This is the time of year when you can have the time of your life catching spadefish at the nearshore reefs.  Well, really, its getting a little bit past primetime but you can still catch them, as evidenced by this report.  I’ve heard it described as “as much fun as you can have with your pants on” and I’d have to say that is not far off the mark.

So, I have been spade fishing a half dozen times, most often successfully, sometimes not.  Each time I have learned something new, and yesterday was no exception.  So, I finally got my good friend, neighbor, fishing buddy and VP of SSWA, Ray out to experience the thrill.  Thankfully, my plan came together and he had some sore arms by days-end.

We had a large time and caught about 15 spades, which was pretty good since we had zero jellyfish for bait.  We caught all our fish on fresh shrimp.

I’ll save the details on how to catch spades to a future post, but suffice to say it is very, very fun and as Ray said “Pound for pound the hardest fighting fish he has caught”.   They usually eat right at the boat, and you watch it all happen.  When they realize they are hooked its an absolute rodeo on inshore gear.  I have hooked a fish at the boat and had it break me off 40 feet down in a matter of seconds.  They will smoke your reel for sure!

A note on conservation.  When you figure these fish out, you can load the boat with them easily.  But that doesn’t mean you should.  They are very good to eat, but only fresh (in my opinion).  We watched a boat near us catch many, many fish and keep them all.   I wonder how many of them will be thrown away after a year in the freezer…  Anyway, we kept a few and released the rest.

A great day on the water with a great friend.  Spades, give em a try!

As our business grows, we are adding products that we personally use and endorse for improving your inshore catching results with artificial baits.

We are now a distributor for Z-Man Trout Tricks and they can be purchased on our online store at ralphphillipsinshore.com/store along with TroutEye jig heads and bucktails.

We currently have 7 colors available that we have used and have had success with. We may add more as we get a chance to use them and see how they work for us. If you have a favorite color that you would like us to offer, please just let us know.

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“Pairing the deadliest soft plastic trout lure I’ve seen—now constructed from 10X Tough ElaZtech®—with a perfectly matched jighead creates a complete system that is simply unmatched its ability to catch fish when other baits and presentations are ineffective,” comments Daniel Nussbaum, Z-Man General Manager and Executive Vice President. “Both products have unique features that set them apart from other inshore artificials and, paired together, will absolutely help anglers from Texas to Virginia catch more trophy seatrout.”

“The TroutTrick is an amazing bait, and our ElaZtech material makes it even more durable and gives it improved action,” adds Nussbaum. “I fished the ElaZtech versions paired with the Trout Eye jigheads religiously last fall and winter, and the combination consistently caught more and bigger trout than anything else I used.”

Rounding out the TroutTrick system, the Trout Eye jighead produces the ideal sink rate that optimizes the bait’s ability to produce reaction strikes. Created by South Carolina inshore fishing guru, Ralph Phillips, the Trout Eye jighead features an oversized eye, superb balance, high-quality 2/0 Mustad hook, and needle- sharp keeper barbs that make rigging with ElaZtech easy and grip all types of soft plastics securely. The real differentiator with the jighead lays in its oversized 3D eyeballs that create a prominent strike target that game- fish can home in on.

“In 40 years of fishing for blue marlin and seatrout to everything in between, I have learned that predators strike the eye,” remarks Phillips. “Our Trout Eye jigheads are designed to have the biggest eye possible for a jig this size, and they just simply produce.”

“The Trout Eye jig is, hands-down, the best inshore jighead I’ve used,” Nussbaum comments. “The keepers really grip our ElaZtech super-plastic, and the fact that it improves the effectiveness of TroutTrick made partnering with Ralph on distributing it a no-brainer!”

We are very excited to formally announce our partnership with Z-Man Fishing Products Inc.  Z-Man will be distributing our TroutEye jigheads along with their new product, the Trout Trick.  Those of us in Charleston, SC know all about the Trout Trick.  It has been a local go-to bait for about 5 years now.  It’s gratifying for me on a personal level, as one of my very good friends, Bob Sanders, originated this bait and worked tirelessly to get others to simply try them.  He already knew how effective they were.  In fact, he made a living off chartering people new to fishing by using only artificial baits, and only Trout Tricks.  That’s how effective they are.  It’s great to see his vision come to life thanks to the fine people at Z-Man.  Although they are called Trout Tricks, those of us who use them know that they just as well could be called Redfish Tricks, or especially Flounder Tricks.

