Cold Water Tips

Since our last update we finally had a break in the weather and it seems we are now in a more regular November pattern of weekly cold fronts.  In the past two weeks the water temp has dropped from around 70F to the mid sixties.  This should amp up the bite, for those days when the wind will allow getting on the water.

On that note, PLEASE be careful fishing in the winter.  Every year we have deaths caused by falling in the water.  A must is to wear a PFD, especially if you are fishing alone.  The first thing to fail is  your muscles ability to tread water, followed by drowning.  A PFD will greatly increase your chances of survival.  Secondly, wear your kill switch if fishing alone.

We all know that trout school up when the water gets cold.  This means that you must keep moving until you find the fish.  If you never find them, it’s not unusual to get skunked on the trout.  But when you do find them, you can have a double or even triple digit catch day.  Many people choose to troll grubs.  If you troll, then catch a fish.  Stop and fish there!  So many people keep going… We prefer to drift with the tide using the trolling motor and casting.  Often you will find a school, then the bite will die off.  Usually it means the school moved up or down the creek a little bit.  Just probe around until you locate them again.  We have plenty more tips on cold water trout fishing – but I will save that for later posts.

Redfish will also be schooled up tight in cold water.  Sometimes, it seems there are 100 fish piled on top of each other in a 12 foot diameter area.  Catching 50+ reds off the same piece of structure is a definite possibility in the cold water.  These fish will tend to be concentrated in a hole or among trees or deep rocky structure.

With all these numbers of catching, please practice conservation – as you can really do some damage to fish populations by keeping your limit each time.  As a recreational tagger, I have learned that fish do not move very much.  They will spend the majority of their lives within a mile of a creek or river.  Fishermen can definitely clean a stretch of river out – no question.  Keep a few for dinner, but let the rest go.

Charity Oyster Roast

In 2011 Ralph founded the Summerville Saltwater Anglers fishing club, and I was one of the lucky ones to be in attendance at the interest meeting.  I volunteered to serve on the founding board of directors, and its awesome to see what the club has become.  It is focused on families, fishing, and helping the community.  We had our End of Year party on Nov 13th and it was an amazing night.  SSWA includes a Youth Advisor on the board of directors which has been a great thing to witness.  It has become a leadership and growth opportunity for some of our youths.  Our first Youth Advisor, Megan, had the idea to include a charity auction for our party each year.  She was just 11 years old when she suggested it at a board meeting.  Well, it has grown every year, and this year the club raised over $9,000 for our charity.  The club also unanimously approved naming the event “Megan’s Gift” in her honor.  It’s been rewarding seeing her grow and become successful (She is now attending the Governer’s School as a Junior in High School).  Our current Youth Advisor, Emery, is a similar young leader, and I also see him doing great things in the future.

Ashley River Cleanup

Something I have spearheaded in the past two years is a cleanup of the upper Ashley River.  This is something that I am passionate about, as it is one of the most beautiful places in Charleston, yet the river is full of trash that keeps coming back.  Carolyn Tomlinson from Keep Dorchester County Beautiful came to the SSWA party to present an award in appreciation for our efforts.  It reads “Keep Dorchester County Beautiful thanks the Summerville Saltwater Anglers for Participating in the GAC 3.2 tons of litter was taken out of the Ashley river on March 21, 2015”.  I was glad to accept this award on behalf of the club, but I want to point out that since our historic flooding, the river is worse than ever, unfortunately.  I will be promoting the event as much as possible in an effort to try to get as many volunteers with boats to help us clean up this coming March.  Below are some pics taken last week to illustrate my point.  PLEASE HELP US!

November is hands-down my favorite month to fish.  Everyone is a hero in November, since the fish are so turned on.  That being said, there are tactics that can help improve your results.  So far, as of the first week of Nov, the water remains very warm – with temps in the upper 60’s.  This means that our cold water tactics are still not really needed.  Fish will still be very aggressive, so definitely top-water fishing is still on.  Do not hang up your plugs yet!  We have more cloudy overcast days in November, and there are still bait fish around, so we are having good top-water strikes even late in the morning.  The size of the trout have been great…the fish are heavy.  We have had many 3+ pound trout in recent weeks.  The Z-Man MinnowZ in rootbeer with chartreuse tail on a Trout Eye jig still is working great.

