Information on geographical recruitment patterns of estuarine-dependent fish is critical to understanding their ecology.  Red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus), southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma), blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), and penaeid shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus, Farfantepenaeus duorarum, Litopenaeus setiferus) are estuarine-dependent species that use seagrasses as nursery habitat.   While generalities are known about their recruitment, it is unknown how far recruitment occurs from the inlet.  Packery Channel is a natural tidal inlet in Corpus Christi Bay that has been closed since the 1930s and recently opened, allowing a unique opportunity to study recruitment patterns in an area that was previously inaccessible to newly settling fishes and crustaceans.  The purpose of this research is to determine the distance that red drum, southern flounder, blue crabs, and penaeid shrimp disperse from an inlet before settling into a seagrass meadow and to examine the effects of a new inlet on their recruitment. We measured densities at varying distances from tidal inlets both pre- and post-opening of Packery Channel.  I found that densities of these species were repeatedly higher at sites closest to the inlet, suggesting that high levels of recruitment occur at the first extensive seagrass meadows larvae encounter.  Prior to the opening of Packery Channel, newly settled individuals typically did not occur in areas surrounding Packery Channel.  However, after the opening of Packery Channel, densities of small individuals of all species were high in these areas suggesting they are recruiting through the new inlet.  Once fully opened, the Packery Channel could have a large impact on the densities of recruiting nekton in the upper Laguna Madre. We also examined the role that settlement habitat within an inlet plays on recruitment to seagrass beds within the bay.  My results suggest that seagrass beds within the tidal inlet do not affect the densities of red drum within the bay and that these fish are not using the habitat in the channel as corridors.  I also evaluated the usefulness of visible implant elastomer (VIE) for mark and recapture studies on juvenile red drum and performed a preliminary study on the fine-scale movement patterns of red drum within a seagrass bed.  I found that VIE is an effective method for marking small red drum and when young red drum were marked with VIE and released into a seagrass bed they may have a much larger dispersal potential than previously suspected and assessing movement patterns of young juvenile red drum merits further investigation.  Overall, seagrass beds closest to the inlet appear to be the most important for settling juvenile fish and crustaceans and that  the opening of Packery Channel allowed access to habitats in the upper Laguna Madre that were previously inaccessible to newly settling juveniles, possibly boosting fisheries productivity in that area.