Fishing for Spotted Sea Trout in Winter
The key to seatrout fishing in winter is finding warmer water temperatures which means that you have to fish down deep early and shallow later in the day after the sun warms the water. The best way to target winter speckled trout is the 3 to 5 inch paddle tail coupled with a 1/8 or 1/4 ounce jig head.
Spotted sea trout are in the drum family. Their cousins include red drum (redfish), black drum and croakers. If you ever get them excited and hold them close to your ear you can hear them drumming.
Speckled trout can be found all over Florida close to grass flats. You might find them around the docks, oyster bars, mangroves or mud flats. BUT you can bet that there are some grass flats near by because that is where they like to feed, breed and hide from predators.
I am a FISHING CHARTER CAPTAIN on the Treasure Coast of Florida and have been fishing the grass flats and mangroves for over 40 years. The article below will teach you the best tackle, tips and techniques to help you catch more spotted sea trout in Winter.
Watch the video below and learn how to catch more trout in the Winter.
The key to seatrout fishing in winter is finding warmer water temperatures which means that you have to fish down deep early and shallow later in the day after the sun warms the water. The best way to target winter speckled trout is the 3 to 5 inch paddle tail coupled with a 1/8 or 1/4 ounce jig head.
Spotted sea trout are in the drum family. Their cousins include red drum (redfish), black drum and croakers. If you ever get them excited and hold them close to your ear you can hear them drumming.
Speckled trout can be found all over Florida close to grass flats. You might find them around the docks, oyster bars, mangroves or mud flats. BUT you can bet that there are some grass flats near by because that is where they like to feed, breed and hide from predators.
I am a FISHING CHARTER CAPTAIN on the Treasure Coast of Florida and have been fishing the grass flats and mangroves for over 40 years. The article below will teach you the best tackle, tips and techniques to help you catch more spotted sea trout in Winter.
Watch the video below and learn how to catch more trout in the Winter.
Fishing for spotted sea trout in Winter--Grass Flats
Spotted sea trout are denizens of the grass flats plain and simple. Trout and grass flats go together like beer and chicken wings; Like rum and coke; Like baseball and Summer. I think that you get the point.
If you want to catch a ton of speckled trout, then there has to be grass flats in the vicinity. In the Winter months, it takes cold blooded creatures like fish a while longer to get going in the morning. Kind of like me in the Winter time.
Spotted sea trout are cold blooded just like a snake or an alligator. They cannot generate their own body heat. They have to use the surrounding environment to heat up and cool down. This fact helps you figure out where they will be based on the water temperatures.
I love trout fishing in the Winter months because their is no need to get up at the crack of dawn and charge the grass flats. You can roll out of bed at the crack of 9:30 and have some breakfast and coffee and lazily get your fishing gear together.
You can hit the boat ramp by 10 or 11 and still catch a ton of trout as the water temperatures climb. This is the opposite in the Summer months when the water gets so hot that you won't catch a thing after 11 am on the shallow flats.
I wrote another article on this website that covers in great detail how to catch a spotted seatrout. You can read that article by clicking right here.
When you are looking for trout in the morning during the colder months, you will have to go deep early. The water down deep is usually warmer than the upper layers of the water column after a cold night. This pushes the trout and other species of fish down deep to the slightly warmer depths.
You will have to fish the deeper grass flats or the channels that are usually adjacent to them for trout in the morning. The trout might be down 10 or 12 feet in the Winter. So you have to present a bait down 10 or 12 feet down if you want to catch anything.
The best tackle for Winter speckled trout is the same as for Summer trout fishing. I like to use a 7 to 8 ft. medium action rod with a 2500 series reel filled with 6 to 8 lb. mono filament line.
I use braided line for just about every fish but speckled trout because the lack of line stretch is usually a good thing. In the case of the trout however, it is a bad thing. The stretch of mono filament fishing line helps to stop the trout's mouth from tearing where the hooks are.
When their mouths tear it is bad for a couple of reasons. Number one; they can shake your hook out and you won't catch them. Number two; you will destroy their mouths if they are not keepers. Mono filament line decreases the damage to their mouths which gives the little ones time to get big enough to fillet and release into the grease.
The best lures for trout in the Winter are the same as the rest of the year. A scented Berkeley Gulp shrimp imitation with an 1/8 or 1/4 ounce jig head is hard to beat. I like to use a white imitation shrimp and a red jig head but I'm sure lots of other color combinations will catch hungry trout too.
You have to get your jig down deep early in the mornings when it is cold. You will also have to slow your presentation down to allow sluggish, cold, and lethargic trout to be able to catch it.
The best live bait for trout in the Winter is a shrimp. You will have to get the shrimp down deep so a split shot will be necessary to get it down in the water column to where the trout are until the water warms and they head to shallow water.
As the sun's energy is absorbed by the shallow grass flats and mud flats the trout will move up into the shallow water. Then you can fish for them like you normally would in 3 to 5 feet grass flats. It's all about the water temperature.
Watch the video below and catch more spotted sea trout.
Fishing for spotted sea trout in Winter--Oyster Bars and Mud Flats
Oyster bars and grass flats are a great place to find Winter trout. The waters around the oyster bars and mud flats heat up very quickly if the Sun is out. Dark colors absorb the Sun's energy better than light colors. Mud is dark and therefore heats up very quickly compared to white sand or some other lightly colored bottom.
