Gear Up Now for Prime Time Speckled Seatrout

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Late October through December is a great time for limits of slot-sized speckled trout. The cooling waters seem to congregate schools of trout over shell bars and other features, and finding a likely spot can be as easy as looking at aerial images of river and creek mouths and identifying the lighter-colored, near-surface shelves and ridges. During changing tides, the outer margins of these locations orient schools of trout near current seams that act as feeding corridors, conveying small baitfish.

When targeting speckled trout, many fishing applications have been enhanced by the advent of low-stretch braided and fluorocarbon lines paired with ever-faster action graphite rods. Together, these enable sharper hooksets, as well as more precise control of jigs worked on the bottom or topwater plugs skirted along the surface.

Speckled Trout Tackle Tips

While this combination of gear often facilitates hookups, speckled trout are masters at coming unhooked. They shake their heads furiously at the surface, their thin-fleshed mouths wide open, vigorously jostling the lure back and forth, often resulting in a tossed lure and an empty-handed angler. Thus, consideration of more trout-specific tackle is warranted—specifically, gear with a greater cushioning capacity, which can be more effective at keeping trout hooked all the way to the boat.

I have found that using swimbaits, or any lure fished with a steady retrieve, in combination with longer, moderate-action rods and a light, stretchy, monofilament leader, greatly enhances my ratio of fish landed. I have actually repurposed 9- and 10-foot, light-action Great Lakes steelhead rods for speckled trout fishing, paired with 2500-class spinning reels spooled with 20-pound Power Pro braided mainline, finished with a three-foot section of 8-pound Maxima Ultragreen monofilament leader. Often mixed in with seatrout are ladyfish, whose raspy mouths easily fray the leader past its breaking point. When this is the case, I switch to 20-pound Seaguar Inshore fluorocarbon leader. I’m also careful to set the drags of my reels relatively loose so that even fish just short of slot-size can pull a few clicks of line.

My go-to swimbaits along the Florida Big Bend, where I predominantly fish, are four-inch Z-Man Diezel Minnowz, although the shorter Minnowz and D.O.A. C.A.L. Shad Tails are also very effective. I pair these with 1⁄8-, 3⁄16-, or 1⁄4-ounce Swimbait Eye jigheads, depending on the depth I want for my retrieve. Live shrimp under a float or popping cork fished at the proper depth can be deadly, as well. Match the size of hook to the bait, which for live shrimp is usually 2/0 to 4/0. I prefer to use circle hooks and simply reel tight to the fish, rather than setting the hook.

Searching for Fall Trout

Begin your search for speckled trout by targeting those same grassflats closest to shore that you may have driven over throughout the summer. Their lush greenness and vibrancy will diminish as the daylight hours shorten and the water continues to cool, but these flats will hold speckled trout in the fall, as will the deep, lowermost holes of rivers on the Gulf Coast such as the Steinhatchee, Suwannee, Waccasassa and Withlacoochee, during the coldest stretch of winter.

Lastly, when searching the flats for fall trout, you may have to cover a lot of water. Consider the direction of the wind and tides to orient a drift over long stretches of likely trout water. You can be reasonably sure that where you hook one, there’s likely many more. For this reason, anchoring, or using trolling motors outfitted with GPS-guided position-holding, during the changing tides can be efficient and effective. Remember, schools of trout move, so if the bite suddenly dies at a spot that was just producing, don’t be afraid to pull anchor and resume your drift.

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• This article was featured in the October issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe.

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