Redfish and Trout

By Capt. Bob Tayton
Southwest Florida Outdoors University Staff

Today, we will talking about redfish and trout and the best bait or artificial to use.

Let's start with the obvious, live shrimp. The best way to locate and catch trout is to drift the grass flats using a popping cork and a live shrimp. This same rig can be used if you choose to anchor up a few yards in front of a mangrove island. The popping cork and shrimp fished around the mangroves is also likely to produce some pretty big snook also. In fact I remember one such occasion during the filming of a show for Southwest Florida Outdoors that a rather large snook hit the bait and headed south to Cuba. The major advantage of this rig this that it allows you to cover the largest area in the shortest amount of time, especially if you trim the tail off of the shrimp. Also, there's no throwing a cast net when shrimp is your bait of choice. Another advantage to shrimp is that dead shrimp can be cut into small pieces and used to tip grub tailed jigs.

My first choice on jigs is a red head, quarter ounce jig coupled white grub tail. This is a good all around bait for either species. This rig when spiced up with a small piece of dead shrimp on the hook is extremely effective. It can be worked in water as deep as five to six feet or as shallow as twelve inches. However, to fish this rig in twelve inches, you will have to increase the rate of your retrieve to keep the bait from snagging on the bottom. There are a number of jigs that are available that are rigged weedless. Besides the basic white, it’s always good to have a couple of other colored tails available, such as pink, yellow, green, smoke and root beer. I have found that when the water is clouded, yellow tends to produce better than white. I recommend to switch colors as water clarity and conditions change. While we are on the subject of plastic baits, there are a number of good alternatives available on the market. These include soft jerk baits and look-a-likes such as shrimp, small bait fish and crabs. There is one distinctive advantage to using jerk baits such as the Berkely Power Baits, they can be rigged totally weedless. And for those of us who haven’t mastered the art of pin point casting, this is a major plus. Also, don't forget the bucktail jigs. Bagley and Key Largo baits produce some fantastic bucktail jigs. One of my favorites is a brown flathead jig that is rigged weedless that has the appearance of a small crab or shrimp. We recently used this jig while filming a show and produced a number of redfish. In fact, the guide couldn’t believe that the redfish ate these jigs and wouldn’t touch a live shrimp. Anyway, I could probably spent the next year talking about jigs, but let's move along.

I don't want to forget about a great redfish lure, the gold spoon. This is a great lure because it's rigged weedless and can be fished just about anywhere. Also, most of these spoons can be thrown a country mile, which makes them a very good choice for tailing redfish, especially in the winter months when the water is super clear. Remember one thing about clear water, if you can see the fish, they can see you. One hint here, rig your gold spoon with either a root beer or chartreuse colored plastic grub tail, and do make sure that the grub tail is curled for maxim action.

In future articles, we will look at different lures and jigs. Remember one thing, to effectively use artificial lures, it is important that you are using the right tackle. Too many times I’ve seen anglers using tackle that is more meant for deep sea fishing than flats fishing. Reels spooled with 20 and 25 pound test and rods that are more suited for broom sticks are not going to allow you work lures and jigs properly. If you are fishing the flats or the trees in the Southwest Florida area, twelve pound test line and a matching rod and reel are all that you will need. And believe me, with some of the people I fish with, that’s heavy tackle.

Obviously I don't have enough space or time to cover all the baits that are available, but I do want to cover one last point and I mean that literally. Keep the points of your hooks sharp. It only takes a few seconds to ensure your hooks are sharp. File the point of the hook into the stone. Sharpen each side of the hook several times, left and right, then the bottom. Remember, the bottom line to any good fish story, is that the fish gets the point.