I Love Warm Weather

Don't you love it when you turn on your Humminbird recorder and look down to see the water temperature warmer than the day before? Well, that is how is has been with me for the past few days and I LOVE IT. The warmer the water the better the BITE. As of this writing the water temperature has risen 6 degrees in two weeks and with these 80 plus degree days, it is going to continue to jump up to a temperature that is conducive for the GOOD BITE.

I was out yesterday and the trout bite was still in the winter time mode. We had plenty of nice fish to six pounds but they were still just barely taping the Sea Striker grubs. We had one fish that tapped the grub like a pinfish. I was watching the rod tip as it went tap tap tap tap tap. I almost told my angler to jerk it away as I thought it was a TR and not a trout. The fish finally just held on to the grub and as the rod tip was lifted up it bent over and I hollered out set the hook. The fish ended up being a three pound trout. As the temperature rises the bite will go from the TAP TAP to a nice SLAM.

Here is how you might get into some of these nice fish. Try to keep in mind that this is the time of the year when the big breeders are in and we should do our part to release the big ones and only keep the smaller fish. If we all do this, we can assure we will have nice fish for years to come.

Unless I know exactly where the fish are holding, I like to get rigged up with a light Pflueger outfit spooled with 15 pound test Power Pro with a three foot long ten pound Cajun Red mono leader. On the mono end I usually tie a 1/4 ounce lead head jig baited with a Gotcha soft plastic, like the Trout Killer, Paddle Tail Minnow or Trout Grub. For these waters that are usually stained with a visibility of 1 to 3 feet I like something with white or chartreuse in it. White and chartreuse, white and red, white and black or all chartreuse. Look for rocky shorelines in the river, creeks or jetties. You are also going to need a boat that is rigged with a Minn Kota trolling motor, so you work long areas of the shoreline. Big long stretches of shorelines that have a lot of docks also work. On the docks try the down current sides and ends. The rocky shorelines can be fished by getting as far away from the edge as you can cast. Throw your lure to the edge and work it back to you. After you have caught a fish or two, you will see a pattern as to the distance the fish are holding from the shore line. Once you have established this pattern, you can concentrate on this distance by either placing the boat in this area and casting parallel to the shore or only working your bait in this area. If I only have two anglers, I like positioning my boat in the strike zone and casting parallel to the shoreline. By doing this, your bait is always in the ZONE.

With warming water also comes a more energetic red fish bite. No more of casting to schools of fish that JUST WON'T EAT. Try a small crank bait like the Floating Rattle Trap in gold color. This lure can be worked from real fast to slow and has pretty much the same action. You might want to remove the wimpy hooks that come on this and replace them with a stouter hook that gets a bigger bite (has a wider gap). If you elect to fish this lure with the hooks it comes with, BACK OFF OF YOUR DRAG or you will be hooking plenty and landing few as the hooks will pull on the fight. A real good jig head lure combination is the Gotcha 4 inch twin tale grub. This has two tails and with this, you get a lot more flash and vibration than with a single tail. Throw it up in front of the reds that you see and work it into them. I sometimes like to jiggle it as I am getting close to the fish. This gives the bait a quivering look, as if it was injured.

The sheepshead are still on fire at the inlets. Try a fresh clam instead of the normal fiddler. Be sure when you put it on the hook that you feed the hook through the foot part. The foot is the piece that is real firm. By doing this the bait will stay on the hook longer and the sheepshead will have to actually pull to get the bait off of the hook.

Lots of whiting in the surf. I went the other day and in two hours we had about 40 nice ones. You know what I had to eat that night with my cheese grits and slaw. Try squid for your bait. I like the tentacles the best as they can be fed through the hook and doing this makes it hard to get off without getting hooked. If you use the smallest Daiichi Circle Wide hook, you can put out as many rods as you have rod holders and just wait for the rod to double over as the fish will hook itself.