by Capt. Pat McGri ff
Trout, Trout and more Trout is the cry at Keaton as this week we saw a 12 degree drop in the Gulf water temperature; yet the trout are biting right through the fronts and the cold snap? We had 20 trout today (11/15) in less than 3 hours for Steven Cook, Matt and his Dad, David Williams all of Dallas, Ga. We also had a 19 inch flounder in the cooler. We used live pin fish and live shrimp under Back Bay Thunders to catch these fish from 2.5 to 3.5 feet of water.
Trout have been killing hard jerkbaits, and earlier in the week, stick baits as well. Bite-A-Bait fighters have taken a bunch of fish as have MirrOlips and Bomber Long A’s. December will most likely see the hard jerkbaits still taking trout if they are worked “down” and slowly.
I will be throwing MirrOlure’s MirrOdines, Catch Jr’s and MirrOminnow’s if the water temps get down into the 50’s. These suspending baits work best on “found” fish or fish holding in shallower areas looking to warm up rather than eat. They simply can’t refuse the super slow tantalizing drop which these baits alone, exhibit.
When the water gets in the low 50’s, Try the Paul Brown Specials, also from MirrOlure. It takes a hardy soul to fish these baits slow and easy in cold, cold conditions and water, when almost nothing else will take a trout. In Texas they get into the water and wade in January and February and the lure they throw is the PBS in all three designs the “Original”, the “Fatboy” and the “Devil.” I haven’t mastered all of these baits yet; but I have caught some fine fish on the FatBoys in Winter and early Spring.
December is also the time to throw Unweighted 5″ Shads by Assassin rigged on a Daiichi D42Z Wide Gap O set 5/0 worm hook. I love this style of fishing and it works best once the water temps gets around or below 55 degrees, too cold for the pin fish to bother swinging at it. Tip: Choose three distinct color patterns and you won’t have to carry three dozen colors. First opaques: two solids: I like Pink and Alewife, and two opaque laminates: Electric Chicken and Stinky Pink, Next, some translucents like Native Shiner, Baby Bass or New Penny; then some transparents: like Gold fish and Clear Gold Shiner. These basic three types will/should cover all the light conditions you shall encounter. I like throwing these bait with a minimum of w-i-n-d, say less than 8 knots for best results. Get more than 8 knots and I like to add a Cajun Thunder to the game.
Red fish will eat a bunch of things, this time of year, like the 5-pound red I saw a man cleaning at the marina. I saw this huge stomach full of something, so I asked him if I could stop him from cleaning the red and borrow his knife to do an autopsy of the stomach contents. Well this red fish had 35 fish in his stomach! These are the species he had eaten, a pipe fish (this is the long slender “grass fish” you see darting away on the surface) a squirrel fish ( the largest of all the 35) a black sea bass, three mahogany snapper, a flounder size of a quarter, a trigger fish even smaller, ten mojarra, five pig fish, four pin fish, a spottail pin fish, a dog fish and several unrecognizable mostly digested remains of small bait fish. This was just after the cold snap which most likely had the fiddlers deep in the ground and sent the bluecrabs burying up in the sand and mud. Somehow, ( probably water temperature) reds get the trigger to switch and go after “ fish” this time of year. So NOW is the perfect time to catch them on plugs, preferably small hard jerkbaits. I will use Bite-A-Bait fighters in clown, parrot and gold finishes.
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Pat McGri ff dba One More Cast guide service for 23 years! onemorecast@gtcom.net www.onemorecast.net cell 850.838.7541 • ph.850-584-9145