Capt. Brooks Catching Fish In Windy Winter Weather
Date: Thursday November 5, 2009Posted in: Sports
After some practice lessons, my two clients that couldn’t cast worth a darn at first, improved enough to attempt to hit the fishing holes and hook into some fish, for my first evening fishing trip of the week.
With a front approaching at around 7pm this evening, we had strong southeast winds that really uprooted a bunch of sea grass. It was hard to retrieve baits without picking up a bunch of grass and killing the bait’s action. The grass was covering the bait totally in many good places that were holding good numbers of redfish and a few speckled trout here and there. Both species were following the baits but wouldn’t strike it, they knew something was wrong! The clients all watched cast after cast, really thirsty for the hit that just wasn’t happening.
Eventually we had to leave the area, which was sand and grass beds around 18-30′ deep. We headed off to areas more protected from the wind. We found some areas with the same bottom structure and depth, but had scattered oyster shell and not as much floating grass. There were not as many redfish here, but the size was better overall.
Rigged with a Pink Hologram Devil Eye on a 1/16 oz. TruLoc jighead, we wanted to work the baits slowly with a slight up and down action to start with. I felt that the water was too clear to throw the darker color schemes. Within just a few casts we had redfish striking at the bait. My clients saw the reds pushing water and following the bait, but kept pulling the lure away from the fish. They couldn’t stand it so I had to stop and explain to them what was going on. I told them to relax, and present the bait in front of the fish. No matter what you see, you have to wait until you feel the strike and ONLY then set the hook. They saw the results shortly, as the redfish started sucking their fishing lures down like they were starving to death.
Five got creel limits of redfish in the two to two and a half foot range, that were hooked so good there was no way they could have gotten away!
Next, we hit a channel near some descending flats that was sand and mixed grass beds, to try for some speckled trout. The color we had been using was a bit sandier and we tried using the same action but the clients that were rigged differently, one with a Root beer Devil Eye and the other with a Strawberry one were getting all the hits, from pecker heads to 21 inches and there were a lot more where those came from.
The larger trout were lying in the potholes on top of the flats, there were not as many of them but they were quality fish. The drop off had more fish that were smaller in size, but there were some keepers mixed in there as well. They ended up with 14 speckled trout and plenty of action with a lot of throw-backs… not bad for a 3.5 hour trip!
Part of the success had to be attributed to the new TruLoc jig heads, because they have some great quality, sharp hooks!!! We didn’t lose a single thing because of the hooks, but lost tails from two of the lures because of the way those redfish were sucking them in and no other worm could have done any better with the abuse those fish were dishing out.
Captain Robert Brooks is a licensed fishing guide who specializes in wadefishing for big speckled trout and redfish on the Gulf Coast using salt water fishing hookss. Robert recommends that you try out some fishing hooks from Brown Lures for your next fishing trip.
