Fished this morning on the slack high and had one of the best topwater bites I’ve ever had. Caught a “zombie” trout with one eye, but was one of the best explosions I’ve had on a plug. Also, had a trout strike 3 or 4 times then a redfish pushes him out of the way and takes the plug! Fighting over it. Also had a good trout wake up behind the plug, strike, miss and shoot off to the side. Saw the whole thing. Really fun morning. Lost count of the fish. All in the 16-20" range, quality fish.
Call in sick, play hooky, kitchen pass whatever, get out there its ON
Water 65F and clear
Sounds like a great morning on the water. Great weather too. Topwater fishing is always a blast and much more exciting. Great talking with ya yesterday at the shop. Hope to see ya out there soon!
Optiker, I was down yesterday and we had a great day, but was all on mm and grubs. I’ve always wanted to catch some on topwater. I’ve done a lot of striper fishing with top water, but never really tried inshore as I usually have others on the boat and just want to go with the sure this to catch some fish.
I want to give it a try. I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for the tides to fish in the areas I fish, but my question is…does time of day also come into play for inshore topwater fishing??.. or if conitions are right, will they hit just as readily any time of day?
Just depends. Some days they’ll be more active on top in the mornings and in the evenings (low light) and/or overcast skies. While other days they’ll eat topwater baits all day long regardless of light conditions.
striper, as a general rule they are gonna hit best in low light conditions. In our seminars I always suggest to people to just keep your eyes and ears open. If you see a school of bait get busted in the broad daylight, you can probably catch that fish on a plug. I’ve found that if you have a rod with plug in hand, and you witness a strike, if you can land that plug within 6 or so feet of the strike within about 5 seconds, you will catch that fish the majority of the time. This works especially well for redfish on a flat.
And riverine striper. Probably lake striper too but I’ve never tried that!
Nice report and info. Dave I cannot agree more. Always rigged and expecting the unexpected. It has been killing me all week with this weather, knowing that they would be chomping.
striper, as a general rule they are gonna hit best in low light conditions. In our seminars I always suggest to people to just keep your eyes and ears open. If you see a school of bait get busted in the broad daylight, you can probably catch that fish on a plug. I’ve found that if you have a rod with plug in hand, and you witness a strike, if you can land that plug within 6 or so feet of the strike within about 5 seconds, you will catch that fish the majority of the time. This works especially well for redfish on a flat.
And riverine striper. Probably lake striper too but I’ve never tried that!
Really kicking myself now. Reds were chasing bait at low tide on a flat area back in a creek we were in Wed. We were catching them with mm and grubs, but sounds like it would have been the perfect opportunity to have thrown a spook or some other top water.
Anybody caught or seen any real studs caught? Last year seems like more really really large trout were caught. I’ve caught decent numbers of trout from 20-23 or so but no studs. Last year saw and heard of several 6+lb fish.
I haven’t been doing much trout or inshore fishimy this year but I’ve noticed the fish I the areas i fish have all grown accordingly. Meaning that last year I caught a lot of reds just under or just over this year t is slot reds and 30 inches. The same can be said for the trout a lot of 16 to 23 instead of 10 to 16 inches. Live bait about 5 to 8 inches will get bigger trout. The only thing I’ve noticed is a lack of small reds and trout. Put 2 5 inch finger mullet on knocker rig wit a 4/0 circle hook and cut 1 mullet tail off just behind the back fin.
From what I have observed, and granted, I haven’t been fishing near as much as I would like, is that the mix of year classes of all fish seems good. Lots of small fish and the average size of trout is bigger than average. Haven’t heard of many true gators but we are just getting into prime time. Most of the real big trout will be caught in the spring anyway.
Thought you might like to see this “Zombie Trout” I got on top that day. You wouldn’t think a one-eyed trout would be able to find a plug but it really crushed it. Maybe it needed to hammer it so that it didn’t miss it’s meal!
Hey Dave, you ever try a whopper plopper? Picked one up the other night because my brother in law has really good things to say about it. Tried yesterday but was about 45 min too late for prime topwater time.
“Everyone should believe in something; I believe I’ll go fishing.” Henry David Thoreau
Nervous Mullet
1986 Boston Whaler 15 Sport
2000 70 Yamama
OV - Yes, they are killer in our golf course ponds for bass. I’ve tried them a couple times in the salt with poor results, although I haven’t given them a fair shake. I think LM bass like things more obnoxious than saltwater fish do. And the whopper plopper is surely obnoxious.