Top-water Tactics

One tip for those who maybe are new to top-water fishing.  You often hear “don’t set the hook on a top-water strike”.  This is absolutely true, but here are some other tactics.  Think about why a trout smacks a topwater plug.  Often the plug will get launched a foot or more out of the water.  The trout is trying to wound or disorient the fish, then go back for a relatively easy meal.  When a trout hits your plug and misses, do not immediately reel the plug in and cast back in there.  “Sell” the wounded fish act.  Twitch the plug erratically, let it sit, make it act wounded.  Often, that fish will come back 2, 3 even 5 times to try again.  This happened the other day.  Ralph and I were casting a bank and a real nice trout launched its whole body -and the plug – a foot out of the water.  We both happened to be looking at the plug when it happened and said “Whoa!”.  I pulled out all my tricks in “selling” the wounded fish, and sure enough, it came back for a second strike – missed again.  A few more twitches, and … contact!  This was a beautiful and heavy fish at 20 1/4 inches.  Never give up!

Try the Fly

As we get further into November and colder water sets in, the bait will be mostly gone and small shrimp and glass minnows will be on the menu.  I am not a die hard fly fisherman, but I do love throwing the fly sometimes.  I look at a fly rod as another tool in your inshore toolkit.  You simply cannot present a very small artificial bait (“match the hatch”) with a spin or bait-cast rod.  The best tool for the job is a fly rod.  I love small Clouser minnows.  They look a lot like a glass minnow or small shrimp, are easy to tie, and look very natural in the water.  Try a fly when fishing this month and see how well they work.  I threw one yesterday and the fish were absolutely all over it.  I had a pretty good slam on it, including a 19 inch trout, 24 inch striper and 27 inch redfish.  All of them hammered this little tiny fly.  As Ralph likes to say “Elephants eat peanuts”.  Give a fly rod a try in the cold water.

 

 

One last thing.  Yesterday I got about 5 miles away from home and realized I forgot my TroutEye hand towel.  I almost turned around to go get it.  I swear its my favorite accessory, I’m not kidding.  Needless to say, my pants were filthy 🙂

Tag your TroutEye jig catches on social media with #TroutEye and we will repost it!
The best value in our jigheads is to buy direct in bulk.  See our online store for details.

 

Tight lines!

Ever had “one of those days” when Murphy’s Law (“If it can go wrong, it will go wrong”) prevails?

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to fish again with Ralph and Danny (Ralph’s brother).  Last time I fished with Danny was nearly two years ago, and it was a memorable one, with 100+ solid trout caught.  Danny hadn’t wet a line since January and had a small window to get out.  Danny is the only person I have ever met who has the natural “feel” of a trout bite like Ralph.  I guess its genetic.  Ralph always says that when you grow up poor and hungry, and you only have one cricket, you learn not to lose a fish…

Anyway, we started out chunking plugs and had one mishap after another.  Braided line caught in split rings (multiple times), fish missed at the boat (big one), line wrapped around the reel handle (lost fish and plug), fish dragging lure into structure (break off), minor electrical problems, etc!  I’m probably forgetting a few but you get the picture.  But, you might notice the common theme was fish mishaps.  Yes, we were on a bite – the best one we have had since last spring, and what a feeling!  It was nice catching some heavy trout again.  We landed about 7 trout over 2.5 lbs and Ralph had the daymaker with one a little over 3.5 lbs.

After the sun came up, we switched to a rig that has been working really well for us in the post-flood tannic stained water:  A Z-Man 3 in MinnowZ in rootbeer with a chartreuse tail.  Anything with a chartreuse tail has been working well, but especially the MinnowZ.  This is always a hot Fall lure, but I think the water color really makes this one stand out right now.

We found about 7 redfish and a couple flounder during the rest of the morning, and just really enjoyed the perfect weather and each other’s company.  If you can swing it, get off the couch and get on the water – it’s prime time!

 

Visit our Online Store for the best deals in TroutEye jigheads anywhere, and pick up a few TroutEye hand towels.  They are priced inexpensively and really help improve your catching experience.

See you on the water!

