You already guessed the lure, but the color may surprise you. It's one not usually used for speckled trout.
In the last blog post I described the fishing trip me and Mike went on, where he caught this beautiful speckled trout.
In this one we'll cover the exact lure and technique he used.
Let's dive into this!
Lure Color
It may surprise you to learn she fell for a Vortex Shad in Spartacus color pattern.
Instead, you'd think she would have fallen for a chartreuse or white color, a speckled trout favorite.
After all, those more closely match the color of local forage, but we tend to experiment when fishing soft plastics, discovering darker colors worked best when jigging the bottom.
Jighead Weight
Now, we were in 8-12 feet of water, a depth more suited for 1/4oz to 3/8oz of sinking weight, but Mike opted for an 1/8oz jighead because of its slower fall.
In fact, this combination is pretty deadly on trout.
This Matrix Shad in Lemon Head on an 1/8oz Golden Eye jighead was also effective on the trout (on a separate fishing trip).
Matrix Shad and Golden Eye jigheads can take the abuse. This jighead caught 300+ speckled trout and the Matrix Shad survived 50 or so.
Rod & Reel
Mike had put this on a casting combo: Lew's Tournament MB casting reel on a St. Croix Triumph 6'6" casting rod.
This is a fairly "standard" setup, but rather than using braided line he was throwing 14lb high-vis monofilament.
What's more important than the tackle is how Mike employed it.
Fishing Line
Mike prefers the smoothness and castability of monofilament over the strength and sensitivity of braided line, but most importantly he was using the monofilament because:
- high-visibility betrays bites in slack line
- monofilament is neutral-buoyant
The Technique
See, Mike wasn't merely casting and retrieving the soft plastic like an "idiot bait", he was using a slack line technique (aka deepwater jigging) to achieve effective presentations.
And with the monofilament being nearly the same density as water, he could achieve a slow fall that convinces big trout to bite.
This isn't anything new, Chas Champagne (creator of the Vortex Shad) has mastered this technique to consistently catch hammer trout in one of the most difficult places to do so.
It boils down to this:
Buying tackle is easy. A trip to the nearest tackle store and a debit card is all that's needed.
Gaining the knowledge to use it is not.
After all, it's not the knowledge you already know that you want.
It's the knowledge you know you don't know, but most importantly the knowledge you do not know that you don't know.
LAFB Elite solves this problem by revealing that last kind of knowledge with every detail you need to confidently use artificial lures and various tackle combinations.
You cannot become confident without catching fish!
Thanks, Donald! I appreciate your kind words!
Hi, I am from New Orleans but moved to Florida 6 yrs ago. I make the trip there twice a year, of course, I make my way to Bayous and gulf. Thanks for taking the time to help fisherman learn about new techniques. Keep up the good work. Don