Want To Catch Trout? Try Fishing Under The Lights

Trout are typical dinner favorites for many salt water anglers, There are a few types of trout and all of them are good fried, blackened or grilled and are quite easy to catch when the time is right.  So when is the time right?  Depending on your location they can actually be quite easy to catch.  A very popular game fish in the Texas Gulf Coast is the speckled trout.  These fish can reach up a maximum size of about 16 pounds and in the right setting you can really thrive fishing under the lights.  Another popular fish is the Sand Trout, a lot smaller than the speckled trout the sand trout is typically no more than 1 to 2 pounds on average and no more than 10 to 12 inches.  Due to the delicacy of the fish there is no size or bag limit on the sand trout, so you can catch as many as your ice chest can hold.  Be very careful when unhooking the ones you are not keeping they are very sensitive creatures and extra care must be taken in order to prevent seriously damaging the fish. When you catch the right waters at the right time you can really fill up your ice chest. My advice do not catch more than you can clean in one day. Trout typically do not freeze very well, the more time they spend frozen their delicate meat turns to mush. So I highly recommend a catch and clean approach with these fish.

So you want to catch some trout?  By far the best technique I have come across is fishing at night, under the lights on a pier in calmer waters especially inshore during spawning seasons.  Honestly the lights can set you up so nice that in some cases it doesn't matter what kind of set up you have. But based on my experiences the best approach is a light set up with a floater and some live bait.  The last outing I had on a canal connected to West Bay in Galveston Texas at one point in the night I was catching them about every 5 seconds.  I would catch one, put it in then ice chest, hook my bait, cast it and less than 5 seconds the floater is under water.  A few times they struck as soon as the bait hit the water, it was so easy it almost felt like cheating.  But we ended up going home with an ice chest full of trout and Sunday dinner sure was good. When fishing for trout, under the lights is definitely the way to go.

-Jefferson D. Powell