Been lurking for awhile as I’m newish to the saltwater game. Figured it was time to contribute and hopefully start some more convos.
Turned into a beautiful afternoon yesterday, so decided to get out for a few hours. Went out of Folly on the falling tide. The trout have been elusive for me this year, so decided I would pound the banks to see if I could find some new spots. Looked for moving water near points, etc. but realized I don’t have as many spots that have appropriate depth at low/falling tide. After an hour and a half of no bites, resorted to pitching a ned-rig shrimp under some docks and hooked up with two small reds. Pretty new to the ned rig game and was using a 1/10 jig, which felt really light, but I think the small presentation worked to my advantage as long as I could keep it near the bottom. Also explored a few creeks to look for any schools of reds, but no dice.
-CP
Interested to know how yall target trout on low tides.
We have some resident winter fishermen that check in from time to time, no doubt you’ll get some good opinions soon,but in the meantime, welcome to the site and thanks for sharing.
welcome. I’m not an expert on anything, so there’s that.
I mostly don’t target trout on lo tide. If I do, it’s deep holes in the bends in creeks. if there’s a dock, downed tree, or shellrake in the deep bend, even better.
If you can find the search feature on this site, look up fishingwithbob, raddaddy. I don’t remember the others. they were great trout fishermen who contributed alot here in the past.
Optiker will see this and weigh in if you’re nice. read his stuff closely.
haddrells has a hotspots map that gives some good “public” spots.
if you don’t get bit soon, move. when you find winter trout, the tend to be a bunch of em in a tiny area.
I’ll get deservedly flamed for this…when I had even less idea what I was doing mid 90’s, I slow trolled 2 or 3 grubs behind boat using big motor. go so slow that the grub bumps the bottom every few feet. if I got hit, I’d circle back. if I got hit again, I’d throw out a marker and come back and cast. I caught 100’s of trout my first winter here with a boat. very much like crappie fishing, find em first by covering water. cover water and you’ll figure out what a good spot looks like if you don’t already know.
Thanks for the welcome! Never really thought of that trolling idea… but since finding the school seems to be the name of the game it certainly makes sense to me. And hard to argue with those results! As with anything, it’s time on the water and building up my own quiver of spots, but I’m enjoying the process. Thanks for the input! I’ve been on here for a few months but could stand to look through the “archive.”
Hey that’s a sweet sled, the accent lights are a nice touch! Welcome to the site.
Great reply from the PeaPod. I’ll add moving water is a must as well for me. You’ll start the learning curve faster than regular if you were to hire a local guide and pick their brain while fishing each spot, but thats not a necessity or anything. You have a great rig to explore a lot of our waterways. Looking forward to some progress updates.
One thing about PeaPod is he’s the biggest sandbagger on this site…when he gives fishing advice, listen. His advice given is spot on.
This time of year, as PeaPod said, the trout are schooled up so its super easy to get skunked and moving around A LOT is needed. Once you get bit…STOP and fish all around there. Often you will catch 5 or 6 and the bite will stop. The school just moved 50 ft either up or down current. Look around and you should be able to find them again.
Fish small profiles, super, super slow. Keep semi contact with your lure (thanks Bob Sanders) and you fill feel a very slight ‘snick’. If you reel in your lure and the tail is curled around the hook - congrats you just missed a trout bite. Why? Salt Strong made a video that revealed it. Trout come up from behind the lure and push it up and flip it over when sucking it in. Very interesting to me!
This time of year the trout move way up the creeks, almost to fresh water. I guess they are finding food up there, IDK. Instead of fishing the middle of the creek casting to the bank, run up the bank and cast to the middle. Saltwater will be in the middle bottom of the creek as well as thermal refuge.
Remember to let the big ones go, and if you catch an “over 20” enter it at ReleaseOver20.org
Thanks Stump. Just FYI to all: We now accept RO20 redfish as well. Each fish entered increases your chances of winning our monthly giveaways. We’ve had people win 3 times.
regarding way up the creeks…a trout savant sent me footage years ago. one of the big freeze/fish kill years. he was flying through a creek heading to the wayback brackish part. there were hundreds maybe thousands of trout suspended in a 1/2 mile stretch.
