By: Eric Henson
Well Happy New Year’s everyone!! I hope all of you have been enjoying the cooler weather the last couple of months. But if you are a true Floridian like me, you are probably freezing your tail off some mornings! Living in Florida and being on the water my entire life, I’ve learned that it’s all about the layers. The most important layer of all is something to break the wind and catch whatever water may splash on you. I’ve even had clients from up north show up with no coat saying this is nothing and 15 minutes in I’m handing them an extra jacket I brought just in case! There is something about the combination of cold wind and H20 that can become bone chilling.
Now that the elephant in the room “Cold Weather” is out there, how does it affect the fishing? Well even though water temps are low, some species thrive quite nicely. The main species that comes to my mind are speckled trout. They show up in huge numbers and this is the time of year to catch a trophy size trout which us Floridians call “GATOR TROUT”. They can be found in inches of water trying to warm up and deeper waters huddled together in schools. If I’m targeting them on the open grass flats, I generally like to use light to medium tackle. They are quite aggressive and ferocious in their attacks and I have seen them hit top water lures so hard that they go flying over 6ft into the air! Because they are trying to fatten up for their spawn, they will be gorging themselves. I like to target them with a variety of things like hard baits, soft-plastics, flies, and of course some people prefer live bait as well.
Now, because the lager trout are females and here to spawn… PLEASE handle these beauties with the utmost care. Wetting your hands a bit to handle them for a quick picture is a great practice but these fish are the future of our fishery for years to come. Hope everyone has fun out there and does their part in helping our waters flourish. Tight lines and Tight knots to everyone!
Eric Henson is the owner of Casting Kayaks LLC. a guided kayak fishing company out of Sarasota Florida. He specializes in inshore light tackle or fly fishing from Tampa Bay to Charlotte Harbor. To book a guided fishing trip with Eric check out his website www.CastingKayaks.com or give him a call at 941-504-134