Fishing for Redfish and Speckled Trout After Major Cold Fronts
Fishing for Redfish and Speckled Trout after Major Cold Fronts with Captain Mike Bell
Fishing after major cold fronts
How big temperature swings effect redfish and speckled trout
Best baits and lures for cold water
Limited out on Speckled Trout fishing the Cape Fear River in Wilmington North Carolina after a could front!
How the Cold Snap will Affect the Fishing
Jud: What do you expect for the fishing today? It’s 17 degrees right now.
Mike: I just checked the ocean temperature and the ocean temp is 51, so I know the marsh is going to be chilly. I was going to say probably 46 or 47 degrees.
Jud: What do you expect to see from the redfish? I know we probably have the same expectations, but going out there with the water being in the 40s what do you expect to see? Is it dangerous? Texas had a big freeze so they shut down their fisheries. Redfish are much heartier but it could be dangerous to catch speckled trout. You could kill them.
Mike: I definitely think you could kill them. They are closing down the fishery until they can figure out if they got cold kills that kind of stuff. Redfish are pretty hearty so it shouldn’t have a major effect on them, but they are going to be schooled up super tight right now with how cold the water is. They are probably going to be sitting pretty deep as well just because of it being so cold. Maybe this afternoon when I get on the water around 12:30-1 it’s gonna be high tide, which is a bummer but you know that will warm up everything just a little bit and hopefully the fish will start to feel that and get moving around a little bit more. Definitely going to be cold, lethargic sitting around and probably pull up super tight. It might be hard to actually even see them just because they are going to be moving so slow and just sitting there.
Jud: A lot of laid up fish.
Mike: Yeah they aren’t going to be cruising or even moving a whole lot.
Jud: I feel like today is just a mission to locate fish after this cold front. We got hit with Christmas and the cold front so we are all off the water so there is a lot of unknown with what’s going on out there.
Mike: I mean you’re exactly right. That’s kind of the point. A scouting mission to just go out and see what I can put my eyes on. You’ve got duck hunting and fishing trips this week so this is a scouting mission. If you do catch anything it will be on something super small and super slow. These are the days that I actually feel like you can do a really soft cast and sit it right in front of their face. Just a little bit of movement and wiggle it in front of them.
Jud: For sure.
Mike: We’ll see. River fishing some this week too so I have a feeling all the fish are eating and will be gone or will be sitting deep. I have a feeling it will be a little better than the ocean.
Jud: a little more stable.
Mike: Yeah, maybe it won’t mess with them quite as much but I know the river temperatures dropped last week. Last day I fished it was 56-57 somewhere in there so I would assume that it’s definitely dropped down. I don’t think it has dropped quite as low. Maybe low low 50s. We will just have to see what happens.
Jud: Heck yeah; it’s always so stressful in these big cold snaps. The nice thing is those reddish start to school really really heavy but it does put a damper on it.
How the Cold Snap Affects the Angler
Jud: It sucks to run the boat when it’s 17 degrees outside. Your face is freezing.
Mike: Yeah your hands are frozen, your face is freezing; your push pole gets wet and you don’t even want to touch it.
Jud: I forget about that every year.
Mike: This year I stepped my game up and got some windproof, waterproof gloves.
Jud: The rubber coated crabber gloves are like 5-7 bucks and they are the best gloves for running a boat in the winter time. You can get your hand wet but the wool stays warm and dry on the inside. They aren’t great for poling, but they are great for running the boat. I haven’t found a good winter glove that I can pole in. It is so uncomfortable and I feel like I can’t grip the pole at all. Do you have a glove you like for poling?
Mike: I haven’t really tried any. The ones I got today are a cheap pair like 15 bucks from Costco, but they aren’t wool-lined but they are smart-fleece or whatever so they are pretty low profile, thin glove but they are waterproof and windproof so I am going to give it a shot today. But it’s supposed to warm up into the 40s today finally out of 20s and 30s so I am hoping the fish will move a little bit more and maybe it’ll be more bearable. The wind is supposed to drop out too.
Jud: Yeah this whole week looks awesome! Looks like a great week for some off shore fishing.
Mike: Yeah if you’re in the offshore game this week is the last good days of it before we get into that January, February, March time.
Jud: For sure, it’s been pretty windy all fall and winter so far. This week is very enticing. 3-8 mile an hour wind days and sunny skies. Cold but calm out in the ocean for sure.
