Back in the Saddle

It’s been over a year since my last post.  Of course, a lot has happened in the mean time.  The Fall of 2013 was amazing for fishing.  We had great catches of trout toward the end of the year, and we found them in completely new habitat – which means we had them almost to ourselves!  The beginning of the new year brought dreaded cold weather to the area, and although we didn’t have a total trout kill-off, we did take a hit for sure.  There are still 23-24″ trout out there to be found, but the numbers are not what they were last year.

Winter Trout
Danny Phillips, Ralph and Dave after a day in December 2013 that none of us will forget

However, when the water gets down around 45 deg we sometimes find a silver lining in redfish absolutely stacked up on structure, and this was the case last winter.  Ralph and I had a few memorable days of catching reds on almost every cast.

Until recently, well, life has gotten in the way of progress of Ralph Phillips Inshore Productions.  But, with Ralph’s home complete, health issues in the rear view mirror, etc, we are back on board.  Ralph’s son Les has joined our team and among other things will be building custom rods for us.  He is working out the kinks as he applies his knowledge of rod building learned from one of the local experts.  His recent blanks have been nothing short of amazing.  We are looking forward to being able to offer them for sale.

Winter Reds
Ralph and Dave with a cold water redfish double from early 2014

We are excited to have a new product, TROUT-EYE jig heads.  The idea for these came from Ralph’s preferred jig for many years, the Cotee, which has a relatively big eye painted on it.  Most offshore lures have big eyes, and some of the most successful inshore plugs (ie. the Paul Brown Corky) have very big eyes.  We designed our jigs to have the biggest eye on the market (to our knowledge).  Every detail is optimized based on fishing experience, from the eye, to the hook, to the weight.  Our jigs are unpainted.  Why you might ask?  Well, it has been proven that trout and redfish cannot see the color red.  So what does a red jig head look like to a fish?  Gray.  Pro bass fishermen will say the best jig color is one that is neutral to the soft plastic color.  So, no paint.  A very nice side benefit is no annoying paint covering the eyelet in the hook!  Don’t you hate that?  Well these jigs, in our opinion, look more proportional in the eye to a mullet or menhaden.  Fish key in on the eye and hit a bait at the head area, so there you have it.  Ralph and I took a half day trip to test the jigs, and caught 6 species of fish on it, including a double inshore slam of trout, redfish, flounder.  So, we are convinced that we have a winner.  We hope you like them.  They are all we will be using from now on.

DSC_5951 Cropped Sm DSC_5957

For comparison purposes, look at the eye on these popular bait fish

menhaden
Menhaden
mullet
Striped Mullet

And just a few of the many, many fish we have caught on them (so far!)  Our first outing using them we caught a quality inshore slam (redfish, trout, flounder) plus 4 more species.

Flounder Square Trout Square Redfish 2 Square Redfish Square

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