Month: June 2013

Great Trout Bite Continues!

It’s been a couple months since my last post, and it’s true about the year-class of 19″ trout being abundant.  As of today, I have gone 11 out of 12 consecutive trips with a trout 19+”.  That is quite admittedly lucky for me, outstanding for Charleston, and the best it has been for years.

The best luck for the big trout has been topwater plugs at dawn or dusk, and subsurface suspending hard baits.  We have had great luck with the Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn’s and Rapala Sub-Walker baits in mullet color.  As for topwater, my all-time favorite has been a skitter walk but in the past 6 weeks a bone colored Spook-Jr has been the ticket!  My suggestion is to keep trying different lures until you find the one that works.  On almost all plugs, I remove the hooks and replace with Eagle Claw trebles, as they seem to hook up better.  After reading a few articles recently, I may start changing my plugs out with single hooks.  That will be the subject of another post…

The old stand-by, the soft plastic on jighead combo is still killer.  Trout tricks have been great, as well as a new Z-man color named “Mulletron” in a jerk shad or PaddlerZ has been great.  This new color will hit shelves soon and is a dark blue with speckles.

Ralph is still busy building a house, and we are planning to get back working on the business as soon as he has some room to breathe.  First on tap will be our official instructional video on Trout, that we will film this fall with the help of Nick McNaughton.  It’s going to be great, especially with all these big trout around!

Here is a sampling of some of the nice trout I have caught in May and June.  Remember, this time of year the trout are busy spawning and most of the ones you catch will be full of eggs.  Please consider releasing them, and only keep what your family will eat without freezing.  As usual, I release all trout over 20″ and most of the others too!

The new Z-man "Mulletron" color PaddlerZ

 

21"+ Pre-dawn
Fat with eggs - Released!

21.5" and all spawned out

 

My son with the first of 2 over 19" on topwater
Even got a nice Cobia at 38.5" (with friends Rich and Ray)
Had a few outstanding redfish days mixed in too. Here with my good friend (and excellent fisherman) Ray