Pound for pound and inch for inch, few fish can compete with the speckled trout for excitement.
Voracious predators armed with speed, teeth, and senses to rival a barracuda, specks are among the most popular game fish along the southern coasts of the US.
And while many anglers know that lures like torpedos, poppers, Zara spooks, and even crankbaits and jerkbaits can hammer specks, an expertly rigged paddle tail can turn the tide on even the worst days out on the water.
Let’s get into the details and discuss how you can rig paddle tails for speckled trout.
Speckled Trout 101
Speckled trout are known to science as Cynoscion nebulosus, but down on the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas you’ll hear them refered to as “specks.”
Relatives of the drum family – including redfish – speckled trout prefer warm water
Thriving in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the southern Atlantic coast, states like Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama are known for extensive populations of these popular game fish, as well as the anglers who flock to inshore waters to catch them.
Specks get chilly easily, and if the water temps drop into the 50s, you can expect a quick reaction.
Speckled trout prefer temperatures in the range of 86 to 59 F, and anything lower will send them in search of warmer conditions. But that doesn’t mean they’ll retreat from your area as snook will during a cold snap. Instead, specks will move into shallow estuaries, creeks, rivers, and inlets, taking advantage of the shallow, warm water they find there.
And given that Mother Nature has blessed the speck with tremendous tolerance to fresh water, the brackish salt flats and estuaries they seek out in cold weather won’t give them any trouble at all, meaning that they’ll continue actively feeding as long as the water stays warm in their new habitat.
Armed with a mouth full of teeth, specks are ideally suited predators to hunt mullet, their prefered prey. It’s not that they won’t hit menhadden, pinfish, shrimp, or other live bait, but rather that large mullet provide so much more bang for their buck that they prefer them to virtually anything else in the water.
That appetite and ability allows specks to grow to an average size of 11 to 14 inches and 1 to 3 pounds. They’re often caught at weights of 3 to 5 pounds, but wary old specks can reach a monstrous 10 pounds or more.
Jared Horst of Louisiana State University notes that “small trout eat large amounts of shrimp and other crustaceans. As trout become larger, their diet shifts toward fish, the larger, the better. Studies in Texas and Mississippi show that really big trout strongly prefer to feed on mullets; a large trout will find the largest mullet it can handle and try to swallow it. Often the mullet is half or two-thirds as large as the trout. The key to catching large trout is to fish where they are and use big baits.”
Where to find specks in cold weather
As I mentioned above, speckled trout will often move shallow when the mercury plummets, heading for shallow, brackish water in estuaries, flats, marshes, and rivers. There, they’ll terrorize mullet and pretty much anything else they can find, hiding only from bigger meaner fish like juvenile tarpon.
The trick to locating specks in estuaries is to find the main channel or artery that the tidal flow and any fresh-water influx creates to reach open water. If you find that tidal path, you’ll find the specks.
Why?
Specks are going to wait in ambush in the lee of any island, point, or structure that’s swept by tidal flow. Mullet will be pushed or pulled by the current, swept passed these ambush spots where keen eyes and sharp teeth wait.
On windy days where white caps are forming even in the marsh, or in conditions where the water is so turbid that it looks like coffee, you’ll typically need to find a sheltered bay or lagoon where the water is clear.
Clear water on days like that can be hard to find, but if you do, you’ll be on the specks, all but guaranteed!
How to catch specks in cold weather
Speckled trout are predominantly sight hunters, and clear water with good visibility is always something to look for.
But that’s not always the case – or even likely – if a cold front is blowing through, and savvy anglers know that they need to adjust.
Specks typically hunt high in the water column, leaving the bottom to their relatives.
And while really shallow water compresses the water column, causing bottom and top to be pretty much the same thing, you still want to keep your terminal tackle off the bottom to target speckled trout.
In deep water, that’s as simple as throwing a shallow diving lure or walking the dog with a big bone spook, and both of those techniques work really well when you find that clear water undisturbed by gusty wind.
But if you’re not that lucky, what then?
My go-to option for specks in cold weather is as simple as it is deadly: a paddel tail minnow rigged under a popping cork.
The popping cork rig
I choose largish paddle tail minnows like the Keitech Swimg Impact Fat in colors like “Alewife,” “Black Shad,” and “Ayu.”
Despite the water being murky, I still stick with natural, subdued colors that look like mullet, and I throw sizes as small as 3.8 inches all the way up to 5.8 inches or larger.
Why?
A good paddle tail minnow has several things recommending it for these situations.
First, a big flapping tail sends attractive pulses through the water, alerting nearby specks that something prey-sized is on the move.
Second, the fluttering descent of a paddle tail really triggers an instinctive strike response from aggressive species like speckled trout.
Third, a big paddle tail matches the general size and shape of a mullet, making it that much more likely that a speck will be tricked into a strike.
I rig my soft plastics under a popping cork, tie on tough leader like 20-pound mono, and adjust the length to keep my paddle tails off the bottom.
Two popping cork designs make the cut for me: ovals like the H&H Weighted Flex-A-Float and big poppers like H&H’s Big Ballin’ Cork.
An oval popping cork is more subtle, supoosedly producing vibrations that mimic the pulse of swimming shrimp. By contrast, the big concavity on the front of the other style sounds more like thrashing mullet.
I slide my paddle tails onto a 1/4-ounce standard jig head, cast my rig up current, and pop it all the way back through ambush points.
I’ll vary the speed and cadence of those pops until I find what’s ringing the dinner bell for specks, and never look back.
Final Thoughts
Cold weather can make specks hard to catch – unless you know where to find them and have a plan to make the most of nasty, wind-blown mornings.
But if you arrive armed with a few good paddle tails, some simple jig heads, and the other supplies you need to rig them under a popping cork, you can tilt the odds in your favor on days where everyone else is striking out.
Give it a try and let me know how it worked for you.
Source: usangler.com