Though mullet numbers explode in many inshore fisheries come fall, shallow-water gamers such as trophy trout will gladly wolf down a mullet at any time of year. Thus, you can’t go wrong by making mullet-looking plugs a staple in your tackle box, whether you ply the Texas surf, the Louisiana or Carolina marsh or the Florida grassflats. Plugs tend to cull out the dink trout, which by virtue of their size and preferences, dine mainly on shrimp and smaller minnows. But, once they reach 20 inches or so, they get mullet on the brain. And in some places, the true gators eat little else. A quick glance at that cavernous maw leaves no doubt that big trout can handle an adult mullet even bigger than the biggest plugs we throw.

Stark color contrasts, such as black-and-chartreuse, can be effective in off-color water.

Having fished mullet-imitation plugs for trout for years, I can say from experience that they produce big trout when other lures don’t. I’ve enjoyed some outstanding trout plugging in Texas and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast, but there is one particular outing that I’ll never forget.

The spring weather was bleak—gray skies, foggy and cold, and the bay was about as calm as it gets. As I pushed Capt. Dwayne Lowrey’s boat away from the dock, he said, “We’ve been knocking them dead on topwater plugs.” Which is not what you would expect to hear given the conditions. He went on to explain that trout had been feeding on mullet in about four feet of water, and he was confident that the calm conditions would be perfect for taking trout on big topwaters, particularly by afternoon.

Lowrey punched in some GPS numbers, put the boat on a plane and we were off. Shortly afterward he eased up to a shoreline and slipped the anchor over.

“We’re going to wade this shoreline,” he said. “Stay in about knee-deep water and cast out over that shell ridge where it drops off to six feet deep.” As I worked my way along the shoreline I noticed that there was certainly no shortage of mullet.

“Concentrations of big mullet are what you have to find,” said Lowrey, who is well known for putting his customers on trophy trout. “Mullet plugs are best, but for big trout, you have to force yourself to work them real slow.”

On my fourth cast a trout plowed my mullet-finish Super Spook like there was no tomorrow. The rod bent double against the pressure as the sow churned up the surface. A few minutes later I reached out and got a firm grip across the back of a trout weighing close to 7 pounds.

“That’s a little one,” grinned Lowrey. “We can do better than that.”

From that one stretch of shoreline, we proceeded to rack up one of the best catches of trout I have ever had. All of those sows were feeding on mullet. It was a classic situation where bait matching paid off big time.

Mature speckled trout feed on mullet of all sizes. That’s a biological fact. So it stands to reason that some of the heaviest trout landed by Gulf Coast anglers have come on mullet-imitation plugs.

For example, trophy trout angler James Wallace, of Houston, Texas, caught a 13.69-pound trout, one that stood as the Texas state record from February 1996 till January 2004. While talking with Wallace, shortly after he caught that trout, I learned a few things about how to locate and catch the big ones. Wallace pointed out that when targeting big trout he doesn’t fish an area unless mullet are present. “If you don’t fish around mullet, you don’t normally catch many big trout,” said Wallace. “Sometimes it can be slow fishing as far as numbers, but with a little patience and persistence you will catch a big fish.”

Wallace will fish a mullet-rich area for days, and then again at night. He is a classic grinder. By that I mean he rarely fishes with something other than a mullet plug. He caught his record trout on a Corky, which is a 3 1⁄ 2-inch-long, soft-plastic, slow-sinking plug that passes for a mullet. The core of the lure, as the name implies, is cork. That’s basically what makes it buoyant. The plastic coating weighs it down enough to make it sink slowly. It’s soft, and as theory has it, fish will grab it and hold on a bit longer. Texas trout fans wasted no time in plunking down their cash for Corkys—thousands have since been sold. And other lure companies have imitated its design. If you are not familiar with this Texas favorite, the Corky is basically a “do-nothing” lure. Ditto that for the MirrOlure Catch 2000, another classic mullet-imitation plug, that has caught its share of monster trout. The Catch 2000, also a subsurface plug, is 3 1⁄ 2 inches long and weighs a half ounce.

To fish a subsurface mullet-imitation lure, cast it out and slowly work it in. Many anglers advise that you pull back the rodtip about 12 inches, and then lower it. The strike often comes as the lure is slowly sinking after you pause. It’s normally a “soft” bite, too. Quite often you won’t feel the hit. Rather, you’ll feel added weight as you raise the tip to move the lure again. You’ve got to be on your toes to detect the slightest weight, but in time you’ll develop the touch.

“I’ve fished with all sorts of slow-sinking lures, and I’ve caught some huge trout on them,” says Galveston Bay guide Jim West. “Though you can catch plenty of trout on topwater plugs, day in and day out, the most consistent big trout results come on the slow sinkers.”

West has won his share of big trout tournaments along the Texas coast. And one of his go-to lures for big trout is the Catch 2000. “When retrieved slowly, a slow-sinking plug stays in the face of a big trout, and doesn’t require the fish to rise up to the surface to eat, ” he explained.

I fished with Drew Davis, a representative for MirrOlure, on Louisiana’s Calcasieu Lake this summer, and I noticed he tied on a plug called a Catch 5, which has a slower sink rate than the 2000. At that time, it was prototype, a new model in the company’s extensive line of plugs. It proved its worth after a few casts, catching a solid trout for me.

“Anglers from all over tell us that mullet-imitation plugs catch bigger trout year-round for them,” explained Davis. “That’s why there are so many mullet-like plugs being produced by so many lure companies.