Hit the ponds 🙂

Last week we had supermoon tides pretty much all week, so Ralph and I decided to fish some sandpit ponds for bass for a change.  It was a real nice change of pace and an awful lot of fun.  There was a lot of vegetation in the pond and it is hard to work a jerk shad without catching weeds, so we experimented around and found the best way to make a presentation.

The first deadly combo was a Z-Man 3″ MinnowZ on a TroutEye jighead.  With this combo its easy to swim the lure just above the weeds, and the amazing action of the Z-Man ElaZtech made it a very effective offering.  Many big bucketmouths fell to this combo.  We also had a few crappie unable to resist.

 

Our bucktails are also a good choice since they are light weight you can keep them up in the water column a bit easier.  Bucktails are a classic largemouth bait and you can see why.

Lastly we used some floating diver plugs.  Crank them and they swim just under the surface, and on the pause they will float back up.  The biggest fish were all over these.  Ralph hooked the fish of the day (looked to be 5+ lbs) and lost it on a jump.

While our flood waters recede, your best bet for something to pull on your line might be freshwater bass fishing in a local pond (or backyard!).  As always, look for structure, such as fire pits, Azalea bushes, barbeque grills, etc 🙂  We are just kidding, many in our area are in bad shape and our thoughts are with you, but sometimes you gotta step back and have a laugh.

 

Fisher-people in Tennessee, you can now get TroutEye jigheads at Sexton’s Marine in Bristol, TN.  Stop in and ask for them, they are sure to whack the walleye in South Holston Lake!

If you have ever fished the “super-moon” tides, you know it can be very frustrating. For argument’s sake, let’s say a tidal range of around 7 feet. That’s a big tide for Charleston, but we see them maybe 10 times a year, more or less. When the tide turns to go out, it can seem like someone pulled the plug out of the bathtub! Almost whitewater… Chances are, the luck you had was probably near slack low or high when the water flow was manageable.

Well, yesterday’s “blood-moon” was one of those days, and yes, the struggle was real! But, you can still catch fish if you know a little about where fish will be and why. With the exception of Striper, who it seems the faster the water the happier they are, most inshore fish won’t, or more likely can’t, waste their energy fighting that kind of current. They will hide somewhere in a current break when the tide is really rushing. That doesn’t mean they won’t feed.

We found a place yesterday where the current was so fast that my trolling motor, while on full speed, still couldn’t hold steady. Yet, we landed two big reds in this rushing current. How? They were hiding behind a submerged fallen tree trunk that broke the current. They were waiting for baitfish to be swept by and they would come out to get them. In this case, it was our jerk shad on a TroutEye jig instead.  My high school friend Scott was the happy angler for a couple very nice overslot reds.

So, as Ralph likes to say in his seminars, go out at negative low tides and make note of the bottom contour. If you know of any fallen trees or submerged structure, it might be a good place to try on one of those screaming tide days.

Tight lines!

Now that the water temperature has dipped below 80F, it’s nice to finally have a good artificial bait bite back, and it’s only getting better.  Our observation is that water temps in the 70’s seem to be the optimum temperature range for redfish.  They seem to have lots of stamina and a smaller fish will seem like a bigger fish as a result – they pull like a freight train for several runs.  It’s really fun to catch reds in this water temperature window in the Fall and Spring.

Trout have begun to feed well and catches of double-digit numbers of schooly trout will be the norm.  You won’t often catch a lot of big girls but the small males will be abundant.  That being said, we should have an exceptional bite of big fish this Fall given a couple fairly mild winters we have had.  Can’t wait!

Flounder make a move out of the creeks to the ocean around mid-October, and building up to that time the numbers of catches should steadily improve.  We have been catching a few each trip with sizes mixed.

One of my personal favorite things to target in the Fall is the Margarita Slam (redfish, trout, flounder, striper, largemouth).  We call it this because it’s a brackish water slam and is both salty and sweet water.  This slam can be achieved in any of our rivers that is fed by fresh water.  Maybe the most difficult would be to catch a largemouth in the Wando as it is the most salty.  But there are abundant stocked striper in the upper Wando above Paradise landing.

