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Trophy Trout Documentaries
I've recently finished production of my second DVD. Called Trophy Trout Documentaries, it attempts to capture the beauty and excitement involved with catching big specks and includes footage of over three dozen fish in the seven to ten pound class. More importantly, the narration and clips reveal important details related to the catching, including date, water temperature and/or condition, general location and pattern fished and specific lure used.
Feedback from those who watched my first DVD led me to put plenty of tips on how I use Corkys in this DVD; those were the plugs with which I and my clients found greatest success while making the film. Offered as both an instructional reference and entertaining piece, this 90 minute video has what my first didn't, ample images of large fish fighting back against real fishermen. Several of those fish exceed thirty inches and/or nine pounds.
The text below is not an excerpt from Trophy Trout Documentaries, but it's organized in much the same way as the DVDThoughtful reflection on productive past outings can help one develop better strategies for future fishing trips. Success starts with identifying patterns which repeat themselves in places that consistently hold fish. The anecdotes that follow document relevant details from a few fruitful trophy trout excursions I've made with clients and friends over the past eight years.
On January 19, 2002, I caught my first 30 inch trout, wading thigh-deep along the edge of a muddy, grassy gut which connects the open basin of Baffin Bay to a shallow, rocky flat. The blowup shook quiet, benign conditions, like the first thunderclap of a coming storm, wrecking the repeating wave pattern coined on the water's surface by a light north wind. Two other 29 inch trout aggressively blasted my bone Super Spook while the breeze gained momentum. In mid-winter, when large specks mostly eat other trout and mature mullet, a full-sized, floating plug is effective, especially while a cold front approaches and passes.
I caught a 31 inch trout estimated at ten pounds on a black/chrome Skitterwalk cast off the deep edge of the Tide Gauge Bar on May 18, 2002. A moderate northeast breeze brushed my back, fueled by a late-season front. Before daylight, in the calm before the storm, I caught some 23 to 26 inch trout on the shallowest parts of the bar. Later in the morning, after the showers subsided, I moved deeper, pitching my plug far out into the bay. Though I wouldn't likely fish this way today, I know that such a strategy can pay off handsomely in May, when big trout move off the flats where they spend most of March and April.
Jason Simmons caught a 31 inch, ten pound trout on March 8, 2003, slinging a pearl/chartreuse Corky Fat Boy at knee-deep potholes fronting a grass mat tight to the King Ranch Shoreline. The calm, warming weather followed several days of brisk northeast wind. When the breeze died, water began to spill out of a salt flat into the bay, where toothy monsters waited in the ripple. We glimpsed flashes of silver and gold while jaws gaped, gills flared and broad sides rolled; at least fifteen other magnum trout snatched our wobbling plugs over sand spots in a narrow gap which funneled water through the grass.
On February 12, 2006, Jeff Phillips used a MirrOlure Catch 5 to pull a 30 inch, nine and a quarter pound speck out of murky water stained by brown tide near the Point of Rocks. Air and water temperatures hovered in the low fifties that cloudy day, and a fifteen knot post-front wind frothed the waves. Less than half an hour after catching the thirty, Jeff landed a specimen just under that mark, casting back to the exact spot where the bigger one bit. His pair proved the effectiveness of the flash and rattle of the Catch 5 in nasty water and reinforced the wisdom of making many more casts to a spot where a big fish has already bitten, especially in tough conditions.
Improving weather helped me on April 15, 2007, when I tricked a 30 inch trout into taking a pink floating Corky cast into silty, knee-deep potholes next to a pile of rocks. Cloudless skies remained in the wake of harsh north winds, which had finally gone mute after howling all night. Obviously nervous mullet called me to the colorful sow, which was mixed in with a school of reds; I caught three of them before she bit. Finding reds and specks together in skinny water is common in Baffin and the Laguna Madre in spring.
I spent all of April '08 fishing knee-deep water over grassbeds, some growing in mud, others in sand. On the 19th, I caught a ten and a half pound trout I estimate at 31 inches on a gold/chartreuse/white floating Fat Boy flicked along a grass edge close to a remote shoreline in the back of Baffin. I hadn't fished the specific area much, but decided to try it when I saw desperate needlefish tail walking in tight circles while wading another stretch of shore close by. We caught other six to eight pound fish there too, proving it's good to keep the eyes and mind open. Doing so can allow one to "see" fish in "new" places.
Some old, established sweet spots produce time and again. During one particularly hot stretch of fishing in bitter cold weather during February of 2010, I caught giant trout three days in a row in the same small area on one lure, a pearl/pink Fat Boy. On the 24th, with water temps barely inching above fifty degrees, two clients and I caught about twenty trout and redfish. My best trout weighed nine and a quarter pounds. The next day, we caught fewer fish, but I landed a 31 inch, nine and three quarter pounder. On Friday the 26th, I caught a 30 inch, ten pounder, despite the fact that I had only four bites wading crotch-deep all day on the muddy crown, studded with small rocks and scattered grass. The fish were disappearing from the spot as the weather warmed, but I knew enough to be persistent that day.
Tim Zbylot's perseverance on April 17, 2010 rewarded him with a lifetime-best, 30 inch, nine pound trout. He claimed his prize with a pink Fat Boy cast into patchy potholes lined along the edge of a wide, knee-deep flat associated with a main bay point. A fast, rhythmic presentation kept the lure wiggling vigorously just under the surface. Though we'd already fished five other spots without catching a big trout, I didn't give up stopping in places that seemed right and Tim didn't stop trying to make one bite.
Determined effort made in precisely the right spot increases the odds of landing a trout over 30 inches and/or nine pounds. Because fish of those dimensions are rare, a little good fortune helps too! Lady luck is more likely to smile on those who give her greatest opportunity.
The Great Dame definitely winked at me while I was carrying my camera this past winter and spring. Trophy Trout Documentaries was fun for me to create; a productive run of fishing provided plenty of footage to edit. To view an introductory trailer and/or purchase the DVD, visit fishbaffinbay.com.