As most everyone is aware the fall trout bite is on! During the fall and early winter the speckled trout will school heavily here in the lowcountry and it is not uncommon to catch well in excess of 30 fish in one spot. On the flip side, because the fish are schooling so thick it is also not uncommon to fish several locations without a single bite as the fish are bunched up in just a few areas. So that brings up the very important question; how many trout spots do you have? Do you have three or four spots? A dozen? I would be willing to bet that most professional guides have in excess of two dozen spots in one particular area to hit for trout, they bounce from one spot to the next till they get their clients on the fish.
So how do you go about scouting out good trout spots? Well first you must define good trout habitat. By examining a trout’s mouth and dental work we know that trout are ambush predators. These fish are always on the prowl awaiting bait to move from the protection of some type of structure. That bait holding structure may be a dock, a pile of rocks, a live oyster shell bed, a dead oyster bank or some combination of all the above.
Finding these structures and getting together a good list of your own spots is fun, but can be somewhat time consuming. I pass a lot of my scouting time off to my wife as “Honey it looks like a nice day, let’s take the family out for a boat ride.” A rod never enters the boat so I stay in her good graces, but the entire time we are cruising around, optimally close to low tide, I am making mental notes of oyster rakes, old piles, rocks, and any other debris that will become submerged by mid tide. I also watch the depth sounder for ledges, holes and other underwater structure and mark them on my GPS.
If you just can’t get time to do some scouting on the water, then Google Earth is a great way to research while at home. I have downloaded the free version and find it meets most of my needs just fine. Pick a section of river you want to fish and pull it up onl