Rec and Sports

Windy Winter Fishing With Capt. Brooks

I finally had an evening trip this week with two clients. The clients couldn’t cast for beans at the beginning, but after a few lessons and practice… they were way better at hitting our target areas.

The strong southeast winds were approaching with the front at around 7pm this evening, and a bunch of sea grass was uprooted and floating everywhere, making it hard to retrieve baits and messing with their retrieve. The grass bed had floated over many of the best places and hiding lots of redfish and a few speckled trout. Both species were following the grass covered lures but acted skittish and wouldn’t take the bait! The clients anxiously watched, continuously casting for the fish that wouldn’t bite.

We finally decided to leave the sand and grass beds that were about 18 to 30 feet deep to find somewhere that the winds were not blowing so hard. We came across a spot that was similar in depth and bottom that didn’t have the floating sea grass but had some scattered oyster shells, which might indicate there could be some larger redfish holding there, but just not as many, it seemed anyway.

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 of them got their limits of reds in the 24″ to 26.5″ range. All of them were hooked deep and solid, there was no way that they were getting off!

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.

While there were not as many of the larger trout, which were lying in holes on top of the flats, they were some good-looking fish. When we checked out the drop off, it actually had more fish that were smaller, but keepers were holding there. The clients ended up boating 14 speckled trout and the action was hot and heavy, making it a great 3.5 hour outing!

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 hooksss. Robert recommends that you try out some fishing hookss from Brown Lures for your next fishing trip.