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Catching a mess of spotted seatrout specks has long been the aim of many saltwater anglers, especially for families with young kids, who always want gaudy numbers of bites. During my own childhood, spotted seatrout were the perfect transition from largemouth bass. I think a spotted seatrout may be the most beautiful of all inshore species, though it lacks a bit in the fight department.
But the fight is spunky and showy when a trout surfaces immediately after a hookup, throws water like a fire hose, and makes the occasional half-jump. At the right place and time, limiting out on spotted seatrout is usually a gimme. The smaller, just legal-size fish school up in big numbers, and are very aggressive eaters of myriad natural baits, lures and flies. Where there is one fish, there are usually others. The biggest seatrout specimens, the 5-plus-pounders, are more solitary predators, and are referred to as gator trout, particularly in Florida.
But the bar has been lowered in recent yearsβa gator trout once had to be pounds-plus to make the grade. The others, in the to inch range, I caught early or late in the day, in the months of March and April, during peak tidal current, on a favorite DOA plastic shrimp as I stealthily waded on lush manatee grassflats in the Indian River Lagoon between Jensen Beach and Ft.
I often fished alone, which guaranteed I could make a quiet approach. And you rarely see them first while wading, as you do redfish or bones that tail up. Trout are well camouflaged. They are ambush feeders that generally sit still, preferring the prey to come to them, in a pothole, the deep side of a grassy ridge, a slight dropoff edge on a skinny flat, and particularly where sand meets a long, grassy margin that marks a slight depth change.
