Speckled trout

[ronaultmtd]

Four of us got up before the sun today and hit the Slower Lower prospecting for speckled trout...Abel and I were able to find a few decent fish...the bite was slow and the fish were smaller than my last trip here...but I kept two 16 inch speckled trout for dinner...ended up catching a dozen mostly 13 inch fish...I cast 1/4 oz. Bomber Shad Jighead with 4 inch bass assassin Sea Shad body up on the flats and let the outgoing tide sweep the lure back across the flats...keeping all the slack out of the line and imparting a twitch, twitch, twitch motion usually got a response from the specks...unfortunately there were CNRs...big ones...really big ones...trust me...big with a capital B...full grown adult CNRs...and crab-pots...

[brianisoutside]

CNRs...big ones...really big ones...trust me...big with a capital B...full grown adult CNRs...and crab-pots...

Haha, I hate those things


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[ronaultmtd]

Haha, I hate those things


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Me too...but I can report that a Shimano Stradic FI 2500 has been throughly "torture" tested and passed with flying colors...superb drag, excellent engineering, very durable and the 7' Shimano Teramar SE Inshore medium spinning rod is CNR "proof"...and my knot tying skills are 100%...when you can pull a Hobie Outback up to a crabpot float in a full flow outgoing tide with 10# Braid with a 20# florocarbon leader and nothing breaks...your knots are good to go...I hooked the CNR right in the "Face"...the Bomber 1/4 oz. 4/0 hook jighead looked like it was eaten by the damn thing..and the hook had gone all the way through the Ray's mouth area and the barb was sticking out...impossible to get out without killing the ray...so I Broke it off and lost the lure...

[Mark]

Congrats on your specks, Ron.

I liked your description of you lure retrieval technique.

I caught my first and only speck in MD this year recently during a boat trip in the Bay far south of my normal fishing territory. But I have caught a lot of them in FL. Sometimes they are aggressive and will hit a lure on a straight retrieve. But often you have to finesse them by twitching the rod tip and starting and stopping your retrieve. They can be exasperating with their tap, tap, tap before they hook up. Their tentative behaviors can belie their fierce-looking toothy smile which appears to built for slashing through schools of bait fish.

[ronaultmtd]

Thanks Mark...Abel was catching Specks using a different lure/ technique...both worked...this is the way I have always fished for Specks with jigheads...my all time favorite way is Bonk-A-Donking...but that is mostly a Gulf Coast fishery...up here on the Southeast Atlantic Coast the trout don't get as top water aggressive as they do in Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana/Texas Gulf Coast regions...must have to do with the topography and bait fish...

[yakscientist]

Thanks Mark...Abel was catching Specks using a different lure/ technique...both worked...this is the way I have always fished for Specks with jigheads...my all time favorite way is Bonk-A-Donking...but that is mostly a Gulf Coast fishery...up here on the Southeast Atlantic Coast the trout don't get as top water aggressive as they do in Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana/Texas Gulf Coast regions...must have to do with the topography and bait fish...

I've never targeted specks, but the only times I've caught them (2 separate occasions), it's been a similar setup to what you described, only trolling instead. 1/4oz jig and paddletail never fails to produce.

[Slobber Bob]

I've lost all confidence in trying top water for specks. When I switch over to top water I've resigned myself to that fact that I'm now striper fishing and no longer speck fishing. It doesn't really make sense to me that they won't hit it?

[Mark]

I've never trolled or tried top water for specks in FL. The pervasive wind and chop typically inhibit top water. I've caught them on the fly, Clousers and crystal buggers. But by far, I have caught most on a simple jig and soft plastic.

P1010149.jpg

[ronaultmtd]

We wade fished flats near Orange Beach, Al...used a bright pink Bon-A-Donk type walk-the-dog lure called a Paul Brown...and absolutely slayed them and every now and then a Redfish...but up here only I get bluefish and stripers fishing the same way...

[Slobber Bob]

We wade fished flats near Orange Beach, Al...used a bright pink Bon-A-Donk type walk-the-dog lure called a Paul Brown...and absolutely slayed them and every now and then a Redfish...but up here only I get bluefish and stripers fishing the same way...

When we had that good showing of 22" - 27" puppy drum behind OC going on a couple years back, I actually did real good with top water for drum as a search lure when I wasn't able to sight-cast to singles or schools using soft plastic.

Maybe one day I'll just luck into a trout that decides to hit a spook.

[gkreps]

Matt Abel at Sea Hawk Sports in Pocomoke, MD has been crushing the Specs with the Bomber 2" Ba-Donk-a-Donks around structure, the "SS" (Slow sinking model) has been his go to bait.