Sights and Smells of Speckled Trout

I think the year was 1978. I got off of the school bus, walked into our little house on Dickinson Bayou, changed into my fishing clothes and grabbed my Zebco. As I made that long walk across the lawn past our vegetable garden down to the little pier dad had built for me my anticipation grew stronger with each step I took. The brackish smell of the bayou combined with the unmistakable smell of freshly cut grass as it blended perfectly with the sweet, fishy-watermelon aroma of whatever was feeding in our section of the bayou at the moment. I was so excited because I didn’t know what my first cast had in store. That smell put my mind in a different world and it still lives within me to this day. My brain was officially programed from that point forward.

Back then I would use a cast net to catch my own bait. I would catch mainly finger mullet, shad, shrimp and a few pinfish. Artificial lures really weren’t in my arsenal at 8-years-old but little did I know the sights, sounds and smells that I observed on that little stretch of Dickinson Bayou would groom me to become who I am today.

Fast forward 47 years…My clients and I idled into a cove on a stretch of shoreline that had a few mullet flipping here and there but other than that there weren’t many signs of trout. We slipped into the water to make our first wade of the morning. It was dead calm. It was actually too calm. A lot of folks wait for those “ice cream” conditions to go fishing but in all honesty I prefer some wind, streaky water and current. Sometimes it can be just too damn pretty. We call these postcard or chamber of commerce days. They’re nice days for a picnic but not necessarily good days for a trout bite.

We caught a few dink trout and a couple of undersized flounder, then the fishing Gods gave us a little southeast breeze. I could immediately smell trout in the air. I looked upwind and saw the small slicks popping up along the edge of a shallow shoreline reef. Everything seemed to come to life. Excited is an understatement!

Once my clients and I got into position we put a hurting on these trout. Plum-colored Bass Assassins and MirroLure Lil John XLs rigged on 1/8-ounce Bass Assassin Pro Elite Jig Heads had them begging for mercy. Our fish kept moving to the west but the slicks and the smell of trout kept us on their trail and in the midst of the action. It’s always easy when they give themselves up this way!

Slicks are the most generous gifts trout could ever give us. The majority of the slicks we see are regurgitation slicks. Sometimes they can frustrate us as the fish are done feeding and are just throwing up. When this happens I like to throw soft plastics on very lightweight jig heads in order to keep the bait in the strike zone longer. Sometimes even the full-bellied trout cannot resist a small morsel dangling in their face. 4-inch Bass Assassin Sea Shads and 3.75-inch MirrOlure Lil Johns are excellent choices in these scenarios.

The feeding slicks are obviously my favorite. These are the ones that I call “popcorn slicks.” They are small, clustered and plentiful often leaving a breadcrumb trail which leads us to the school. I’m currently seeing a lot of these types of slicks as our trout are gorging on newly hatched shad and glass minnows. Setting up our wade or drift upwind and up-current of these types of slicks can result in some of the best days we’ll ever experience on the water. We recently caught and released more than 50 legal specks out of one school as we followed the “feeding” slicks for at least a quarter of a mile on the trolling motor! We didn’t catch a trout over 3-pounds but my God it was a blast!

June is one of those months when all of the signs are there. Whether we’re drifting or wading the trout will eventually give us plenty of clues. We just have to open our eyes. Dirty streaks created by current and or wind always serve as good areas to target. If there’s no current (tide or wind-driven) then we fish near the ICW or the ship channel to take advantage of the artificial current created by passing tugboats and ships. More often than not the ship-induced current will be strong enough to stir up the bottom and the bait. Then, right as everything settles the trout will light up! It’s an old trick but not everyone knows about it. My clients and I capitalized on this strategy the other day on a weak “moon tide” day and absolutely blistered the trout!

June will give us many more calm days when we can see every detail on the surface. I pay attention to any surface disturbance whether I’m wading or drifting. Sometimes one small shrimp hopping across the surface can tip us off. Other times it’s a V-shaped wake from a redfish in a shallow back lake that signals us to fire off a productive cast. Then, of course, there are the more obvious signs like tight pods of shad or rafting mullet.

I don’t mind drifting but wading can really teach us a lot. What we can’t see with our eyes we can feel with our feet. There are so many stretches of shorelines that I have mentally mapped out because of my wading boots. I have details of bottom contours that no map can provide. It’s amazing how much structure and habitat exists that aren’t included in our GPS software or on fishing maps.

Too many people focus on where they need to fish instead of WHAT they need to fish! Someone asked me a while back what the biggest mistake I see anglers make. I told him that the most common mistake I notice is that fishermen tend to focus more on the spots than signs. More often than not the signs will show us the spots.

Every time I wade I’m reminded of that young boy on Dickinson Bayou stepping foot onto that little wooden pier, full of hope and wonder. The smells, the sights, the sounds…they’re still the same if you pay close enough attention. This summer, take a step back from chasing spots on a map or going to waypoints your buddy gave you. Let your senses guide you. Trust what the trout are showing you. You will eventually find yourself more connected to the water and the fish than ever before. Tight lines and may every cast take you back to where it all began on that little wooden pier.