Trout on the line proved what little difference a year had made for wade angling excellence along the outside beaches of Aransas Bay.

Rockport fishing guide Jay Watkins had his clients Bryan Snowden, Bryan Jr. and Gordon Kidd wading abreast along a shoreline of hard sand and scattered shell. Casting KelleyWiggler shrimptails and Bass Assassin plastics, the four anglers were regularly and happily hooking up with hungry specks like deja vu.

The last time I had seen Snowden and his son was 364 days earlier at the end of a 100-fish day of wade fishing action with Watkins. The memorable results called for a rematch, and it didn't take any arm-twisting for me to join the game - especially not when Watkins said he was on a sure-fire fishing pattern in conditions of spring-like weather.

The guide had been particular when he deployed his offensive line for the first wade of the morning. He positioned us about 20 yards apart in a line perpendicular to a shoreline to cover water from knee-deep to chest-deep. He said the formation would allow us to cover both sides of what he called the "break."

"The plan for this first drive is to move quickly down the field and get some points on the board," Watkins explained. "We are not looking to run some time off the clock."

We scored 17 on the first drive, including 16 stout keeper specks and a good-sized flounder. The trout ranged from 16 to 21 inches, but they were so thick-bodied that the larger ones pushed 3 to 3-1/2 pounds.

Watkins was just as careful with our deployment for a second wading foray along a shoreline featuring a bottom of mixed sand and grass. This time, however, we lined up from waist-deep to chest-deep.

"We are going to line up to cover from the edge of the `break' to as deep as we can wade," he said as we prepared to leave the boat.

"Why is that?" he asked. "Think about the line of water where we caught fish on our first wade. They were a little deeper off the break. That's where we should find most of them along the shorelines this morning."

It was lore related to the time-tested pattern of fishing what the professional guides frequently refer to as "edges," "breaks" and "dropoffs." It sounds like Fishing 101, but it became a bit more than that when Watkins explained and demonstrated the finer points of wading the breaks.

He scored a point on the second shoreline when he caught a keeper trout on his first cast zinged offshore from the deep end of our wading line.

"See?" he laughed, "I just proved that there are 100 percent more fish in deep water on this shoreline than there are in shallow water."

Over the next several hours of wading the breaks along selected shorelines, Watkins continued to find keeper-sized trout in varying numbers - a few on a poor stretch, 10 on a better one and 26 on a hot stretch at high noon. More action followed in the afternoon until the Snowdens could count a 100-fish day to match the success of the previous year. The large majority were caught on the deeper side of the break in water averaging about 4 feet deep.

It was like the trout were concentrated in a river meandering along the shores of San Jose Island. All the while, Watkins expounded on how to stay in the scoring "zones" for fishing action.

Essentially, there are three zones to target.