I was lucky to get my first Margarita Slam of the season last week, and while the average size of the fish taken was on the smallish side, it was remarkable in that 4 of the 5 fish were caught on a single rig:  A gold TroutEye jig with a Z-Man PaddlerZ in Bad Shad color.  This is leaving out the other 4 redfish and 2 striper caught on it.  Only a Z-Man can stand up to that abuse.  My one remaining fish was a trout, which is the easiest fish to catch in the slam.  I was determined to complete the slam on the one rig but unfortunately broke the rig off on a submerged tree.  I did not have any more PaddlerZ left so I had to count on an earlier topwater trout catch to complete the slam .  I don’t think there is a better testimony to the effectiveness of a rig than that… 4 (fresh and saltwater) species  – that’s a combo that works.

Get off the couch and go fishing – it’s the best time of year!

And don’t forget to enjoy some “laydowns” at snack time 🙂

As usual, if you catch a fish on one of our jigs, tag it on social media with #TroutEye and we will repost it.  See you on the water.

Visit our store for the best value in jigs.  It’s artificial time…  Most orders ship same or the next day with 2 day delivery

Here is our latest product.  It’s very simple, but its one of those things that after you try it, you never want to fish without it.  Kinda like a trolling motor…

We had a little fun with this video.  Warning:  High cheese-factor 🙂

They are available now on our Online Store

The towel hangs from your belt loop and is always right there, right when you need it.  No more fumbling around for a towel or wiping your slimy hands on your pants or shirt.

TroutEye Hand-Towels – Check em out!

  

 

We are so fortunate in the lowcountry of South Carolina to take for granted fresh seafood.  We have friends and relatives from states not near the coast, and we are always a little taken aback when they say they don’t like fish.  That’s because they probably have never had fresh fish.

Now that Fall is here, it’s a great opportunity to enjoy some of our local bounty.  Local guide Tucker Blythe has been posting some fantastic meals on Instagram under the tag #CreekToTable   This inspired me this Labor Day weekend to have a meal made up almost entirely from our creek at Edisto Island.  We actually had two CreekToTable meals and they were superb.

Blue crab – They are abundant in the creeks and are most easily caught around low tide.  Keeper crabs are 5″ from point to point on the carapace.  We drop them in a bucket with ice to cool them down.  Some like to cook them whole, but I prefer to clean them first.  To clean them, simply open the flap on the underside of the carapace.  If you can’t get under the flap, just use one of their legs as a tool to get under it and lift it up.  Then just separate the top and bottom halves using a little effort to split it.  Then remove the lungs and mouth parts, followed by a strong jet of water to clear out the remnants.  You will then be left with just the legs and carapace where most of the meat lies.  To cook, boil some water with Old Bay or Zatarain’s crab boil and drop them in for 10-ish minutes.  From here we prefer to either pick them as-is, or make them into crab cakes or dip.  For the latter, get a few friends and some beer or wine and carefully remove the lump meat in a pile.  Then go through the pile a second time to separate the little shell bits that inevitably will be remaining.

 

Shrimp – There were an unbelievable number of shrimp in the creek, however they were still pretty small.  We cast netted many and shook them into a shrimp bucket and then picked out the larger ones.  We head them on the spot and drop into a cooler with ice.  Where we are, we are at the very end of a creek and it is the nursery for inshore fish.  We netted several of this year’s litter of trout and carefully returned them to the water.  We also regularly catch very tiny flounder and redfish.  It didn’t take long to get about  3/4 lb of creek shrimp.  Simply throw them in the crab water for about 1 minute to cook.  It’s very easy and common to overcook shrimp.  These creek shrimp are best by simply peeling and eating.  You will not find sweeter, better tasting shrimp than little creek shrimp!

Fish – We don’t catch many significant predator fish at our dock but every so often we get  a nice one.  I was pleasantly surprised to catch this very nice flounder which really rounded out the meal!  We don’t eat a lot of deep fried food.  Instead, we pan fry them by cleaning and cutting into pieces around 2″.  We dust them with garlic powder, salt and pepper (both sides) then shake in a bag of panko.  We heat a small amount of olive oil with a dollup of butter and fry in the pan this way.  It’s very good and healthy this way.

Nothing better than a Creek To Table meal in the Low Country!