The song mentions something about it being a “long, cold, lonely winter” and boy had it ever been. When we finally broke free from the grip of Ol’ Man Winter, fellow Blue Wave pro staffer and one of my guides Capt. Chip Deupree and I decided to go look for some early spring speckled trout and redfish. With water temps in the low to mid-60 degree range, the fish should have begun their spring transition. That would include a move from the tidal river systems to the adjacent shallow oyster covered bays.

Armed with top water baits, shrimp imitations and much enthusiasm we set out just as the sun cleared the eastern horizon. Our first stop was a flat where I had seen some bait earlier in the week. The wind reminded us that it was still early spring but the 2200 Pure Bay ate through the chop that the 15 knot east wind created. I pulled the throttle back so as to ease up to our first destination and we both saw it through the early morning darkness.

“Man- did you see that?” Chip asked as I shut off the Yamaha 150 four stroke.  

“Yep. They are killing those mullet!” I responded as I eased the trolling motor over. “Remember to cast away from the fish and not right into them. It’s only about 18 inches deep here and we don’t want to spook them.” I noticed that there was no response form the back of the boat, when I realized why not I apologized.

“Sorry man- I forgot that I wasn’t on a charter- you know it’s habit.”

“I’ll let it slide this time, especially since you found these fish” he said while making the first cast of the day.

It didn’t long for stuff to start happening either. I got mauled on my second cast and Chip caught three big trout in his first five throws.  We spent an hour or so on the trout before finally deciding that we needed to look elsewhere. The fish had indeed made their transition as we were able to find them in the same pattern in about 6 other similar areas. A bonus was finding some slot sized redfish near one of the areas and they too were all too willing to chew on our top water plugs.