Thursday, October 23, 2008
Speckled trout anglers are closed-mouthed; so are the trout
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
“Pssssst! They’re in! Chris has got 'em!”
With that tip, we jumped into the pickup and headed for Chris’ Bait & Tackle on Virginia’s Eastern Shore three miles north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
Chris knew why we were there. We were after a certain MirrOlure crankbait she had special ordered. We had been pestering her for days concerning its arrival.
It is the STTR MG model, with a purple back, silver sides, chartreuse belly and a touch of orange under its chin.
It is the hot lure for speckled trout fishing this fall.
Guide Jack Brady of Oyster swears by it. He was showing one to a fellow angler the other day and the angler said, “I have one similar to it.”
“With a speckled trout, similar doesn’t work,” said Brady.
One of the reasons speckled trout anglers are grabbing onto a particular lure is because the trout themselves haven’t been grabbing much of anything this fall. Or, at best, they have been erratic.
“One day they are there; the next day they are gone,” said Brady.
Like, recently, when some drum fishing clients canceled their trip with Brady because they thought it was too windy. Brady sat around his house for awhile, then told his wife: “I’m bored. I’m going to take a boat ride.”
He headed to a favorite trout hole and caught 30 specks, including several 4 to 6 pounds.
“I went right back to the same spot the next day and caught just one,” he said.
Go figure.
Speckled trout, sometimes called spotted seatrout, are an absolute favorite fish of many locals along the coast of Virginia and North Carolina. Tourists can have the flounder, stripers, croakers or drum, but don’t even bother asking the locals where they are catching trout. The last thing they want to see is a strange boat hovering over their favorite trout hole.
Trout are held in high esteem because they are fun to catch. They often feed in shallow water where you have to stalk them. They readily take artificial lures on light tackle. They nail your lure with a vengeance and fight hard. When you locate a feeding school, multiple hook-ups are common.
They are good to eat, too.
Add to that, their similarities to mountain trout make them one of the prettiest fish that swims in saltwater. They have a predator’s mouth and eyes, and their silver sides are peppered with black spots to help them blend into the shallow edges of grass flats or oyster beds.
Trout can be found on both the seaside and bayside of the Eastern Shore, often in the creeks that penetrate these waters; however, the annual winner in the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament invariably comes from Elizabeth River in Chesapeake. Many of the giants are taken during the winter months.
While anglers often are saying that the early fall fishing has been tough, the saltwater tournament tells a different story. There have been 279 catch citations and 161 release citations. The leading entry is a 9-pound, 15-ounce catch by David Hester of Chesapeake. It was from the Elizabeth River.
Back to the STTR MG MirrOlure. Why is it so prized this season?
Probably it has more to do with confidence than color. But why argue? The MirrOlure has lackluster action, but has been a first choice of speck fishermen for decades.
Also good is a 3/8-ounce jig head with a Berkley Gulp! 3-inch saltwater shrimp or 4-inch swimming mullet on it. It doesn’t hurt to do some experimenting, by trying different lures and retrieves, especially when the first are closed-mouthed.
Many anglers used lightweight spinning rigs wound with thin braded line for long casts to deal with the spooky traits of trout.
Of course, there are days when anything works and days when nothing works.
