LOWER LAGUNA MADRE

Reported by CAPT. BRIAN BARRERA

Cold Fronts and Cool Fish

 

NOVEMBER CAN BE of my favorite months to fish due to the variety of species that are obtainable and the ways of getting these fish to bite. November tends to still be a transition month for us as it is not yet cold, but cooling off from our usual, extremely warm summer and fall days. This tends to make a lot of the fish happier and more willing to attack artificial lures at different depths throughout all times of day.

We like to chase speckled trout throwing 1/8 and 1/4 ounce jigheads paired with D.O.A. fishing lures or any of your preferred soft plastic. I personally like a jerk bait or a split tail over a paddle tail. I like the jigging motion of the jerk bait jigging it up and down covering the whole water column. It is also still a good time of year to have some of my beginner anglers working a popping cork with an artificial shrimp underneath and my more skilled anglers with a nice “walk the dog” style top water on the calm and even slightly windy days. These methods seem to work really well for redfish as well. I just apply them in slightly shallower water, depending on the area that I’m fishing, chasing potholes weed lines and grassy edges.

In December things really start to kick off for me and I get really busy between chasing big snook, redfish, trout, and spending time in the brush, hoping that a big white tail buck walks out! The weather is nice and cool, and the fish are fired up. I catch a lot of snook this time of year throwing heavy jigs and swim bait style Lures. Rattle traps work really well on the snook too but tend to jump off the bigger fish more often. I like to hit boat docks for suspending fish, shoreline rip wrap, and rocky warm bottoms. I always make sure to start out with a heavier, leader line, and downsize if I need to. The structure in these areas can be very unforgiving.

I love fishing the flats this time of year for redfish and trophy trout! On the calm days, we’ll hop out of the boat and wade fish with topwaters and jigheads over potholes and around shallow mangrove islands. On the days when we get those heavy cold fronts, we throw out a couple drift socks and use the wind to our advantage to cover ground and start bombing out soft plastics as far as we can get them away from the boat. I’ve experienced some of the best redfish bites of my life during these 20 to 30 mph north wind, but make sure you’ve got the boat to handle it and you’re fishing water shallow enough for the wind not to create really big waves in order to maintain safety.