Spring Transition

If you happen to be fishing in Louisiana (and I'm sure this is true in many other places) and you are fishing for speckled trout - then you absolutely must learn about the "transition". This is the process in which Speckled trout transition to inland waterways with some depth to ride out the winter, and then they transition back out to the beaches in the spring to prepare for the spawn. One rule of thumb my fishing buddy tells me is that; "When the azaleas are blooming the fish are moving." What does this mean to me. Well each fall I move my fishing further inland to an area like the Sulfur Mine near Galiano and each spring I begin to move "down the bayou" as the trout move south towards open water. Once they are fully in open water I pretty much focus on redfish until the trout come back. So this Monday I decided to prove the theory and I had to work to put together eight trout and four redfish (although the redfish were more agreeable I just ran out of energy by that time). I went to the Sulfur mine and I caught a few fish, what did I discover and how? I learned that the big males are gone. I learned that the big females were still around, and that the smaller males (as usual) have stuck around but are too small to keep. How do I know all this? Because all the fish I caught with any size were females, who had egg sacks present when I filleted them but they did not have any eggs yet. It's that simple. What else did I learn? The Nemire Black Spoon is still devastating to reds and the TTF Killer Flats Minnow in East Beast is still the best all around color in the world.