By Mike Conner, Editor

Millions of anglers go fishing for spotted seatrout. Millions more set out for bigger and badder game, and still catch seatrout. Funny how so many fishing inshore fishing trips become trout-fishing trips, huh?

During repeated trips to some pompano hotspots on Florida’s Indian River last winter, I didn’t do as well as I did the previous year. Pompano numbers were down a bit, but the main problem was that pomps, though aggressive and voracious, hesitate to strike a jig or fly that’s hanging from the corner of a thrashing seatrout’s mouth.

On a past Texas trip, I fished the nearshore platforms in 30-some feet of water for cobia, kings, Spanish mackerel and red snapper. For every juvie red snapper and snake king we hooked near bottom, we caught a dozen fat seatrout. In deep water, clear out of sight of land. This Florida boy isn’t used to that. We eventually soaked big livies and cutbaits to discourage the trout. Baits so big that some of the trout we continued to catch weren’t hooked at all. They were effectively gorged, and couldn’t swallow or spit the baits if they’d tried.

And I can’t count the number of times I’ve cast a big, bushy 3/0 tarpon fly at a train of tarpon in a Florida Bay basin, got the bite, set up and “skied” a 2-pound seatrout across the surface. Trout are flashy surface fighters, but do not bend an 11-weight fly rod worth a dang.

My point is, spotted seatrout are so widespread and eager to bite that you can pretty much count on them. (And having said that, my next trout trip is bound to be a bust.) They range from Texas to New Jersey, with some “pioneers” as far north as Long Island Sound. On the popularity scale, trout are the number one inshore fish along the entire Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida. (Snook get the nod from Southwest to East Central Florida) and the South Atlantic Coast as well. North of that, striped bass are king.

This handsome, soft-finned predator is a member of the drum family. Though it won’t make blistering runs like most hard-bodied, fork-tailed fish, and rarely jumps, a trout will knock the paint off your topwater plug, churn up some suds at the surface, and take the rod out of your hands if you doze off while jigging. A big trout—and that can mean a 5-pounder in the Carolinas or Louisiana, or an 8-pounder in Florida (where conservative measures have kicked off a resurgence of trophy fish) accounts for itself pretty well on light tackle, and even runs a little against a light drag.

Trout Love a Smorgasbord

Though seatrout fishing methods vary from region to region, trout are trout, and they are unabashed opportunists at chow time, so whatever works in Texas generally works along the Central Gulf, Florida and the Southeast Atlantic seaboard.

Over the years, I’ve made the habit of checking stomach contents of table fish, and many seatrout bellies have contained an interesting array of goodies: shrimp, mullet, pinfish, baby snappers, blennies, blowfish, pigfish, pilchards, tiny oyster and clam shells, baby flounder, baby trout, croakers, crabs, you name it. When a particular baitfish is especially plentiful, or shrimp are running, trout become a little selective, otherwise you’ll have a hard time finding a bait, lure or fly they don’t like. Years ago, I found a shiny quarter in a trout’s gut while filleting it at a ramp-side cleaning table. Maybe an angler flipped it to bless the day? If so, it did not reach bottom, and the guy probably caught a mess of trout.

Where to Find Trout

A trout’s preferred habitat is as varied as its diet. Seatrout are common over grassy flats of open bays, but are also right at home in headwaters of creeks and rivers (particularly in winter when salinity tends to be highest), and in passes and inlets, and even in the surf throughout their range. Quite simply, they go where the food goes. As mentioned, trout even venture offshore at times, with congregations around oil platforms off the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Texas a prime example.

On the grassflats, they can be widely scattered, but normally gravitate toward structure such as potholes, grass humps, oyster reefs, rockpiles and of course, head for any channels or depressions that afford cover and relative warmth in cold or hot weather, or simply sufficient depth on low tide. The bigger fish are particularly structure-oriented, and like snook, stripers and snappers, love to hang around docks, pilings, moored boats and the like. In many regions, and the Gulf Coast in particular, whether a shrimp run is occurring or baitfish schools are at the surface, terns, gulls and pelicans will be right on the trout. “Fishing the birds” is a Texas ritual when shrimp run to the Gulf.

Most anglers fish tidal grassflats for trout in 3 to 6 feet. To best cover the water, drift-fishing is the drill. The first trout trips of my childhood involved little more than fishing a popping cork and a live shrimp over the Gulfside turtlegrass flats of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands. An occasional pop of the cork called the trout to the bait, and down it went. It’s easy and deadly.

