This is what you are looking for when hunting speckled trout.
Trout Eating Shrimp
Guys, I wanted to show this video to all of you. This was taken a few weeks ago when I was scouting for speckled trout.
As narrated in the video, the water was not moving at this location and we only caught a couple trout in about 5 minutes.
We waited until later in the day and found the trout had turned on once the tide started dropped.
You can literally hear the specks "popping" on the surface as they strike small shrimp fleeing for their little shrimp lives.
The water was about 20 foot deep in the middle, located at a sharp bend in the bayou.
The Key Details
Note that the water is clean, moving and has presence of the best kind of bait: shrimp. Granted, this was in early October, which is a little too soon for trout to be that deep inside the marsh.
Moving water is what I harp on when scouting for specks. Without it you will rarely find a solid trout bite.
It is also important to ensure you also use the appropriate weight for your jigheads and egg sinkers.
If the water is moving fast you will need a heavier weight to get the bait down to the fish, as heavy as 1/2 oz. If it is moving slower or not at all you will need to use a lighter weight, as light as 1/8 oz.
Granted, these speckled trout were feeding at the top of the water column. Shrimp tends to make them do that, but that does not always mean that trout will be there.
I have seen many cases where we throw a cork with a three foot leader into a spot like this one (remember, it is 20 feet deep) and nothing happens.
But as soon as I take the cork off and let the carolina rig sink to the bottom...ka-BLAMMO! The trout are sitting there, hugging the bottom, resting until the conditions are right.
So it is important to understand why the trout were there and why they were biting. When you know this you start Fishing Smarter.
