The View: January 2018

A foggy day on a January shoreline with a Corky or 51MR MirrOlure can be epic. Problem is, few will give it a whirl, citing too little time available or unwilling to burn vacation days so early in the year, to roll the dice for a big trout. The opportunity will be there, you just have to be ready to go when the weather dictates.

Expect to deal with low tides and use them to your advantage. Sometimes waters are so low it is tough to find water to float duck decoys. So where do fish go when the wind has blown 20 and more from the north and oyster reefs are sticking three feet above the surface?

Head to deep bayous and drains!

Everything in those back lakes has to flow through these locales when the tide falls. Many times the fish are still pretty warm, even though the water is chilly. That means most of the fish are lying on the bottom of deeper holes, in the mud.

Find the silver lining in your day even if you don't find your fish. Bars and reefs that normally hold fish are exposed, most out of the water, a perfect time to mark these fish magnets in your GPS. I find new reefs and guts every winter and use those spots in the spring when tides swell.

There are some guts I wade in January that are over my head during the summer. Keep all that info logged in the back of the brain and use it when tides fall to seasonal lows. The spots that have water now when everything else is dry is a good spot to start on the next cold blast.

Most of our trout hang close to the Intracoastal on cold January days and move back and forth from the shallows to the deep according to the thermometer and barometer. With that being said, the north shoreline is the closest intercept point. Waders who want a good shot at a big speck on a moving tide should find a piece of shell from Boggy Cut all the way east to Bird Island and camp out with their favorite mullet-imitator.

I have become quite fond of a pink MirrOlure Soft-Dine the past two winters. It seems if large trout are in the area, they can't turn it down - thumping it hard like a safety does a wide receiver catching a ball across the middle.

Be patient.

Big trout may not feed every day. If they did, everyone would have one on the wall. Well, probably not, since the elusiveness and mystery of large trout is what prompts us to buy $500 waders and another $500 or more of accessories. If 180-class whitetails were ordinary, there would be fewer high fences, Polaris Rangers and protein feeders.

Arm-length specks are like a heavy-horned buck, a six-foot tarpon, a banded greenhead or a dirt-dragging Rio Grande beard. The beauty is you can't fire up the smartphone and order one, with free shipping.

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