Savvy anglers know how to control their drift direction and angle by turning the motor.

In all but two or three chilly months of the year, drifting over shallow grassflats is king of Florida inshore fishing systems.

Speckled trout are nearly always the intended targets of the small-boat drifting fleet, but grassbeds harbor a great many other species as well. In addition to (hopefully) a few keeper trout, the drifter’s bag might also include a mackerel or two, or a bluefish, or a shark, or possibly even an occasional pompano or cobia. Nor is that the entire menu, by any means. Various other rod-benders crash the act at times, while pinfish and pigfish head a long list of more scrawny types that are ever-present to serve, according to individual viewpoint, as fill-in action, bait or simply pests.

Besides all that, drifting is popular because it’s easy. In its simplest form, the system requires no more skill or effort than is required to tie a hook to the end of your line or leader and then allow a live shrimp, cutbait or even a soft-plastic lure to drag behind your free-drifting boat. But because the system is so easy, all too many fishermen never stop to realize that—as in any kind of angling—there definitely are things the angler can do to increase his action on good days or drum up a few nice fish on days when the usual drift-and-hope approach just isn’t paying off.

You may not realize, for instance, that both the attitude and direction of a drifting boat can usually be adjusted to your advantage. Few boats will drift absolutely broadside to the breeze. How your boat “tracks” depends on several factors, chief among them being hull configuration and motor drag.

When the motor is down and the boat is stopped broadside to the wind, it appears to be drifting directly downwind, but will actually be moving obliquely—with the wind, of course, but on a track favoring the direction in which the bow is pointing. This is demonstrated by the position of your drifted fishing lines, which angle toward the stern. How many lines you can comfortably fish depends largely on the length of the boat, but nearly everyone with drifting experience realizes that cutting the motor hard to the upwind side reduces the angle of attitude, usually by enough to keep the lines comfortably separated.

If the lines are still too close together, tilting the motor entirely out of the water will usually bring the boat to a fully broadside drift. Many larger or non-outboard-powered vessels, however, (and boats of nearly every description are seen on Florida’s trout flats) do not have this capability.

The direction of your tack can affect fishing success in a couple of important ways. First, be aware that most of the popular trout flats along the Gulf Coast, and some on the Atlantic side as well, sprawl over vast expanses of shallow water. Typically, the trout action won’t be steady but will come in flurries. Thus, awareness of your travel path will make it easier to return to a productive stretch once you decide that you aren’t likely to hit another anytime soon. Your impulse might be to crank up and head directly into the wind, but unless you take your angle of drift into account, you won’t come very close to that targeted area. Even if you had tossed over a marker back where the bite was hot—as all good flats-drifters should—you might have trouble finding it again unless you head in its general direction.

You can easily illustrate this point mentally. Picture a square—top side north—and mark a mental “X” in the upper left corner. That’s where you tossed your marker. But now your boat (bow aimed right, or east) has drifted to the lower right corner of that square in your head, and you haven’t caught a trout in quite a while. So it’s time to go back. But if you follow the impulse to head straight into the wind—that is, to the north—you will end up somewhere around the upper right corner of your mental square—possibly too far from the marker to spot it, especially if it’s a small one, or if there is a hefty chop on the water. Obviously, your return course has to be to the northwest.