Capt. Brooks Catching Fish In Windy Winter Weather

I finally had an evening trip this week with two clients. The clients couldn’t cast for beans at the beginning, but after a few lessons and practice… they were way better at hitting our target areas.

The strong southeast winds were approaching with the front at around 7pm this evening, and a bunch of sea grass was uprooted and floating everywhere, making it hard to retrieve baits and messing with their retrieve. The grass bed had floated over many of the best places and hiding lots of redfish and a few speckled trout. Both species were following the grass covered lures but acted skittish and wouldn’t take the bait! The clients anxiously watched, continuously casting for the fish that wouldn’t bite.

Eventually we had to leave the area, which was sand and grass beds around 18-30′ deep. We headed off to areas more protected from the wind. We found some areas with the same bottom structure and depth, but had scattered oyster shell and not as much floating grass. There were not as many redfish here, but the size was better overall.

Rigged with a Pink Hologram Devil Eye on a 1/16 oz. TruLoc jighead, we wanted to work the baits slowly with a slight up and down action to start with. I felt that the water was too clear to throw the darker color schemes. Within just a few casts we had redfish striking at the bait. My clients saw the reds pushing water and following the bait, but kept pulling the lure away from the fish. They couldn’t stand it so I had to stop and explain to them what was going on. I told them to relax, and present the bait in front of the fish. No matter what you see, you have to wait until you feel the strike and ONLY then set the hook. They saw the results shortly, as the redfish started sucking their fishing lures down like they were starving to death.

Five of them got their limits of reds in the 24″ to 26.5″ range. All of them were hooked deep and solid, there was no way that they were getting off!

So then we decided to try for speckled trout in another area, since we had done so well with the redfish. A channel near the flats with sand and mixed grass beds provided cover and we tried the same action except the color was sandier here. One client rigged with a Root Beer Devil Eye and the other with a Strawberry one, were getting all the hits, and there were trout to 21″ and plenty of them.

While there were not as many of the larger trout, which were lying in holes on top of the flats, they were some good-looking fish. When we checked out the drop off, it actually had more fish that were smaller, but keepers were holding there. The clients ended up boating 14 speckled trout and the action was hot and heavy, making it a great 3.5 hour outing!

We never lost any of the new TruLoc jig heads, mainly because of the good quality, sharp hooks, and only lost the tails on two lures that got smashed by redfish and you just can’t help that when they’re slamming them like they were. I really like those jig heads for a good, strong, hook set.

Captain Robert Brooks is a licensed fishing guide who specializes in wadefishing for big speckled trout and redfish on the Gulf Coast using Fishing Tackle. Robert recommends that you try out some fishing lure from Brown Lures for your next fishing trip.