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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

 

 

Come and see a very special event in Charleston.  Presented by Summerville Saltwater Anglers.  Four of Charleston’s legendary fishermen, Ralph Phillips, Mike Able Sr, Sandy Stuhr, and O.C. Polk will discuss fishing stories from their combined 160 years of fishing experience.  This will be a great time.  Free, and open to the public.  Free food.

With our second warm winter at our back we have a great trout population in Charleston.  Now that the water is warming above the 60F mark it will rise quickly and this brings the topwater bite, something we look forward to all winter.  The trout are gearing up to spawn, as evidenced by egg sags in a few fish we have cleaned lately.  This means the food bag will be strapped on!

Ralph has not been able to fish too much this spring, as he is preparing a move back to Summerville, but I have been applying the lessons he has taught me and having some of the best trout fishing I have ever experienced (so far!).  On the last few trips, I have caught at least a 19″ trout each time.  If you trout fish here much, that 19-20″ size seems to represent a year-class of fish that were born after the last deep freeze.  Many trout of that size were caught over the past winter.

Last Saturday, however, was my best trout day to-date.  The topwater bite was not quite yet on, as the water temp in the AM was only about 58 F.  But, later in the morning I tried a suspending jerk bait and the big fish were hammering it.  In the span of 30 minutes we put 4 fish over 18″ in the boat, with my personal best fish of 23″ and 4 lbs (below).  What a thrill catching that monster!  I handled this fish carefully and released it as quick as possible (I release all trout over 20″).

A little later, I hooked another gator, at 21″ – also on the suspending lure.

It’s definitely worth giving one of those lures a try next time you are fishing for trout.  Soon, the topwater bite will be in full gear and we will post some reports on that as well.  Hopefully we can get Ralph away from his house project and catch some of these monsters soon…

Until then, “Get off the couch and go fishing!”

 

Ralph had a big bash recently at Summerville Country Club to celebrate his 65th birthday.  I don’t know who was running the town of Summerville because all the people in charge were there!   There was even an appearance by Mark Sanford.  Ralph’s cake was really great, a very good replica of our logo.

Come on out to The Charleston Angler, Summerville, for a free seminar on cold water trout fishing with Ralph Phillips.  I will be assisting Ralph on this seminar, and hopefully giving a little perspective of someone who has applied Ralph’s advice and what I’ve learned from it.

This trailer is a rough draft for a documentary by Nick McNaughton, a videographer for the USAF.  We have been working with Nick off and on for the past 9 months or so, and he is submitting a documentary for a military competition.  He is incredibly talented and we think you will enjoy this introduction to Ralph and all he is about.

Even the pro’s seek out Ralph for advice on fishing for speckled trout!

Ralph and I had a bunch of photos included in the latest Tideline Magazine article titled “Lowcountry Linesiders”.  This article focused on catching stripers in the local brackish water rivers.  This is an area that Ralph has pioneered and has taught me everything that I know on the subject.  He got my interest shortly after we met and he asked me to post some pics of his catch in the middle of summer.  There he was holding up a bunch of stripers!  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  They are pound for pound one of the best fighting fish you can catch inshore, and we hope the SCDNR’s stocking efforts pay off in the future and a healthy striper population can be established.  Wouldn’t that be fun?

Below is an excerpt of a report from Robert Ford (Not the Senator) after a fishing trip with Ralph

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Had the honor and privilege to finally fish with the Master, Ralph Phillips today. Met Mr Phillips to set out for some topwater action early this AM. First spot produced a couple trout for Ralph on his skitter walk while the trout didn’t seem interested in what I had to offer… Moved on to the next spot and after a few casts caught my first keeper trout on topwater of the day. Ralph was up on me like 5:1 by this point…but, at last I had my trout in the boat with my Top Pup. Moved on to an area along a wood line…Ralph said to me…”Hey Robert..grab this other skitter walk I have and try using it”….I said…”OK” and tied it on….While tying the knot I hear a BIG KERSPLASH and looked up to see Ralph’s rod almost bent over with the tip just about pointed straight down into the water…HE HAD A BIG ONE ON….dropped doing what I was doing to assist by grabbing the net and getting ready…After about what seemed like almost a 10 minute fight getting that fish out of the grass and then away from the dock piling it was going into and then getting the line free from around the foot of the boat motor, Ralph got the fish close enough for me to net it and get it in the boat.

I continue throwing and about 3 cast later…BAM!!..fish on again…I say..”Ralph I got another nice red on”….drag was screaming off my reel and it’s pulling like a nice healthy red likes to pull and as the fish gets near the boat, I get a little glimps of it and my heart about came out of my…… well you know…..low and behold it was a BIG FAT GATOR TROUT….I was nervous as hell and I think Ralph might have been too ….I was thinking to myself….Ralph don’t mess up netting that fish…and at the same time, I know Ralph was thinking to himself…Robert…don’t you lose this fish!!…It all worked out and fish was landed successfully and you couldn’t have SLAPPED THE HAPPY OFF MY FACE!!

It wasn’t even 8:30 yet and I told Ralph….”I’m done”….the day was perfect…I didn’t care if I caught another fish the rest of the day or not!!!…..Which I did, of course and so did Ralph….The weather was beautiful. The companionship, fellowship, and comaradery was excellent. And, the fish cooperated all day…Of course Ralph out fished me like by 10:1 but I did manage some a few more really nice healthy redfish and trout. Just before the day ended, Ralph said “Hey Robert…throw over there in THAT spot”….so I did and BAM…hooked up on what I thought was a nice keeper trout. Ended my day with a nice keeper 17″ flounder to round out the SLAM!!! Had a FANTASTIC time fishing with you sir, and can’t wait to do it again…Thank you again for the oppurtunity to fish with Charleston’s finest….”The Fish Master” Ralph Phillips!!…It truely was my honor!!