Fishing in the Winter in SE North Carolina
Jud: The winter time fishing I am always excited about but once Christmas rolls through and is gone, I am almost ready for Spring already. I am almost tired of the cold once hunting season ends. It’s tough for me to get into a pattern that is so kind of... To me the fishing is still good but it’s boring. It’s the same thing everyday. There’s not much change going on for quite a few weeks and then it starts to shift a little bit. It’s a great time of year to catch a ton of fish if you can find a day when they want to feed well. I don’t know. It’s just the redundancy of how similar each day is. It’s hard for me to stay interested.
Mike: I get that. It’s kind of school fishing every single day. And there are only so many schools and there’s not a ton of people out fishing them. There is a decent number these days but it’s almost more of a chess game of making sure you get a spot than it is fishing and actually finding fish if that makes sense.
Jud: It’s continually looking for new fish and then just making sure you make the moves to your schools when you can and that kind of ballet of moving exactly right with the tide and being in the spot as soon as you possibly can. Which is fun. It’s cool to know the water that well and know the exact inch that you can get to into a spot. A lot of it ends up like getting into an area the shallowest you can possibly get. The fish kind of lock themselves back in an area and it can be kind of tough to get in there at tides. But if you slide in there right at the right tide, it’s usually better fishing. That tide gets kind of high and it’s hard to stay with the fish. They move around the marsh, but that’s just talking about redfish. And if I really lived near more of a stillwater fishery or non-tidal fishery like the New River or up on the Pamlico I would be trout fishing a lot this time of year. I would be more engaged in the trout fishing. It gets so tough here when it gets really cold after that really really really cold, cold snap. Those fish are in deep basins and marinas and canals and stuff like that and just harder to target.
Mike:Yeah I was going to say I feel like we lose a lot of fish when we have a big cold snap and that’s just because we have constant current flow and constant tidal movement so no matter what these fish are looking for there are very few areas that don’t have the current for them to lay up.
Jud: They want to be able to burn no energy at all if they don’t have to.
Mike: I feel like a lot of our river fish.. We had a good fall and beginning of winter, but it could be the end of our trout fishing. The striper should be fired up and fishing pretty good right now. They may have dropped off a little deeper because of the cold front but once that passes and the temperature stabilizes, the striper will be fired up for a little while. The redfish in the river will just be a “finding them game.” They will be schooled up somewhere shallow or deeper on a dropoff or structure. It’s just a game of finding them, but once you find them, it should be a big number.
Jud: This is that January trout fishing where it's like if you go on the right day you can catch a giant. You watch those weather patterns and watch those warming days. When that next cold front comes in, you can kind of guarantee a big fish if you’re going to go fish one day and try to catch a big speckled trout. You’ll see these cold fronts throughout the year and you just see normal fish pictures then all the sudden your feed is 27-30 inch trout and you know it’s because of the cold front. It was 70 degrees for 2 days and now 30 again, they were all caught that day when the temperature started dropping. That’s what’s cool about trout for me. I wish we were close to the Pamlico. As our content grows, we will be able to travel more throughout the year. As Youtube grows a little bit and it makes sense to take some days off guiding to put out videos, that’ll be something we can do a lot easier. That Pamlico fishery is just calling my name this time of year.
Mike: I know. You and I traveled up to the New Bern area to do some trout fishing and it almost feels more like Bass fishing than it does like our trout fishing down here. It’s just so still. You’re moving around slowly. You can actually hold some spots without pumping the trolling motor and everything else.
Jud: I am so excited. We did a video up there with our buddy Mathew from CCA targeting trout and stripers and all sides. We finally made some big runs around, but the best fishing we had was just right near the ramp using side scans. That video is going to be coming out in a few weeks. Today we’ve got a video dropping that’s in Georgetown, SC over on youtube and then next week a surf fishing video here catching redfish, pompano and whiting. And then next week stripers and trout in New Bern, which I am sure y’all will love. I want to get back up there and do a just striper video.
Mike: I am stoked for that. Hopefully we’ll find some good fish. We found a lot of small fish last time.
Jud: We were targeting trout and using smaller baits. You can catch a 14 inch striper on a 7 inch bait. Same with trout but if you get up there and really target the structure and side scan for big marks and throw some bigger baits, it should be game on.
Looking forward to 2023
Jud: Upcoming year, 2023 what are some of the things you’re looking forward to, fishing-wise as the seasons change? We’ve got a whole year ahead of us. Different fish and all that.
Mike: I am really excited for April, May. We kind of shift our focus to the river; I always enjoy the marsh but I spend 95% of my trips this year down in the river and I think that just stole my heart this year and I am excited to get back down there. Start seeing more cruising fish and these schools start to break up as the temperatures warm up. Fish start migrating back in and the water is crystal clear and you can see forever down there. As long as we don’t have a super rainy spring or anything. That’s one of my favorite times of year. Just amazing. You don’t catch a ton of fish, but you see a lot.
