The Ultimate Speckled Trout Hotspot

Funny things about fishing hotspots: they come and they go. The place that you killed ’em last year may be completely beat this year, and next year is a totally fresh roll of the dice. Occasionally you’ll find a spot with good reliability for most seasons over time, though often these are the spots that become well-known and get crowded. Which, of course, can make a hot spot not so hot on any given day. Whatever spots you like, however, there are some features that most really good speckled trout hotspots share in common.

1. Good current flow. Yes, you’ll catch some speckled trout in slow-to-no moving water (particularly when they’re around grass beds). But the best spots generally get hit by a healthy current. Those where it’s potent enough to form rips are often the top-tier spots.
2. Proximity to changing depth. Specks can often be caught very shallow, and at other times they’ll be hunkered down in holes. In both cases, however, really good hotspots will have both shallow and deeper waters within close proximity of one another.
3. Structure is present. It can be anything from tree stumps to rocks to an uber-sharp shelf to man-made structure, but there’s got to be something there for the specks to love it.

So, what happens when you put all this together? Look for areas with all of the above, like a visible current-rip over a shallow point jutting out to a hole or channel edge, where there are a few broken-down pilings, a pile of rocks, or an oyster bar. You might not find specks there each and every day of each and every season, but this sort of hotspot is likely to produce more seasons than not.