Fish are more likely to hunker down in winter, so pole very slowly.

Ten feet from the bow a huge, dark form bolted away, zigzagging left, right, then left again before plowing straight across the shallow flat like a scalded mole burrowing through a newly plowed field. I wish I had seen that gator trout sooner, but my attention was focused on a pod of redfish tailing up ahead.

Dozens of tail fins were poking above the water and as I poled us just into casting range, my partner cocked his rod back to make a cast and whoosh, there went another hidden trout. “The gang’s all here,” I said. And to think we had it all to ourselves. There was not another boat in sight. That’s typical of winter flats fishing. Even in Florida.

Though flats fishing is great in summer, winter is my favorite time of year to fish. Our tropical weather is over, and decreased rainfall has cleared the shallows, and even lowers the water depth in some backcountry haunts. Conditions for sight fishing are optimal. There’s no need to rise early to beat the summer flats crowds, and best yet, redfish and trout are much more tightly schooled and multiple species can be caught in that situation, throughout the day. That goes for Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, where guides tout their sight fishing for schooled reds in the hundreds.

Trout and redfish behavior changes in shallow water dramatically with the onset of winter, so a few adjustments need to be made to “winterize” your fishing tactics.

Cold is a relative term, and cold in Florida certainly isn’t cold for anglers or flats fish in North Carolina, or the northern Texas Gulf coast. As air temperatures fall throughout Gulf and Atlantic coastal waters, the surface layer of our favorite shallows gets cooler. This cooler top layer of water, being denser than the warmer water beneath it, sinks and mixes with the warmer water and the effect is that the overall temperature of the body of water is lowered to a slight degree. This chilling happens more quickly in small, shallow bodies of water because there is less warm water to be cooled underneath the recently chilled surface layer.

Gator trout stay war and feed on skinny flats.

Drums have remarkable tolerances for both extremely cold and warm water. When temperatures drop, their metabolism slows. They become more lethargic, conserving energy and eating less often. They often relocate to new areas in the pursuit of comfort. Before discussing the changes anglers need to make, let’s briefly summarize the “normal” pattern. In warmer months, redfish reliably feed early and late in the day, although in my home waters of Florida’s Indian River they will feed all day long so long as there is some water movement. They are typically in small pods of a few fish spread out over a wide area wherever baitfish and crustaceans are present.

Trout, on the other hand, much prefer to feed during low-light conditions early and late in the day, throughout the year. Large, so-called gator trout move onto shallow flats where they feed mainly on baitfish, retreating to deeper water when the sun gets high overhead. School-sized trout tend to hold over grass where the flats fall off into deeper water, and they move upstream into coastal rivers and creeks into deeper water that still has salinity levels to their liking. The use of an electronic fish-finder will be helpful in locating these fish suspended near the bottom where a 1⁄4-ounce jig rigged with a soft-plastic body can be deadly. To increase the strike rate, tip the lure with a small piece of shrimp and hop it up off the bottom slowly—cold trout are not going to want to chase anything down. The bite is likely to be softer and more subtle than during warmer times, so you will need to maintain contact with your jig even as it falls back to the bottom. Use braided line to detect the slightest bites. This tactic can be used throughout the day and is especially effective when there is enough current flowing in the river or creek to move bait into the holes where the trout are suspended.