This is the time of the year to put the soft plastics up for a few weeks and pull out your hard bait box. Speckled trout across the entire Gulf coast really favor top waters and suspending jerk baits throughout the transition months of early fall until true fall or winter temperatures set in. The terrain you are looking for is grassy bottoms. Nine out of ten times if you find the grass you will find the bait and if you find the bait you will find the trout. When to use which one? Well I always start out throwing top water at daylight and our favorite top water of choice is the Matrix Mullet. Most people think trout will only hit top water at low light hours but I can guarantee you that is not always the case. Many of days I have seen trout stay on top waters until high noon but it is typical that the top water bite will fade as the day heats up. The cloudier the better typically. If you do notice you were on a good top water bite and it fades DO NOT leave. Most of the times the fish simply quit hitting top water but they are still hungry and still there. That is when it is time to pull out some sort of sub surface bait and the NEW Matrix Minnow is a perfect choice and works great over flats when the specks are not hitting top water. Make sure to have one of each of these lures tied on all the time during this time of year. Any fall time trout enthusiast can vouch for these tips as this technique is a great way to target big beautiful trout from now until water temps get below sixty degree. Some days the suspending baits do better and some days the top waters own the day, every day is different. Once the fish go deeper as water temps get cooler the soft baits will be the king again but until them stay toward the surface. Make sure to check out all our DockSide TV episodes using hard baits and until next time “Good Fishing”
