You are heading out for a full day to fish the Texas coast, targeting redfish, trout, and maybe the lucky flounder. If you had to pick 5 confidence lures for a whole day, what are you bringing? Be specific!

I understand that question has a million factors so I’ll play ball on my selections and feel free to elaborate on when you think certain lures would be best. I will say this time of year(Dec/Jan), sunny winter day with average winter temps. Heading on a kayak into Aransas pass lighthouse lakes to do some shallow redfish hunting.

1. Gold Weedless Spoon
2. DSL Paddle Tail (Texas Roach) on 1/8 ounce weighted hook
3. Vudu Shrimp (Natural)
4. Rapala Skitter Walk Topwater (Silver Mullet)
5. DSL Paddletail (White Ice) on 1/4 lead jig head to give me second hook option

I am kind of rookie to the coast but interested to see what peoples go to lures and colors are!!

1. Hogie super minnow
2. Norton sand eel
3. Tsunami spook topwater
4. 3/4 oz rattle trap gold/pink/yellow

Those are what I’ll have tied on tomorrow. Plastics all are with Oldham 1/8 screw lock heads.
The rattle trap is if we have a good current running through deeper oyster reefs.

all good lures mentioned above, but i'd have to add a redfish killer spinnerbait.

I tend to like smaller paddle tails like the saltwater assassins, H&H and DSL in the smaller sizes. Generally like light colors in winter. Tuxedo, hammertime, the various moon ones, green moon, panhandle moon, none of those have any chartreuse in them, 1/16 or 1/8 ounce heads. The assassins are the least durable, followed by DSL, followed by H&H.

I might have some bigger skitterwalks with me too. Shad mirror, pink, speckled trout. Mullet.

Maybe something suspending like a corky. Some of the hard ones like catch 2000 or mirrodines are nice too.

Probably fish the paddle tails 90% or more if I’m throwing lures with a baitcasting rig. I fish rivers, creeks, reefs, mud and shell, marsh drains, sand and winter pruned submerged grass.

Not someone that switches up lures much. Usually stick with one or two things for the outing. Might change if for some reason my fishing buddy is killing it on one particular color. Rarely, one particular color presented one particular way is the only solution to fish or no fish, but it can appear to happen like that. Most of the time, about any reasonable arrow will work it it is in the right zone presented the right way. But, once in a while a odd color might be the thing.

I like catching a general mix of fish overall and not going to grind it out all day. 3, 4 hours, maybe 5 hours once in a while is enough for me. Maybe get a couple or a couple more for dinner. Not really a trophy hunter, but it’s certainly nice to catch bigger fish.

Gulp 4" New Penny soft plastic w/ chart tail

Whatever YOU believe will work will work.
My neighbor ONLY uses Norton bull minnow in plum color. Only.
He catches as much as any and more than most.

Fish with confidence and intentionality. Presentation almost always trumps lure choice, that’s been my experience.

The most interesting times are when people fish side by side casting to the same structure and the same fish.

Possible results will include people fishing entirely different lures getting similar results. Secondly, People fishing identical lures and getting vastly different results.

Repeated Experience with these types of events or outings makes me a true believer in working hard and carefully on dialing in a presentation. I’ll work on getting the presentation down correctly before I will change out a lure almost every time.

All presentation means is altering how the lure is directed at the fish. Retrieve speed, retrieve as it relates to current, jigging the lure, things like this.

The word “intentional” might get overused, but it is being intentional about how the lure is fished and not really random. If you are being random and one particular random presentation works, then working to intentionally repeat that random presentation.

People miss fish by inches just because they might be fishing just a wee bit too fast. I’ve seen that play out many times. People will conclude a structure has no fish, but then they might be fishing it wrong, wrong retrieve, slightly wrong target, wrong angles in relation to current, wrong depth, things like this.

1. Sand eel (favorite is pumpkinseed white/chartreuse tail by TTF)
2. DOA 3" CAL Shad (glow/gold rush belly)
3. MirrOlure Top Dogs
4. Stanley Wedgetail (now made by Egret) (watermelon seed)
5. DOA Shrimp

Like a few have said above, lure choice has a lot to do with confidence. I've caught a lot of fish on the baits listed above and watched others do well on them. They work for me, so I stick with them.

Jig head and Down South Burner Shad or a number of other plastics
SoftDine
Jr Spook
VuDu Vixen
Corky

Mine anyway:

Jig (about a 1/16th - doesn't matter what kind or color) under a popping cork
Redfish killer spinnerbait (no color preference)
Gulp shrimp (brown/chartreuse tail) on a carolina rig
super spook junior (blue/chrome - blue shore shad)
fluke in albino shad or tennessee shad

I am by no means an expert, but I have fished the Louisiana delta , Shell Beach , Delacroix many times.

you only need a paddle tail in watermelon with red glitter or smoke with red glitter on a 3/8 oz head.
a gold spoon and live shrimp . There were days we would only throw the plastic and limit
out on trout by 9:30. Then there days that the shrimp saved the day .

MO

Down South Lure paddle tail
Super spook/super spook Jr
Trout support Grass Walker
Mirrolure lil john
Berkly gulp mantis shrimp

Never been skunked ever.

I’m impressed with the wide variety and shear numbers of different kinds of lures folks are listing as their confidence lures.

I’d say about half of the overall lists I’ve no idea what the lures are or look like. I’d also say that even if I heard of the remaining ones, I’d never bought any or fished with them.

I fished one DSL burner shad in white Ice on a 1/16 ounce jighead yesterday. It was catching trout, sometimes every cast, why change?

I’d never fished DSL burner shad before the autumn of 2021 and only bought the white Ice color, Academy here in town was out of similar colors of Saltwater Assassins. DSL plastic certainly is more durable than Saltwater Assassins.

Berkley gulp is the devil! That stuff is awful smelling.

Clouser Minnow
Redfish Meth Fly
Slider
Merkin
Crystal Shrimp fly
And when all that fails, anything by MirrOlure!

My 5 at this moment-
6th Sense HyperJerk (Slow sink twitch bait)
1/8 oz jighead/3” paddle tail (preferably one with tight action)
1/4-3/8 oz cheap Gold or Nickel Blade bait
Creeping a Poppa Mullet Mirrolure(Topwater) has been working great 3-4 days warm ups after a front
Fat Boy