As theory has it, trout take the popping sound for other fish feeding at the surface. You can also fish a bucktail or plastic-tail jig, plastic shrimp, or a fresh cutbait under a cork. Just a pop or two gets the lure moving, and on a choppy day, the waves alone move the lure. While an angler or anglers drift-fish, others aboard can cast ahead of the boat with lures and flies if desired. You might opt for a “rattle float,” which, unlike the traditional concave-face popping cork, employs sliding plastic or metal beads on a stiff shaft to which you tie your fishing line and leader. The sound is a more subtle and many feel the rattle float excels on calm surfaces.

The beauty of the cork is that you can fish a bait, or lure, close to the surface or just above bottom by adjusting the cork. And don’t be shocked when the trout attack the cork before finding the bait. When my daughters were little I took them to Florida Bay in March and April to fish trout with corks and shrimp. The fish are big on average and aggressive there in spring, and on one particular trip, 4- to 6-pounders were stacked in the mullet muds. Every other fish would shadow the cork before blasting it. Some would even hang onto, or swim away with the darn things, and ignore the shrimp. I could only stand this for so long, so I grabbed a rod rigged with a topwater chugger and things got crazy. As I recall, that was the moment my girls learned how to grab and stick a hook in a yucky live shrimp.

Plugging for Gators

It stands to reason that if popping corks attract trout, topwater plugs are a natural choice. Topwater plugging produces hair-raising strikes from the biggest trout of all, sometimes in as little as a foot of water. Where 6- to 10-inch mullet are prevalent, big plugs shine. Texas anglers make plugging for trout an art form, and wade to their armpits while tossing big Zara Spooks, MirrOlure Poppa Dogs and She Dogs, and Rapala Skitterwalks.

In East Central Florida, from Titusville to Hobe Sound, big-trout specialists routinely bag gators in the 7- to 10-pound class. In fact, the Indian River flats near my home are seeing a resurgence of big fish as of late, with credit given to a conservative 5-fish daily bag limit that allows only one trout over 20 inches, and the gillnet ban, which went into effect a decade ago in Florida. Local guides and trout anglers target the biggest trout by wading quietly in water below the knees, tossing everything from big walking plugs to plastic shrimp. A 13-pounder was caught and released near Ft. Pierce in late June, and it took a big walking plug, reportedly at high noon. So much for the firm rule that plugging is best for big trout at first light, right? On that subject, a topwater trout bite can go off with the sun high in the sky, and it seems that tidal flow is the trigger. “Tide over time” seems to be a good rule to live by. Slack low or high tide at dawn can sometimes be a dud, to many anglers’ surprise.

The consensus among pluggers is that the action of a topwater plug is more important than cosmetics. With the walking plugs, the zigzagging motion (created by rodtip manipulation coupled with pauses while reeling) emulates a struggling or injured mullet. Many strikes come while the plug is at rest. With standard chugger plugs or those with single or tandem props, a long pause can be the ticket. I’ve watched trout follow a plug while I chugged it, only to finally torpedo it after a full five or more seconds at rest.

A pretty good rule of thumb when fishing topwaters is to go loud in a chop, and silent when it’s glassy. There are exceptions to this, but trout generally shy from loud plugs on calm days in clear water, yet strike that same plug with abandon when it’s choppy and water is a bit milky or off-color.

Score ’Em Subsurface

When topwater plugging, keep a rod handy rigged with a slow-sinking, or suspending plug. There are times when trout “shine” a topwater, but don’t commit for whatever reason. That’s when a slow-sinking plug, commonly called a suspender these days, does the job. Texas anglers have long favored the suspending plugs, such as the Corky, produced in Texas, especially on cold days when lethargic trout were slow on the surface bite.

If you prefer, fish a soft-plastic jerkbait rigged Texas-style. You can work it like a walking plug on top, and then let it sink during pauses in the retrieve. A trout in pursuit can’t stand that for long. Plus, the single hook is easier to remove than a set of trebles. Plastic shrimp probably account for as many fish as jigs these days, and work well in water from shin-deep to overhead. The key is to fish these baits s l o w l y, with perhaps a twitch or two to make it pop off bottom. The shrimp also work well under a popping or rattling cork.

