Trout Fishing At Its Best!!

By Captain Jason Prieto

November is a month of change! Weather really begins to shift to winter, water temperatures drop well into the 70s and fish begin to eat more frequent as winter time approaches. This is one of my favorite times of year to fish.

Everything starts with bait, and bait starts to move off the flats this month and head for deeper water. This will make you change up how you get bait and the amount of time it takes to get bait. All summer bait is readily available on the flats and you can have a well full in 30 minutes. That all starts to change as water temperatures begin to fall. This pushes bait to deeper areas and makes it a little move involved. Start to look for towers and any other type of structure inside Tampa Bay to find bait. The ¼ inch mesh 10 foot Calusa net you have been using all summer probably won’t cut it so it’s time to bring out the big boys. I typically throw a 12 foot 3/8 mesh this time of year as bait is in deeper water. Make sure whatever net you throw will have the adequate amount of weight to sink down. Lee Fisher is a good net that won’t break the bank and have plenty of lead to get it down. Also having a good Sonar will help you locate the exact spot on the tower that the bait is. I use the Lowrance HDS 12 with structure scan to help me pin point exactly where to throw. Last but not least is you need chum to bring them to the surface. A new product called M-80 chum is a great product that will bring the bait to you. These are all steps to make you morning go a little better.

Trout in the summer can be a bit tough but as we get to this time of year you can catch nice Trout on just about every flat in the bay. Finding the big Gator Trout will be challenge.  One successful way to find big trout is to Target potholes on the lower tides. These areas are perfect grounds for Big Trout and when the water drops out they don’t have a whole lot of places to hide except the deeper holes. The key is to do a little planning. Look at your tides for the day you want to fish, see how low the water will be and adjust the areas you will be fishing based on that. People ask me every day if I prefer an incoming or outgoing tide and I always tell them it depends on which spot I fish. One thing is for sure you want some type of moving water.  While there are a bunch of ways to fish for trout one of my favorite trout rigs with live bait is a 8 foot St Croix Tide master Spinning rod matched with a Daiwa Ballistic 2500 spooled up with Fins #10 Windtammer tied up to a Cajun Thunder Back bay float with Ohero Fluorocarbon leader and a 1/0 Daiichi circle hook. This is the perfect combination to use when targeting big trout on the flats.

If artificial baits are what you like to use then trout fishing will probably become your favorite fish to target. Trout are suckers for moving objects and don’t think twice about trying one out. This make artificial baits fun as you will be doing a ton of catching. Some of my favorite baits for trout are the Zman Paddlez matched with a 1/8 ounce jig head. Another is the DOA Shrimp, one of my last go to baits has to be the Mirolure  Mirodine 17 MR. These are all trout producing baits that work on a consistent basis. One last note, if you are a novice to fishing and want to learn how to throw artificial baits then you want to go trout fishing. They are really easy to catch and will help you build your confidence up and get your technique just right. Tight lines!

Capt. Jason Prieto
813-727-9890
Owner: Steady Action Fishing Charters
steadyactionfishingcharters.com
captjasonp@gmail.com

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