1 or 100?

125 trout, Port Sulphur, LA...hour and a half

If I went down to most of the marina's in Southeast Louisiana and asked 100 anglers if they would rather catch 100 trout or 1 10lb trout...I feel pretty confident that the vast majority would rather the rod bending action of filling a cooler full of fresh speckled trout instead of grinding it out for 1 bite, albeit a monster. On the other hand, if I performed the same action along the Texas coast, I feel that the vast majority would prefer 1 10lb trout instead an ice chest full of "dinks." So why is that? I have a few theories that may explain why, but I believe it centers around these two points. In TX, if you have a 30+" trout in your repertoire you are considered a good angler. I equate this to High School athletics...congrats, you just made Varsity. :-) Keeping that in mind, the mindset in LA that dictates your angling ability is how many you caught in the least amount of time possible. For instance, "we smoked em up today, we finish our limit of a 100 trout in an hour."  Neither mindset is bad, and I've been lucky enough to be on both sides, but its just that if people have any aspirations to catch a trophy trout, which I highly recommend, you have to start thinking outside the box, and leave the limits alone.  Very rarely, if ever do you see a Monster Trout, 8lbs or More, come from a spot, where you've been pickin' at a limit of 13-15"fish, so why is this?  Many of my friends who are avid deer hunters, relate targeting trophy trout to killing that Boone and Crockett deer...."its a whole separate species," and to some extent they are.

Capt Jack with his 29" Beast

In line with that thought, I also believe that most LA anglers aren't convinced they can catch a trophy fish on any given outing, and I simply disagree, but its not due to lack of trophy fish in the estuary.  I do think that there are generally more trophy trout in TX waters, but there is also an exponential increase in the number of anglers too.  Last year Capt Jack Payne in the middle of winter caught one of the biggest trout I've seen caught in years in LA out of an interior bay within the Delacroix basin. Capt Jack says in the article that I thought I had another redfish, since he was "fishing for redfish with his clients." Or so he thought...
(See Article Here)

Biloxi, MS - Dec 29th; from left in lbs, 5.1, 5.6, 5.9, 5.8, 5.1

Do I think that was a fluke? No, absolutely not...BIG, GIANT trout are always within our midst, but its like anything, if you don't target that mission with an idea of a desired outcome, its probably not going to happen. Capt Jack may or may not know, but I'm sure he does, that February in TX is the peak of the trophy trout run, and guides just like him from Sabine to Port Mansfield are usually booked solid through February and March.  This past February my dad and I were fortunate to be in that number searching for "Specklasaurus", and what I saw was the most eye opening thing that totally flipped my world about what I thought big trout did in the wintertime. One morning it was the calmest day I've ever seen in February, ever...the water was slick 50 and it was 43 degrees outside. As we rode from the launch to a flat that was producing before the last front, which brought ice all the way to Brownsville, we scanned the water surface and noticed mullet flipping and swirling, after that we watched big Trout (6-9lbs) swimming in knee deep water with water temps hovering around 45 degrees.  So back to Capt Jack's story, do I think it was by chance that he caught that fish in 2 ft of water in the middle of a bay system? No because why would TX trout differ from LA trout? They don't...its the anglers that pursue them.  In LA, most trout anglers shut it down after Christmas till late March early April, when TX anglers are putting two base layers on under their waders and slipping over the sides of $50,000 boats, looking for literally 1 bite...seriously 1 bite.


8.2lbs February 3rd, Biloxi, MS

I can confirm this theory because until I moved to MS, I had only a handful of trout over 5 lbs with 2 over 6 and 1 7lber. When I left Biloxi 3 years later, I had 50 fish over 5, close to 20 over 6, 3 over 7 and 1 over 8.  95% of these big fish came in Dec-Mar wadefishing ledges and shells, at night, throwing big jigs and suspending style baits like Mirrodine's, Catch 2000's and Corkies.  Never once in those trips did I limit out, and 70% of my total trips, I left without ever getting a bite. Its hard fishing, but it required a lot of practice and a lot of confidence...we'll talk about that in another blog entry. Let me use this analogy, if a basketball player is shooting free throws in a game and has never practiced shooting them in non-game situations, then what do you think the possibility of him  making those clutch baskets at the end of the game? Pretty minimal...right? Tony Parker, on the other hand, is a career 87% free throw shooter, which is very good for those that don't watch basketball, spends a great deal of time making that a sound portion of his game. As a result when its winning time, Coach Pop probably wants no one else at the line but him. Trophy trout are no different, you're not going to catch trophy trout on a crappie jig and a popping cork, because they don't eat glass minnows suspended in 8 ft of water...you have to play like you practice. The unfortunate part about it is you practice a lot...Its hard on the psyche when you go 6 hours before you get a bite, but being mentally tough and confident that big fish are in the area, keeps you going in anticipation for that 1 GIANT.  So why put yourself through that when you can catch a boat load of trout?

My Dad and I with his 7lb Trout, Lower Laguna, TX

I'll use my dad for this example to highlight the point of this post. In the adventure I referred to earlier from

this past February, we got to fish alongside a TX troutmaster in Capt Mike "McTrout" McBride down in the Lower Laguna Madre.  During our 2 and a half days, we waded 12 miles (exaggerating, but it felt like it) caught 40 plus redfish each and 2 dozen trout ranging from 16" to 7 1/2 lbs.  The problem was that not one trout was landed by my dad. However, in the waning stages of our last wade of the last day, my dad hooks up and I could tell he thought it was another redfish, until he saw the long black shine of a trout surface mere feet from his waist. Up until this point my dad has never caught a trout over 5 1/2lbs, but has caught probably 30,000 trout in his lifetime (no exaggeration).  So, when this 7lb trout was wallowing on the end of his line, flaring his gills trying to shake his bait, he was a nervous wreck. It wasn't until Mike slipped the net under his fish and he was resting nicely in the bottom of his 24' Haynie Cat, that my dad breathed a sigh of relief and let out an exuberant yell, and then hugged me and Capt Mike, who kept calling him "Paw-Paw" which I thought was funny. But at that point, I realized it wasn't just a 7lb trout laying there, it was all the casts, all the steps, all the knots and all the fishing trips throughout his life resting there on the bottom of his boat.  So, after a couple of good photo's, and a beautiful release, I watched my dad, who could barely catch his breath breath and was grinning from ear to ear go from a 67 year old man into a 12 year old boy, before my very eyes. He was so excited...a lifelong quest for a 7lb trout was finally complete and he was shaking and giddy. Never once, did I see him that excited after catching all those trout during all those years. So as we were riding back to the launch, I asked him "was it worth waiting all those years for that 1 bite?" He said, pausing for a moment....."absolutely, I'll take that over 100 trout any day."