Imitation is Vital

WOW, IT’S ALREADY NOVEMBER. Where’d the first three quarters of the year go?

Oh well, all this means is that it’s once again one of the absolute best times of the year to be fishing along our central portion of the Texas Gulf coast.

Football season will soon be wrapping up for most schools, and basketball season will be getting underway again, and families will begin prepping for this year’s busy holiday schedule.

A lot of avid outdoorsmen will opt to be in either a deer stand or a duck blind this month, instead of out on the water with a fishing rod in their hand. That means significantly less fishing pressure this month as things tend to transition into the pre-wintertime pattern.

The larger speckled trout will begin eating a couple of nice-sized mullet each day, instead of eating dozens of shrimp. Once the trout grow past the twenty inch mark, they typically won’t be eating anything but the larger, mullet-size baits. That makes November a perfect month for having some great fun with some of the larger artificial baits.

This includes some of your favorite big top waters and fat slow-sinkers. Don’t forget about the old reliable 51MR and 52MR sinking twitchbaits by MirrOlure. They, too, can be depended upon to entice a fair share of November trout (and redfish) that are searching for a mullet dinner.

As stressed previously, the mullet is an important part of the speckled trout’s diet. Coastal anglers who enjoy hunting for big trout need to focus their attention on the presentation of mullet-imitation baits to the trout.

A proven and effective method of doing that in November is to locate concentrations of mullet to throw your artificial baits to. It’s all about being able to present your artificial plug in a manner that closely resembles a wounded mullet, so the better you get at mimicking that action, the more response you’re going to get out of the trout—practice, practice, practice!

Although November will generally present us with a couple of substantial cold fronts, there typically are some days that will remain rather warm. On those warmer days, the mullet will seek the warmth atop the mud flats, and the trout will follow.

They’ll fall back into the protection of deeper water after sunset and on colder days, but make your way to the nearest mud flats this month, especially on clear, sunny, warm days if you want a piece of the November trout action.

Places to fish on a north wind are the flats and shorelines lining the 19-mile stretch of the Intracoastal Waterway between Port O’Connor and San Antonio Bay. You can try other area shorelines and bays in Espiritu Santo Bay such as the Dewberry shoreline, Shoalwater Bay, and the back side of big Grass Island.

When fishing with a south wind, areas to place focus on are locations holding mud along any of the openings to any of the back lakes out on Matagorda Island. Try inside the mouth of South Pass Lake, inside the entrance to Long Lake, inside Corey Cove, Pats Bay, the inside of Cedar Point, and in the back corner of Panther Lake.

Drifting with a current and tossing a mullet-imitating top water lure among a pod of mullet is a great way to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time, but wading a shoreline provides you much more stealth. Wading is tough to beat this time of the year, so look for mullet activity before stopping the boat.

You don’t need to see the area completely covered with bait. Just a few mullet working can signal the possibility of big trout in the area. Common topwater baits include the She Dog, Super Spook, Skitter Walk, and the Heddon One Knocker.

These are typically retrieved across the water’s surface with a walk-the-dog motion. Other effective top water baits include the poppers. The Chug Bug, Pencil Popper, and the Super Pop-R have all been highly productive throughout the years.

When you get a blowup, work the entire area thoroughly before moving on. Big trout that aren’t willing to eat at the surface can often be enticed to hit a lure below the surface.

Trade your top water for a Corky FatBoy, or similar suspending bait, and get after it until you find the fish—they’re there!

Big November trout will always be on the lookout for mullet. Find the mullet, and then learn to imitate them to the best of your ability. Until next time, good luck out there, and be careful!

 

Email Chris Martin at bayflatslodge@gmail.com

or visit bayflatslodge.com

 

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