Ralph fished on Tuesday with customers and I snuck out for a half day solo on Wednesday.  Next time you hit the water one thing will be noticeably different – the baitfish have moved in, and moved in thick!   There are literally mullet and menhaden everywhere.  And that means topwater is on.  Look for bait, especially if you see the school get struck.  Chunk your plug in there and make it look scared and injured and hold on.  Literally, just hold on.  Don’t set the hook.  Just hold on until you feel the rod pulsing.  Ralph’s guests had multiple strikes with very few hookups, and Ralph had 5 or so trout from 18-22 inches.  It’s the little things that can make all the difference!  Later in the day Ralph got a number of heavy trout on TroutEye jigs.  Unfortunately Ralph’s photog (me) was not on the trip so no pics to show.

I also had a great bite on top on Wednesday, but no big fish (up to 16″).  I did find four grown reds to stretch my line and one real nice trout (22 in) on a gold TroutEye jighead.  Finished the day with a decent 17 in flounder for the slam.

There are a good number of heavy trout this spring (yeah!).  They are heavy with eggs and the great majority of your bigger fish will be females.  Please consider letting the big girls go so they can spawn their “survivor genes” to the next generations.  We will never fault you for keeping your (legal) fish, but just planting a seed for thought.  I (Dave) keep a personal upper slot on trout of 20 inches for this reason.

Enjoy the great bite going on, it’s awesome to have big trout around!