Shallow Water Angler Associate Editor Jerry McBride is the “trout master” in our office, and his approach is straightforward: Fish a lot. Seriously, he has landed an impressive number of 28-inch-plus seatrout this year by fishing where baitfish congregate and big-trout holding structure exists. The kind of places shared by snook. Though Jerry likes to fish topwater plugs, he takes far more big trout, and snook and reds for that matter, on a D.O.A. plastic shrimp in shallow water, and plastic-tail jigs in three feet or more. When I asked him whether dark- or light-colored baits are best for big trout he replied, “Yes.” Fly fishers score in this situation with Muddler-style patterns that soak up water and sink slowly, or with the venerable Dahlberg Diver that pops on top, and then swims under on a steady retrieve.

Fishing in the Jungle

Seatrout have a habit of sulking in grass cover when the light’s intense, and that calls for weedless lures and flies. A standard bucktail or plastic-tail jig tends to hang up in grass, so many anglers toss Texas-rigged jerkbaits and weedless spoons. However, a grub tail paired with skimmer-style jighead in the 1⁄8-ounce class can be a killer in grassy water less than three feet deep if you keep it moving on top of the grass. Fly fishers excel in heavy cover with an array of patterns tied weedless. Bendbacks are great for grass, and can be tied to imitate anything from mullet to pinfish. The wing is tied over the hook gap so that the fly rides hook-up, and it can be snaked right through the jungle. The Sea-Ducer, with its palmered, hackle head, sinks slowly, and when tied with a mono weedguard, is almost snag-proof.

The Bottom Line

The least enthralling form of trout fishing may be the best for numbers, in hot and cold weather—jigging smack on the bottom. Trout school up in big numbers in channels at low tide, during cold snaps and in midday during summer when water temps soar. When trout are spawning in passes and inlets in spring and summer, or are huddled deep in some headwater in winter, a jig is tops. Generally, the cadence of your jigging motion should slow as the water cools. In the dead of winter, try “slow-rolling” your jig with the current on bottom. And sometimes a fresh dab of shrimp or a scented plastic tail can seal the deal. I remember fishing nothing but a red-and-white 1⁄4-ounce Upperman bucktail and a pink Trout Tout, but nowadays the selection of jigheads and plastic tails is staggering.

Whatever style and color you choose, pick the lightest jighead that allows you to keep contact with the bottom. When the fish are striking jigs gingerly, braided line can help you feel the bite. If you fly fish, a fast-sinking line will keep you in the game in up to 10 feet of water, but anything deeper than that is best fished with a jig. Top fly is a Clouser Minnow, and if you keep your leader short, the fly will stay at the depth of the tip of your fly line, and you’ll detect more strikes. SWA

The Night Shift

Seatrout are indeed nocturnal, and fishing in shallow water with topwater plugs and softbaits can produce outsized specimens. Many trout anglers feel that the lack of boat traffic at night is the key, and there are advocates for both full moon and “dark moon” nights. Topwater plugs will provide the most excitement, but most lures will produce, particularly wobbling spoons and plastics with rattle insets. Flyrod poppers are great, as are streamers that push a lot of water. Many are convinced that dark lures are best at night, with the exception of fishing under the lights at docks and bridges. There, white flies and small lures get the nod. Trout are drawn to lights just as snook and stripers are, and they tend to hang just outside the cone of light, ready to ambush baitfish and shrimp in the current. Light-tackle anglers do best with small plastic shrimp, white jigs and the smallest diving slim-minnow plugs and jerkbaits. Fly fishers can better imitate small forage under the lights, and tie deadly minnow and shrimp patterns on No. 6 to 2 hooks.

Trout on the Table

Depending on who you ask, trout rank fair to excellent as table fare—particularly the smaller fish that eat a lot of shrimp. Trout over 5 pounds, in my home waters, feed on baitfish for the most part, and I find that they just don’t taste as good. Besides, those bigger females are prolific breeders, “rabbits of the sea,” if you will, that spawn repeatedly during the year, releasing millions of eggs. For that reason, increasing numbers of anglers put them back. And those scrawny 12-inchers that are legal to take in some states yield very little meat, so it takes a 15-incher to provide decent fillets. Seatrout meat is lean, and though flavorful, is on the soft side, so does not freeze especially well. Also, trout fillets can be a bit wormy in some areas.

SWA