If there were any criticism of the Trout Trick, it was how easy it was to tear.  A bait would not last longer than a few fish usually.  Well, Z-Man has solved that problem by now making them out of ElaZtech material.  With this material, the Trout Trick is almost indestructible.  ElaZtech material is naturally buoyant, and when rigged on one of our TroutEye jigs, will stand straight up when left on the bottom.  The weight of our TroutEye jigs is the perfect solution to the slightly more buoyant material.  This allows the Trout Trick to fall at just the right rate to trigger a reaction bite on a speckled trout.

Please click the image below to read the full press release from Z-Man regarding our partnership.  We are very excited to be aligned with such an amazing company.

This Memorial day weekend was great fun for my family.  We spent 3 days just being vacationers.  My plans usually involve fishing pre-dawn till 9 or 10 am then spending the rest of the day with family.  Back to work today I’m tired, a little sore and a little sunburned.  Gotta love it, not even June yet 🙂

I have a favorite flat that I scouted myself a few years ago after Ralph taught me about how to find fish.  It’s a very special place to me and I keep it tight to my vest.  This particular place (I call it the pumpkin patch) has been awesome for catching redfish on top in 1 foot of water.  It must be the abundance of bait that gets them eager to charge a plug.  Through trial and error I have learned how to get them to attack.  Simply working the plug across the flat seldom works.  I’ll leave the details to a future post.

Anyway, I haven’t been here in over 6 months and I was wondering if they would be around.  My point with this article is the difference a day can make in fishing.  I fished this same flat, basically the same time of day, in the same way, using the same techniques, and had very different results.

Day 1.  Got to the flat and all the ingredients were there.  Lots of bait, some strikes.  Started working the skitterwalk and was having no luck.  Behind me is an aggressive strike.  I turn around and launch a long cast and a great big red back comes out of the water and crushes it.  He ran around an oyster rake and I could feel my line dragging across it.  Opened my bail and ran the trolling motor to the other side and it freed up.  Real nice fish at 31.5″.  Found a group of smaller fish tailing.  Tried to get one on a topwater fly but could not get one to take.  Best I got was a follow and deny.  Good day!  Off the water at 9 am and the lot was full and three boats waiting to put in.

 

 

Day 2.  Got to flat and there was no crashing.  Only lazy movement of fish.  I could tell by their behavior that they were not happy fish.  Tried all my tricks and no fish.  Moved on to some new water and found a bend with laydown trees.  This is familiar to me.  Lost a little flatty and eventually found 4 trout and a 20 ish inch red in deep water off the end of a tree.  The Z-Man Trout Trick in opening night color saved my day.  I thought I might get skunked on Sunday.  Winds were strong out of the East, but they really were all weekend so can’t blame it on that.  Other reports in the area were similar.  Fish were really negative on Sunday.

Day 3.  Got to flat and was walking the skitter when POP! a red snapped it hard and ran.  It was a big fish and kept pulling my drag toward an oyster rake.  I have a rule to not horse fish but I broke my own rule when I palmed the spool a bit to try to turn it…. bad idea, lost it.  Skitter came back with a scale pierced on a hook so it must have been hooked outside the mouth.  Oh well.  No matter.  Shortly later had a huuge strike that punched a hole in the water.  He was NOT happy to be hooked.  Ended up at 32.5″ a real big fish.  Later had another monster absolutely hammer the plug only to miss it.  He missed a second time a short time later.  I could not get him to come back for thirds.  This day, the fish were happy and aggressive.

 

On reflection, some days the fish are gonna be negative.  I think a lot of people would have been skunked fishing the waters where I was.  The trick is to continue to search different patterns till you find something that works.  shallow/deep.  flats/deep water.  oysters/docks.  etc.  A finesse bait like the Trout Trick are the best baits, in my opinion, for when the fish are turned off.  This was the case for me on Sunday.

Hope this helps.  In the mean time, I’m gonna keep working on my fly casting… it needs it!

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Some friends have been doing well on the Z-Man Trout Tricks.

