No doubt Harvey and Irma hit our southern coastline very hard. We as communities mobilized immediately to come to the aid of friends, neighbors and in many cases total strangers. If you fish or live on the coast, no one is a complete stranger.
We’ve had several wet years, and these hurricanes have added more water to our estuary systems. They’ve also pushed out the shrimp early this year into the main bays, so that might help a little this year in terms of the typical winter big trout pattern. There will still be a large shrimp crop that will come into the bays later, and it’s the exit of the shrimp and menhaden that typically triggers the typical winter big trout pattern and a move to a more mullet, perch or white bait diet.
Big trout also target sand trout or Gulf trout that are working shrimp. So despite the fact that big trout don’t eat a lot of shrimp, the movements of shrimp will still pull big trout to the main bays in the fall.
The key is locating trout that ignore this pattern and remain shallow feeding on mullet, perch, white bait and small trout. Also, watch your salinity levels as big sow trout begin to move out of areas that are below 5ppt salinity on the bottom. You might have to target areas closer to inlets and passes this winter to find those big sows in the mud and grass, and mud and oysters.
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