Jud: You get some really good shots fishing wise.
Mike: You might see a hundred fish and get 15 good shots. They are a lot tougher to get them to eat. I don’t know the conversion rate. There might only be 1-2 fish, but you see a lot and you get a lot of good shots. I think last year you have fish sitting in inches of water. It’s crazy! I am really excited for that. Last year I did a decent amount of bait fishing and bait fishing trips and just expanding on that. Low Tide fish just about every single day. No matter what I was trying to do, low tide fish and this year being able to capitalize on high tide fishing and different things. Expanding my area and my tide cycles a little bit. Being able to bait fish during the summer is just a productive way of putting a few extra fish on the boat.
Jud: I think we can get sucked in to only do what we are comfortable with. But I think we should look at it as “what’s going to make me a more well-rounded angler?” Fishing those tides you are uncomfortable with or fishing a different bait. I want to start fishing my bait casters more when sight-fishing. I do use them to sight fish, but I feel like it’s such a good tool if I’m not fly fishing. I really think the kind of break down is the fly rod is the most productive sight fishing tool, then a bait caster, then a spin rod. I also really want to figure out the triple tail. I talk to the crabbers down there and there are periods of time where they are seeing a triple tail on every other crab pot buoy. I want to spend some time. It’s not going to be difficult if the water clarity is like it was this summer. It’s just taking the time to run a bunch of crab pots and see if those triple tail are there. They are going to orient to those crab pots and those channels. They are strategically placed along channels and edges that fish are already traveling just like the crabs are. It just makes sense that they set up on that kind of structure. They will set up on a piling or dock too, but they like those crab pots especially when that grass is piled up on those buoys. Have you spent much time looking at triple tail here or on crab pot buoys?
Mike: I’ve looked at a few, but I never hit it good or anything. This past summer I hit a couple out off the beach that I found and we just didn’t make good cast on them. Jeff and I had one off the beach, but we fed one and pulled him off. But I’ve seen a few laid up out there floating in the open ocean but never really spent a bunch of time on the inside looking for them.
Jud: They are funny fish. You only get one shot at them. Unless you’re doing live bait, it’s hard to get them to eat.
Mike: Not knowing if high or low would be better. Do fish move in and out? Do they stay on the river? Do they move up the creek to the crab pot? Getting into the right location if that makes sense. I am looking forward to more sheepshead fishing. I feel like this year at least me, myself and I’ve found a lot of sheepshead this year. A lot of sheepshead. Just poling banks and looking for redfish. Half the oyster bars I passed had sheepshead tailing on them or moving around on them, that kind of stuff. I’d love to start tying up some smaller shrimp flys and different stuff like that just to have some presentations that are easier for those sheepshead to feed on. So I think that will be a fun fish to target more this year. We fed a handful this past year, but never landed one but fed a few. A couple good days where we landed a few on spinning gear with live shrimp or cut shrimp. So I’m excited to try to sight fish them. I feel like it’s kind of an untapped resource that we have here. It doesn’t happen every year, but the year that it does happen we have a lot of fish in the marsh eating around the oyster bars. It would definitely be fun to do.
Jud: Yeah those are fun. Even the black drum. We’d find some spots with good consistent shots, but those jokers are hard to get to eat a fly. You’d think it wouldn’t be. But you go down to Louisiana and the sheepshead and black drum will eat anything. You throw a spinner bait and the sheepshead will eat that. It’s crazy. I remember the first time I caught a sheepshead on an artificial. You’d feel a pretty good bite and then nothing’s there. You feel another good bite, nothing! All the sudden you get the bait to the boat and a sheepshead right behind it and takes off. That would never happen here. The big fish in the marsh, that’s cool. But the fact that a sheepshead will eat a spinner bait is cooler to me than any redfish. Those fish are so aggressive.
Mike: Also crazy how close you can get to them. A lot of time when you point out a fish to someone, they don’t see them and you need to get a little closer, but a lot of shots I get of Sheepshead, I’ll catch a flash out of the corner of the boat.
Jud: I think they are so preoccupied looking at the bottom, they lose what’s going on around them.
Mike: It’s awesome to be able to get a ten foot shot at a fish like that. You’re able to watch them and see their stripes. When you see them in the water, spinning and tailing and they’ve got a lot of blue in their tails like redfish.
Jud: They are super cool fish.
Mike: I think they are good for clients to see because it really sets up “this is what I’m looking for” It gives you the chance to talk them through especially if they’ve never done it before or are a little rusty. “There is the head. This is where we need to land the fly.” It’s a good practice fish because you can see everything. On a 30-40 foot cast, you can’t see everything.