If you follow fishing reports on social media, you don’t always hear about the marginal days.  It seems that recently, while the fishing is always great, the catching has been hot or cold.  I guess I’d blame it on the weather, or temperatures (both air and water) to be specific.  Seems the weather has been anything but stable – and mostly windy.  Man, I am sick and tired of the wind.  Years ago when I was a die-hard windsurfer, I would never see myself making that statement 🙂

Case in point.  Ralph and I fished the Cooper on Saturday morning and fished very hard for only a few trout and bluefish to show.  We raised the white flag at about 11am.  We were discussing the fact that we are confident enough to know that if the fish were in any way in a feeding mood that we would have gotten a bite.  Surely there were fish around, but badly turned off.  The air temp was very cold, and we were shivering in two layers.  That could be why.  Well, if the fish are gonna be that way, we both have enough work we are neglecting to waste our time beating the water to a froth, so we packed it in.

Sunday we fished in separate boats in separate rivers (Wando and Cooper).  We both did pretty well.  Ralph had approx 15 trout – nothing huge but big enough to not have to measure.  The report from the Wando was that it was very muddy which is unusual for that river.  I had a pretty good day in the Cooper with a real nice trout over 20″ followed by 7 redfish including two at just under 30″.  I managed a 15.5″ flounder to round out a pretty respectable slam of around 65″.  While out there, I decided to do a little instructional film on how to properly fish a Trout Trick.  I’ve had a lot of people ask me how to fish the TT and it’s relevant considering the latest news coming out of Z-Man…. The release of the ElaZtech Trout Trick line!  Pretty exciting stuff.  We have been fishing the prototypes for a couple months now and the new TT’s and colors are really great.  I’m especially excited about the Z-Man TT in the original color.  They did a great job matching the original color and when you see the film, you will see that they work very well.

In the mean time, I’ll get to editing the video and will let y’all know when its up.

Remember, our May promotion involves TroutEye bucktails.  They work really well, and you have a chance to win a sack of jigs just by fishing them and posting your catch pics.  Our bucktails are currently available only on our Store.  Give em a try!

 

An SSWA member, Steven, is a big bass fisherman who is relatively new to the inshore salt game.  But as I have come to appreciate, bass fisherman are usually very good fishermen.  They know how to cast, how to work an artificial bait, how to feel the bite, and how to find the fish.  Converting to salt is no big deal, because they already have the knowledge – they just need to apply it in a different way.

Steven is a fan of our TroutEye jigs and was out yesterday and had a great day.  First, he caught his personal best redfish (31″).  He caught six more and completed his lowcountry slam with a trout and flounder.  But the icing on the cake was a SHEEPY caught on artificial bait for the grand-slam!

All his fish were caught on Trout Eye jigheads.  Way to go Steven 🙂

Those of you fellow junkies who share our addition to topwater fishing will attest that there is nothing quite like an aggressive blowup on a topwater plug.  Each species of fish takes the plug in a different way.  Trout can be very eager, often banging the plug two feet out of the water in their attempt at a meal, but if you have been in this game long enough, you know that the gator trout don’t really do that…they slurp.  We hope for this kind of subtle take, as it often means you have a two plus pounder on your line.  My personal favorite to catch on top are striper.  There is nothing quite like the heart stopping, vicious strike of a striper.

That brings me to the redfish.  Reds are a blast on topwater!  Because they are built for bottom feeding it is not easy for a redfish to take a topwater plug.  In order to strike they must raise themselves out of the water or roll upside down, both of which they will do.  The result is like someone threw a bathroom sink in the water!  Fellow pluggers are nodding their heads right now 🙂  The visual of a big red coming up like Red October, pouncing on the plug, then turning away in a splash will stop your heart, and create a life long addition.

With all topwater strikes, it is important (although difficult for most) to NOT set the hook.  This is especially true for redfish.  Wait until you feel the red on the line before setting the hook.  You probably won’t need to set the hook at the red will turn and one of the 6 or more hooks will find somewhere to land regardless.

Ralph hosted Dr. Martin Toporek and John Smoak (SmoakStack Studios) for some fishing yesterday.  They found some eager reds hanging around a submerged oyster bed near a large flat.  Walking the dog over the oyster bed produced three reds over 25″.  The smiles say it all…

All pics by John Smoak of Smoak Stack Studios

They also found a few pre-front trout using the NEW Z-Man Trout Tricks made with ElaZtech material and TroutEye jigheads.  Look for the new TT’s to hit the shelves in a matter of weeks with 14 colors including the original color.

