Speckled Trout Fishing 101

It's that time of year where I make my summer run to the salt water. I get the chance to relax with my family, get some salt back in my blood and to put some speckled trout in my freezer. Having said that, I thought I'd share some basic tips on catching Speckled Trout or Specs as we call them.
With the advent of Gulp's soft plastic shrimp I have all but stopped using live shrimp. Rigging the Gulp shrimp is easy! I use two methods with a lot of success.
The first is to simply rig the shrimp up on a red, black or yellow jig head. The weight of the jig head should match any current near you. That means from a 1/4 oz down to a 1/8 oz jig head. Cast out the line and let the shrimp settle down. Then every so often raise your rod tip to make the shrimp "jump" in the water. Take up the slack and let the shrimp ride back down to the water. The jig head should be tied to about 2 feet of sturdy monofilament line (I use 20 to 30 pound line depending on the current) and the mono should be attached to a swivel that your braided line is tied to.




The second tactic is to use a popping cork. Place the cork on the braid then again tie a swivel. Add an egg weight then attach a barrel swivel. From that tie about 3 feet of mono. Attach a simple hook to the line and rig the shrimp on that. No weight required. The idea is to let the cork hit the water and to allow the free floating shrimp to swim behind it. About every 20 secs, pop the cork in the water and let it rest.




The color of shrimp I generally use is white, although I've had success on the "penny" colored as well. Captain Jack once told me, "You can fish any color you want as long as its white." What a wise man!
Fill the cooler, heat up the peanut oil and let's fry up some specs.
- JD