Early 2011 Trout Madness

Well, with winter temps set in, the reds had pretty much gone dormant. The few months of the year that they don't move are the worst for me. Being a kayak fisherman, you lose your sight fishing ability when the fish are laid up and not moving. No more tails, no more wakes, just lazy laid up redfish that you didn't know were there until you run them over and are left with a puff of mud. To make things worse, they bunch up, so there's no mistaking what you just spooked, it was a pile of redfish. So, what to do?

Hit some deep water creeks and fish for seatrout. At least they are good to eat. All kidding aside, this is something I have been wanting to explore for several years now. I always postulated that a sinking line and a heavy clouser minnow would be effective at catching these winter fish. My strategy was to throw a jig on the spinning rod to find them and then drill them with the fly once their area had been identified. It worked, and we had some great days. Most of the fish were cookie-cutter 14.5" fish, but we usually managed more than enough trout within the slot to take home. We had some awesome days with over 50 fish, and although they weren't all like that, we caught fish using the sinking line technique every trip out. I tied up a modified clouser in pink and yellow that really worked well...

Some other colors worked as well, from black to white, but nothing beat the "funky chicken". Here's another color scheme that caught a few...

Every once in a while a rat red would join the party, as they often do. I guess the big reds don't like them around, and they find a more friendly environment with the trout...

Once in a blue moon, on warm sunny days, you could find slot reds repositioning on the bank, but it was a right place, right time kind of thing...

We did run into some good trout on occasion, and felt obliged to take a few home....

It was a fine diversion while waiting for spring to break, and I can't say I was unhappy about doing so well on the trout. I picked up a new technique, and am ready for winters to come. Hopefully there are more facets to this type of fishing to discover. I think there probably are.