As you probably know, we are very fortunate to have partnered with Z-Man Fishing Products, a world-class fishing company right here in Charleston.  Trout Eye jigheads will be distributed by Z-Man starting in 2015 as part of their product line.  We should be seeing press releases on it soon.  It’s all very exciting for us!

Today we had Joey P., sales manager at Z-Man on the boat as our guest.  If you follow Z-Man on social media you might recognize Joey as having recently caught a 42″ redfish inshore on 10lb test and a TroutEye jighead.  He had a much bigger beard then!  Our target was trout, and we started out throwing plugs and the Z-Man Pop ShadZ.  We had a lackluster bite with Ralph landing the only trout –  We had many swirls and non-committal swipes with most of our offerings getting at least a little attention.  Still not a real aggressive topwater bite yet for us, but that will change any day now.

The sun came up and we moved locations and started fishing sub-surface.  Joey brought with him some samples, namely 3″ MinnowZ with the tails colored chartreuse using a new “special sauce” that Z-Man is cooking up.  Joey and Ralph started throwing this while I fished the original Trout Trick (now a Z-Man product as well).  It didn’t take long for Joey and Ralph to start whacking em.  I held out for a while with the TT and managed a nice trout at about 19″ but the numbers were with the paddle tails.

Ralph and I don’t often fish paddle tail grubs, instead favoring jerk shads most of the time.  It has most to do with the way we are used to working the lures.  Well, this day has awakened me to the MinnowZ.  I eventually switched over and we caught some beautiful fish on them.  Big trout (We had 4 gators over 21″ today), a 23.0″ red and  an 18″ flounder.  We were catching big trout and you can imagine the smiles on all our faces 🙂

 

We had  a really fun day.  The wind kicked up to a gale by 11AM and that is when we put it on the trailer.  Keep an eye out for Z-Man press releases coming in the next few months about Trout Tricks and Trout Eye Jigs!

 

 

 

I mentioned in a previous post how March is my least favorite month to fish, and this March lived up to that.  I’m glad it’s over.  I had a few poor trips with just 1 or a few fish to show.  Reports from some friends were similar;  one or two fish at a spot, hard to pattern, etc.  That being said, a few nice trout were caught, if you could find them.  In fact, I had one day where I found a school of trout and it was just like a fall bite, with one fish after another, all of good size.  The topwater bite is beginning to heat up and will only get better as the bait fish fill in.

Anyway, it’s April now, and that means trout are getting ready for the first spawn of the year and will be feeding consistently.  We should see reports of some of the biggest trout of the year caught in April through June.

I fished yesterday afternoon and found the trout feeding well beginning at the first drop.  Many were small males but a couple bigger females were hanging around different parts of the structure.  Pretty much everywhere I stopped I caught a few trout.  They were very aggressive and if you missed a bite they would come back a second or third time.  I eventually found a school of very nice trout, 16-18″ that were stacked up.   They were hitting suspending lures and bucktails well, but the hot bait of the day was a Z-Man Trout Trick on a gold TroutEye jighead.  This combo caught them almost every cast.  It’s fun to get in to a school of feeding trout, because  you can experiment with different lures to see what works the best.  In fact, this is exactly how Bob Sanders discovered the Trout Trick in the first place.  It was easily the best lure yesterday.

I also ended up with my first bluefish of the  year (meh) and a nice flatty at 16″.

A nice afternoon trip for sure!

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APRIL CONTEST

In the month of April, any purchase of $50 or more on our online store will be entered into a drawing for a fishing trip with Ralph and Dave.  We will make the drawing at the end of April and will post the winner’s name on our media.  The trip must be claimed within 1 year.  If you are out of town, you must arrange to be in Charleston on the agreed upon date to claim the trip. It is sure to be a fun and entertaining day!

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Our resident Bucktail tier, Rex, posted this nice red he caught on a TroutEye Bucktail

For those of you who have had issues with our online store in the past, we apologize. Our store did not reflect our product quality and we sure don’t want you worrying about whether or not your order went through. As a result, we have replaced our online store with a new and improved one. We hope that this restores your confidence in our store and we thank you for your support as we grow and strive to improve.