If there is a mud flat with oyster bars near a grass flat then I know that I can hit that environment first thing in the morning and then move to the grass flats as water temperatures climb. OR you can just stay in bed longer and wait for the water to warm up. Whatever works for you.
My favorite set up to catch trout around oyster bars is in a tidal creek of some sort. I try to find a place that funnels the trout right to me. I look for a deeper channel between an oyster bar and a mud flat or two oyster bars....you get the idea. You want the fish to be forced to come right by you as the tide comes in and goes out.
WANT TO CATCH A TROPHY SPECKLED TROUT? Give us a call and Book Your Flats Boat Charter Today!
The trout will move in and out of the tidal creeks in a school so you can catch a ton of them as they move through. Once they come by you can chase them in and out with the tide or wait for another school to come by your position.
I usually chase them in my kayak or jon boat because that's the way that I am. BUT my older brother will find a good spot and stay there for 8 hours without moving. We usually catch about the same amount of fish so each way works just fine. It depends upon you.
I wrote another article that covers in much more detail the best baits and lures for catching speckled trout. You can read that article by clicking right here.
My favorite lure to use in the tidal creeks is a Berkeley Gulp shrimp with a 1/8 ounce red jig head. I like the white and natural colors the best but there are a lot of color combinations that work well. You will have to try a few different ones to find out which colors that you like the best.
You will want to cast up current and slowwwwwly bounce your jig back to you at about the same speed as the current. The trout will miss the lure often if you retrieve it too quickly in the Winter.
The best live bait to fish this scenario is a live shrimp under a split shot. You will want to cast it up current and bounce it along the bottom at about the same speed that the current is moving. The good news is that redfish, black drum and flounder will also be cruising with the trout. It's a good thing to cast for a trout and catch a big redfish, right?
Watch the video below and catch more trout around oyster bars.
Fishing for spotted sea trout in Winter--Mangroves
The mangroves are another great place to catch trout in the Winter. You want to look for a line of mangroves along a deep drop off. A lot of the man made canals and creeks have this set up. You can have a 10 foot drop within 3 or 4 feet of the mangrove roots and branches. That is what you want to find for Winter trout.
If you have read any of my other articles about catching speckled trout then you will know that I use very few different lures. I like to fish with scented soft plastics with a jig head like a Berkeley Gulp. I like unscented soft plastics like DOA CAL 3 inch shad with a jig head. AND I like to use live shrimp to catch my trout. That is what I use 90 something percent of the time when I am hunting spotted sea trout.
In the Winter, I still use those baits but I slow the presentations down and fish them deeper than I would in the Summer. My first choice for fishing mangroves adjacent to a deep drop off would be a live shrimp under a split shot.
Cast you shrimp and split shot combination as close to the mangroves as you can and just let it sit there. If the trout are around they will find it. There will also be sheepshead, black drum, redfish and many other delicious tasting fish in that environment too. BUT often times the trout will get to the shrimp first. They are more cold tolerant than most inshore fish.
If I couldn't find any live shrimp, then I would use the Berkeley Gulp shrimp with a 1/8 ounce jig head. You will want to cast this up to the mangroves and let it sink to the bottom and slowly jig it back to where you are and repeat a few times then move to another section of the mangrove line.
The DOA CALs will catch a ton of trout most of the time because they are more of a reactionary lure than the Gulps. The trout will hit the CALs based upon their sight and lateral line (feeling/hearing) but they do not have a strong scent like the Gulps do.
I have found that the DOA CALs are slightly less effective in the Winter. It is probably because the fish are moving slower and have to conserve every movement to minimize calorie usage. It's all about calories in and calories out as far as survival goes.
Don't get me wrong. These lures catch trout like crazy but they would be my third choice in the Winter. You will want to fish them the same way that you fish the Gulp. Slow, deep and steady.
Fishing for spotted sea trout in Winter--Docks
The docks with deep pilings are great places to find trout in the Winter. The trout will be down deep in the mornings until the Sun's rays can heat up the upper part of the water column enough for them to get some work done.
I like to find docks with large boats tied to them or moored beside them. This tells me two things. It tells me that the water is deep enough for a large draft boat to be there. It also tells me that there is a good chance of a deeper channel next to the dock that was dug by the boat's propellers.
It takes a lot of horsepower and thrust to get a 40 foot boat moving and that will dig a trench in the bottom beneath the boat's propellers. Those underwater topography changes are great places for predators to set up ambush points for prey items. They are a magnet for predators like, speckled trout, flounders, redfish, snook and many other inshore predatory fish species.
My favorite live bait for fishing deep docks for trout is a live shrimp with a split shot above it. That is probably what you guessed isn't it? Just pitch your shrimp up to the dock pilings and under the dock if possible and let it sink to the bottom. If there are any trout around they will find it.
The best lure for fishing the docks for spotted sea trout is..... wait for it...….. Yes it is the Berkeley Gulp shrimp. You can pitch this under the dock and just let it sit than move it a few inches and pause again. Then repeat. The Gulp actually puts out more scent molecules than a real shrimp so you don't have to move it very much to get a trout's attention. They have an excellent sense of smell like all members of the drum family.
Fishing for spotted sea trout in Winter--Best Temperatures