Jud: I think a lot of it too is that the sheepshead won’t get quite as shallow as the redfish so it happens a little closer, but when you do see them they pop. They contrast so much more against the bottom than a redfish does. The anglers on the bow can see how they orient and where the fly goes. If you put a bait in there without spooking them, they will at least come up and look at the bait. They will get your heart going. They’ll swim up about 3 feet and then take off. It’s like when I was a kid if I was scared, I would walk slowly to a dark room then sprint back to my room because I didn’t know what was behind me. That’s kind of how the sheepshead acts. They are definitely a fun fish.
The Angler’s Christmas List
Jud: Mike, did you get anything fishing related for Christmas? Anything cool to talk about?
Mike: My wife actually got me the cordless battery powered bubble blade electric filet knife. When you finally get to the ramp at the end of the trip, depending on where you’re at, I’ve been to Alaska and Florida and every ramp, or marina has a fish cleaning station and NC just doesn’t have that.
Jud: North Carolina just does not care about the recreational angler. It’s sad.
Mike: I mean you look at a boat ramp here, they just aren’t taken care of so I don’t blame them for not using taxpayer dollars to put in something that people are going to ruin.
Jud: That’s a topic for a whole other episode.
Mike: Having that cordless filet knife will be awesome. Just making my time at the ramp a lot quicker cleaning fish at the end of the day for clients and getting them set and on their way. Great for when you go out and have a good day of fishing and you come back with a couple redfish, trout, flounder. Redfish are just so big and boney and tough, one fish might take you ten to fifteen minutes to clean up one fish really well to make it look good for your client. So I think this will save a lot of time on that and making that filet job five times faster.
Jud: So do you think there’s a learning curve with that electric filet knife? Is it tougher to use? Or easier?
Mike: I really like it. I grew up using one and I’ve used one forever as far as cleaning fish goes. I’ve never had one here, but since it’s cordless, four different blade sets, flexible blades and stiffer blades. I think it will be a fun tool to have and something to learn a new process at the ramp.
Jud: I think it will be tough to take the skin off the meat of the speckled trout.
Mike: Their skin is so thin, but with the redfish it’s gonna be perfect. But of course I’ll keep a standard filet knife too. You wouldn’t want to use it on a flounder or anything. Whenever I’m doing redfish and cut through all the scales and skin and work my way in slowly down to the backbone, flip it over, start at the bottom, make my way up and peel up the top and go over the backbone and down. I’ll clean the redfish all the way out to the tail, then stop and come back up. Slowly make my way up the edge of the rib cage and get everything out except the pin bones. Then cut around the ribcage. It takes a lot of time. It’ll be nice to have something that will tear through those bones and rib cages and that kind of stuff a lot quicker. And all those big scales. The biggest thing is going to be just trying to keep it clean since we don’t have fresh water at all the ramps. To make sure the blades will last and everything.
Jud: Hannah got me the Xtra Tuff pros but they have the tennis shoe style sole so they have a lot more support and comfort. I was wearing them around yesterday and they are going to be life-changing. I already have a bad back and a bad knee. I’m only 31 but I feel a lot older. I’ve started wearing Hokas this summer and that has helped a lot too. Wearing flip flops and other flat shoes has really jacked me up. So that’s one thing to remember. If you’re fishing a bunch and standing on a boat all day long you need support. But this isn’t a health and wellness podcast so we won’t get too deep into that.
Mike: Anyone who fishes a lot, that is something they will notice very quickly. Being on a boat every single day, the way it moves and the way you’re moving, especially getting up and down off the back deck and standing on the platform. Your feet hardly move when you’re on the platform. Once I am up there and in my spot, that’s where I’m at unless I am pushing quickly or looking for fish. But once I get in that zone I try to eliminate every possible movement on the boat. I might be stuck in one spot for 30 minutes without my feet ever moving so that’s something that a lot of people don’t realize or think about. If you are down on the trolling motor, you have the ability to move around and change your positioning.
Jud: That’s the truth. It is nice to wear something comfortable. It extends the amount of time I can be up there and fish. If I am barefoot or in flip flops, my back is firing by the end of the day. I hate that it’s even something I have to talk about now. I guess I am getting older.
Mike: Part of growing up.
Best Bait in Cold Weather
Jud: Alright Mike it’s 17 degrees, you are about to h8it the water here soon. What are you going to have tied on your rods when you get out there?
Mike: I was actually debating that yesterday when I threw some rods into the boat
Jud: Did you order any of those, little johns?
