsh south and west of the bayou. Houston - the metro area north, within easy driving distance for guides and supplies.

When is the best time to fish the Chocolate Bayou?

Spring: warming water brings bass onto shallow spawning flats and redfish up into the lower bayou. Summer: trout work the lower grass edges, while the fresher upper reach fishes best at first light. Fall: flounder run toward the bay and redfish school, making this the strongest season. Winter: fronts drop levels and fish stack in the deeper channel bends, with drum most reliable.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Chocolate Bayou?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Texas agency site: https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/fishing/