Fished the AM shift. Froze my butt off this morning! I tend to look at tide and wind and sometimes neglect the real forecast. Wasn’t expecting 47F this morning… Felt like winter. Windy too.
Needless to say, my hopes for topwater didn’t pan out like I wanted. Had two fish nose the plug but not even make contact.
About 1.5 hrs in I was questioning my sanity when I got a subtle hit on a pearl MinnowZ on a gold TE. A real nice trout came to the boat ~ 19". Just a little further down the bank got its twin, a big buck at almost the same size.
Managed a nice flatty about 17".
Toward the end of the morning I found a new Trout spot. Fished a point and was hopping the MinnowZ down the dropoff when I get a nice hit. The trout spit up a minnow - looked exactly like the Pearl MinnowZ. Next cast, same thing, fish hit the deck and puked up a minnow about the same size. No wonder its been working really well for me 
Caught around 5 trout in this spot. Look forward to trying it again in the future.
Many of my productive spots were barren today. Just a really yukky day to fish, but I was pleased with the results. Ended up with 8 trout, 1 flatty.
Water 65F. Outgoing tide 7 ft range. Vis 3 ft to 1.5 once the water started rolling.
2000 SeaPro 180CC w/ Yammy 115 2 stroke
1966 13’ Boston Whaler w/ Merc 25 4 stroke “Flatty”
www.ralphphillipsinshore.com
Thanks Optiker.
2006 17’ Sea Hunt Triton w/ 90 Yamaha, formerly a 1991 15’ Key West Explorer w/ 60 Johnson.
Forgot to add that I saw two glitter boats doing about 70 headed up the Cooper doing some last minute scouting for the upcoming tourney. One of them caught pretty good air on a container ship wake 
2000 SeaPro 180CC w/ Yammy 115 2 stroke
1966 13’ Boston Whaler w/ Merc 25 4 stroke “Flatty”
www.ralphphillipsinshore.com
Hi Optiker,
Always love reading your posts and have a lot of respect for your knowledge. In the event that I catch an actual fish at some point in the future, I have a question about speckled trout. Based on a lot of the posts here on CF.com, it seems that the larger trout are mostly breeding females. So if a guy like me wanted to take home a trout or 4 for dinner, would it be better to keep the barely legal ones (from a conservation perspective)? That’s what it seems to me. The photos wouldn’t be as impressive, but the fillets would be just as tasty. Is my logic fairly close to accurate?
http://www.lowcountrypregnancycenter.com/
Surf, there are a couple good reasons to release the big girls.
- They release exponentially more eggs than the smaller ones. Details are in the trout brochure.
- They have “survivor” genes that should be perpetuated if possible. It’s anyones guess whether they might have a predisposition to cold tolerance, disease resistance, idk “smarter” or just dumb luck that they managed to survive for 7+ yrs. It is good to let those genes disperse into the gene pool regardless.
As a matter of personal belief, I release all trout over 20". It’s my “personal upper-slot”
2000 SeaPro 180CC w/ Yammy 115 2 stroke
1966 13’ Boston Whaler w/ Merc 25 4 stroke “Flatty”
www.ralphphillipsinshore.com
No pictures of 10lb trout?..Pffft!
May all your favorite bands stay together…
I wish! My PB “wild” trout is just under 6 lbs / 24 5/8". I’ve caught a few around 27" in ponds but they don’t count 
2000 SeaPro 180CC w/ Yammy 115 2 stroke
1966 13’ Boston Whaler w/ Merc 25 4 stroke “Flatty”
www.ralphphillipsinshore.com
quote:
Originally posted by Optiker
Surf, there are a couple good reasons to release the big girls.
- They release exponentially more eggs than the smaller ones. Details are in the trout brochure.
- They have “survivor” genes that should be perpetuated if possible. It’s anyones guess whether they might have a predisposition to cold tolerance, disease resistance, idk “smarter” or just dumb luck that they managed to survive for 7+ yrs. It is good to let those genes disperse into the gene pool regardless.
As a matter of personal belief, I release all trout over 20". It’s my “personal upper-slot”
2000 SeaPro 180CC w/ Yammy 115 2 stroke
1966 13’ Boston Whaler w/ Merc 25 4 stroke “Flatty”
www.ralphphillipsinshore.com
That is what I was thinking. Best to keep the smaller ones for the skillet, and let the big ones make more little ones.
http://www.lowcountrypregnancycenter.com/