Standing There When It Happens

My hands used to get weathered and cracked from the cold, dry air. The open and bleeding cuts at the corners of my thumbnails would burn like hell every time saltwater got in them. My face would be windburned to the point where I’d get those raccoon tan lines around my eyes from my sunglasses; the same ones that some of the younger guys actually make an effort to get these days. Mine, however, were unwanted and unintentional as I’d apply 70 SPF sunscreen multiple times a day trying to prevent having the dermatologist cutting chunks off my face. Nowadays, my Fish Monkey gloves and sun masks are a lifesaver but cold is still cold and I’m certainly not getting any younger. Apparently it’s all worth the trouble as I continue to chase these damn trout that we all seem to give so much credit to.

Late winter fishing sometimes requires strong will and determination. There are times when I roll out of bed in the morning and look at the current weather conditions and then just want to roll back over and go to sleep. But there’s almost always somewhere you can go to catch ‘em in just about any conditions, especially during the winter months. It just depends on how bad you want it. It’s worth it to go most of the time this time of year because we have a shot at some above average trout. Besides, as my good friend James Plaag says, “there’s no such thing as bad weather…just bad gear.” Thank God I have excellent gear!

Years ago my long-time friend and tournament partner Jake White and I had a winter trout tournament fast approaching. A strong arctic front had pushed through just 24 hours earlier, dropping air and water temperatures substantially and lowering tide levels to the point that we barely had enough water to launch my boat. All the cards were stacked against us but we had signed up so we were forced to figure it out. This is one of the things I always loved about fishing tournaments. It forced us into not only finding fish in adverse conditions but also having to figure out how to make them eat. One thing I learned a very long time ago is that in order to figure out how to make them eat, it sure helps to know when they’re likely to eat.

Our typical approach to finding tournament-worthy trout was to focus on areas in between the well-known (and highly frequented) “big trout” spots. Oftentimes fishing pressure in those community spots would cause those older age-class loner-type trout to seek refuge from the commotion in nearby areas with similar habitat. One such area was a deep gut (washout) that cut through a narrow stretch of live oyster reef surrounded by vast mud and shell flats. Prior to this arctic blast the surrounding flats were holding decent numbers of quality trout. Spreading my clients who were armed with topwaters and soft plastics across this mud and shell flat had been money.

Now, everything had changed overnight. In theory, and based upon past experiences, the fish that previously roamed those flats would likely drop down into nearby deep troughs because of the low tides, sudden decline in water temperature and sudden rise in barometric pressure. It seemed to be the perfect set-up for the wash-out.

We arrived in the dark on tournament morning. Jake fished the gut on one side of the reef throwing a full-sized solid black Super Spook. I worked the other side chunking a MirrOlure Paul Brown Original Corky (pearl with chartreuse back). It was almost dead calm. The tide was due to start coming in around sunrise which just happened to coincide with a major solunar feeding period. These two factors told us that our bite would most likely be early and also our best opportunity to catch our fish. We also knew from experience that as the sun got higher in the sky, not only would higher barometric pressure set in, but the larger-sized trout we needed for the tournament would become more difficult to trick in the gin-clear water. Also worth noting was that the velocity of the incoming tide would become greater than indicated by the tide chart, given that it had fallen so low the day before and throughout the night that it would surely be flooding back into the bay. If we were fishing for rainbow trout this would be a good thing, but speckled trout feeding tends to shut down once the current picks up steam.

About 10 minutes into our wade, Jake’s Spook vanished from the surface. He said it was a good one and I could tell it was by the way it stayed low with that slow and heavy side-to-side headshake. As he brought it to hand I saw the head on this fish from 80 yards away and, sure enough, it was a solid fish. She weighed just over 6 ½ pounds on the Boga Grip. Not bad for the first fish of the morning!

It always takes the pressure off to pop a good one early, but we still had work to do as we were fishing against a field of top-notch anglers. He would hook one more on top before the topwater bite faded. Unfortunately, his second fish pulled loose.

In the meantime I had caught 2 or 3 smaller trout working my Corky along the edges of the opposite side of the washout. I did manage to trick a 4 ½ pounder before the sun was about 30 minutes above the horizon, after which our fish totally locked up as expected. We continued to grind our butts off for the rest of the tourney but only scraped up a few more trout. Once our trout went into a negative feed, like we expected they would, the only bites we good get were on slow-sinking twitchbaits – Corkys and Catch 2000s. We still managed a 3^rd place finish and had a blast honing our skills in adverse conditions.

This time of year we will experience many scenarios similar to the one that Jake and I encountered during that tournament. Then, on the contrary, there will also be warming periods between cold fronts when fish spread out and don’t seem to have the urgency to feed. Many of our larger trout will go on-strike during these warm stretches but they will still be catchable if we spread our efforts and cover more water. This is when I like to chunk topwaters at them. Warm water trout fishing during winter has never been my favorite.

To me, the best “big trout” water should be cold enough to sting your fingers a little when you touch it. During late January and early February we can sometimes see water temperatures in the mid-40s This is when twitchbaits like MirrOlure Paul Brown Corkys, Catch 2000s and MirrOdines can entice a strike when soft plastics will not. One exception would be rigging a soft plastic such as the Bass Assassin Artemus Shad on a 1/16 ounce Bass Assassin Pro Elite jighead. This set-up will closely emulate that of a slow-sinking Corky.

This is also a time when big trout will be found in those deeper guts, troughs, and washouts – or whatever else you might want to call them. When they congregate in such areas it obviously increases our odds of catching one, or maybe even several, of the special ones. We just need to figure out the best time to be standing there when they’re most likely to be fooled.

To be successful we have to pay close attention to tide changes and solunar feeding periods, along with changes in barometric pressure, water level, water temperature, current velocity, and wind, to be able to determine when we should be focusing our attention on certain areas. Sometimes our windows of opportunity are small, so we have to do our homework and make it count. We need to know when to be standing there and, if we are, it can be quite special.