Mike: I have not. I want to go by tomorrow morning before my trip starts and see if I can find a few, but I think what I am going to start with today is actually going to be the Z-man little TRDs.
Jud: Just the standard stick bait or the ticklers or anything like that?
Mike: No, just the standard stick bait. It’s going to be so cold that these fish are not going to want to have a whole lot of movement, a little bit is going to be good, but I think that a standard stick bait with a very short jighead so there’s a lot of movement in that bait itself. It will be enough to get those fish to fire up. I might throw a little pro-cure for a little scent cause I mean it’s going to be tide moving. Those baits will move a little bit just sitting there on the bottom so I think that with a little bit of scent is all you’re going to need. The other thing that I’ll probably do is a little voodoo shrimp, like a little 2.75 voodoo just the ability to cast it over like a DOA or something like that. A smaller profile and more realistic look, a few antennae, a little bit of leg movement, a little softer plastic than a DOA or standard soft plastic. I feel like it kind of bridges the gap at least in movement from standard soft plastic and a Z-man. Somewhere in that middle so I think that will be a good option. This is the time of year especially for me that I start stepping way down in my tackle. So like, stepping down to probably 14 pounds 4L maybe even 10-12 pounds depending on how clear the water is, but last week whenever I looked at it, the water was crystal clear. You can see down 10-12 feet so having that really light fuller carbon will make a good difference too.
Jud: Last night, I don’t even know how I found this, but I was looking for something on the internet, I think it was boat related, but I stumbled onto this bait company called Marker 54 and they have some very sick baits that I’m gonna order some of. They have a shrimp that doesn’t look like a DOA but it’s going to fish like it, it’s got a worm hook rigged backward so the eye is in the middle of the bait so when you fish it it’s going to move backwards like a real shrimp and it’s kind of stiff looking like a DOA. They’ve got the red flake color and a bunch of other good colors. They’ve got three different shrimp lures. That’s called the jerk shrimp. They they have the M54 Glide Shrimp which is a very similar bait with the hook eye coming out of the head like a normal shrimp would be. It doesn’t have the legs; it looks like a really good bait for like skipping and fishing for redfish. Then another really sick one is the hard plastic shrimp. You’ve gotta go look at these. Marker 54 you guys. Go check it out. I wish I had a code to give you but I’ve never even seen this company until last night, but their hard shrimp are rigged for popping cork. When you’re not twitching and it’s sitting underneath the cork, it’s neutrally buoyant so that it sinks but the tail moves and stays straight out and looks like a real shrimp. It’s got a real treble underneath it and it is very cool. I’m about to order a bunch of this stuff. This isn’t some type of sponsored advertising, it's just a cool company for bait that I stumbled on last night. They are really trying to fill a niche. Go check them out. They’re pretty sweet.
Mike: If they hold up any better than a DOA that might be a new staple on the box.
Jud: It looks like the hook won’t slide. It’s belly weighted and it looks like it’s going to sink just like a DOA the way we like it. They’ve got the bright color but it looks like it might hold up a little bit better which is good for us, but maybe not good for them.
Mike: I’ve probably been through $500 in DOA shrimp this year. I mean it’s insane how many we go through. So, if it holds up and fishes just as good.. What’s the price on them?
Jud: price on the shrimp is 5-6 bucks. The jerk shrimp is a 2 pack for $6.99.
Mike: Not a great deal, but just about the same as DOA by the time you get three rigged DOAs for $9.99. So $3.33 a piece.
Jud: The nice thing about DOA is the bulk packs and get them a little cheaper.
Mike: You can also order just the plastics from DOA once you spend as much money on shrimp as we do and you have hooks and weights, you can get just the plastics and get them a lot cheaper.
Jud: Definitely. I am going to have to reach out to Marker 54. They are pretty sweet.
Wrapping it up
Jud: We’re going to wrap it up now. Mike thanks for jumping on. We’ve got some cool videos coming out on youtube and we really want to thank y’all for your support this past year in 2022. We took a little bit of a break with some movement and having some babies but we are hitting it hard in 2023. Our goal is a full length podcast every week and our Patreon page will have a ramp talk podcast each week where me and Mike are talking on the way to the ramp. We talk about where we’re going, what we’re doing and how we’re catching fish. That will only be available on Patreon. We’re also going to be doing a youtube fishing video each week. Our goal is to put out 2 videos every week. A short tackle tip video and a more full length on the water fishing video each week. We are going to guarantee at least one video a week. If something happens, we might have to resort back to a tackle talk video, but the goal is a lot of content. Thank y’all so much for the support. And Mike thanks again for hopping on with me this morning.