We all think of speckled trout as shallow water fish, and they usually are, but in the heat of summer sometimes going deep can be the ticket to success. Remember, “deep” is a relative term. For a speckled sea trout, many people would consider five or six feet to be deep and 10 feet to be VERY deep.
At dawn and dusk, sure, cast those quarter-ounce jigheads in the shallows. But when the sun is up and high in the sky, slide out away from the shoreline and probe some deeper water. Up-size your jig heads to keep the offering down near bottom, and look for structure. Some top picks for midsummer trout in five to 10 feet of water include:
- Underwater rock piles or rip-rap.
- Wrecks and the remnants of old wrecks.
- Oyster bar that comes up significantly off the bottom.
- Underwater pipelines, which are often protected by rip-rap and form an underwater ridge.
- In addition to all of the above, good moving current; for all spots as a general rule one tide or the other will prove more productive.
In the picture above, you can see that the fish was caught well away from the banks and on a relatively heavy one-ounce jighead. The plastic is the same as one might offer up in the shallows, a white four-inch paddletail. This fish was holding about eight feet deep over a pipe running 50 or 60 yards out from shore, protected by rip-rap. The surrounding water is 10 to 12 feet deep, and the ridge formed by the pipeline comes up to six feet at the top. This spot reliably holds specks during the midday hours just about every summer, after the water warms up over 85 or so degrees. (Early in the morning and at dusk it’s common to catch them right up along the shore). Once the water heats up and the sun becomes a blazing ball in the sky, spots like this can work magic.