Mansfield Report: January 2024

Greetings from Port Mansfield! I pray everybody had a joyous Christmas along with best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year. Early-winter trout fishing has been promising, thus far. Trout and redfish here in the Lower Laguna have responded predictably with the passage of each cold front. It always amazes me how quickly they can plump up this time of year but, then again, this is the season we so often find mullet tails protruding from their mouths…and they just tried to eat our lure. I’ve heard it said that if a trout thinks it can eat something they will try, and I believe it.

I am often asked how I pick spots because, “It all looks the same.” Well, I guess that is true if you only look at the surface. However, it’s what’s under the surface that makes all the difference. I have spent many days wading the same hundred yard square area of the LLM, and every time find something different. It was not until recently that I finally came up with a satisfactory explanation for the saying: “Show me a change in bottom contour and I’ll show you a fish. ”You see, topography is key in fishing, especially in the LLM, which spans over 275 square miles of mostly grass flats.

I recently conducted a seminar during which I dialed in using Google Earth and picked apart about one square mile of the LLM that I have fished many times. By the last slide there were more colored lines, arrows, and hashmarks than you could imagine. Google Earth did not help me find it; it helped me explain it. But even this is not the full equation. We can now toss in even more variables, such as grassbeds, potholes, water temperature, and presence of bait. The bottom line is that my fishing equation that I often use to help point me in the right direction is getting bigger. Keep this in mind the next time you are out for a wade and looking for all the signs, including the ones under the surface.

Moving forward, we can expect cooler temperatures to start settling in, which almost always correlates with anglers needing to slow down. Not only in their wading but also in their lure presentations, not to mention the many lure options. So, that’s a mouthful right there that takes time to work through. Do not be so eager to jump up and move ten miles. Instead, be eager to dial in on an area and pick it apart. If you must move, so be it, but you might consider moving only a short distance. When I make a move, more often than not, it’s less than two miles, sometimes it’s a 100-yard reset that would result in just a minor depth change, or structure change such as more or fewer grassbeds. Variables while fishing are plentiful, just do your best to pick the right ones.

As of late, depending on the water temperatures, we have had remarkable success on the KWiggler Wig-A-Lo in Bone Diamond and Plum/Chartreuse. Topwaters have also been productive during an uptick in water temperature, but slow rolling plastics over grass and letting them settle into potholes has been extremely effective for big trout. This was just the case recently when spouses (Mike and Phyllis Hawkins) came down after a long 12-year break from Port Mansfield and both caught their personal best trout. Phyllis stuck with the game plan, focused on potholes, working slowly and methodically, and it paid off. Kudos to her.

Our tides continue to remain somewhat higher than would be expected, given the frequency of the northers, but I expect this will change soon. When this happens I will be spending quite a bit of time in low lying swags of the LLM with darker bottoms. This is where most big trout will be holding before the water warms. As the water warms, they will be making their way to sunny flats and become more aggressive where topwaters may come into play. Again, it is best to have multiple arrows in your quiver while wading, that is why I carry two rods: one rigged with something completely different than the other. I can switch super-fast from tops to tails to anything in between. We can all be hardheaded when fishing, trying to force them to eat what we want them to eat, but at the end of the day it is their appetite, not ours.

Until next time, stay safe and remember fresh is better than frozen.