Looking for a few artificial bait suggestions for fishing the surf for anything that will hit! (trout, redfish,etc)

I am going to try to head to BPS or Academy today to pick up some new tackle and any information you can provide would be great. I have experience in freshwater fishing soft plastics, jigs, etc. Most of my saltwater experience has been fishing live or fresh dead bait. I don't own a boat so most of my fishing is done in the surf.

FYI I mainly fish Matagorda.

Norton bull minnow is a bad dude in the surf, pumpkin, plum and red/white should do it. 1/8 head most of the time, 1/4 if it's really windy.

Thanks I'll check them out for sure!

Rapala Skitterwalk, Mirro-lures, Gulp Shrimp, Norton Sand Eels, Salt Water Assassins. I've caught lots of trout and reds in the surf with all of these.

Trick is to hit the surf early and late.

With all the plastics, all you're basically doing is putting them on a jig head and jigging them through the surf or what?

Depending on how rough the surf is, I'll put them on a 1/8th to 1/4 oz jig head. Sometimes a slow steady retrieve is the ticket. Other times a jerky, bumping off bottom retrieve is best. Just play around with different retrieves and speeds until find something that works.

Work the guts between sand bars. Sometimes working a bait parallel to a sandbar is productive (on top of it, in front and in back). Sometimes casting back toward shore and retrieving it back is good.

Always look for rips running across the sandbars from the beach to offshore is a going to be a good spot. There's often a fat red waiting on the backside of the sandbar waiting for something to wash his way.

Look for and fish around schools of baitfish. Often the trout and reds will be around the outside of the bait ball.

Good luck.

Thanks for all the help. I'll be heading to the store soon to see what I can find!

My topwater collection is huge because it really is the most fun way to fish. I got turned on to Mirrorlure MR series just recently but my old trusty is Bomber's Badonkadonk. I grab each bait in a high pitch and low pitch. Yesterday I was having a great time with a bone colored low pitch early in the morning. The specs turned their heads to all my other ones for some reason but they hit that bone one. My buddy caught all his on spoons. You should always have a large and small gold spoon as well as silver if you wade/surf fish. For soft plastic, I like saltwater assassins in chicken-on-a-chain. A guy that clearly knows what he's talking about since he put me on some fish to break my little bad streak swears by limetreuse. All the Gulp Alive pints are on sale this week at BassPro and Academy. They make a nice variety bucket with 3" shrimp in two colors and 2" peeler crabs in two colors. I think that's a great start. Peeler crab on redfish rig and shrimp for popping cork.

An old school favorite of mine is speck rigs. Most people just use them at night under the lights but I'll use them any time. When they are really biting, catching two at a time is a real hoot. I use the magnums or the redfish rigs for the bigger hooks. Just tie them on and retrieve back with a twitch. Really fun for working schoolie trout under the birds. At a little over a buck a pop, they are easy on the wallet too.

Topwater or fast retrieve a spoon

Yes, spoons are excellent for the surf. I am not an expert in surf fishing since a lot of my wade fishing is done in the bays but I enjoy wade fishing in the surf too. Just a few extra precautions you have to take as opposed to wading the bays and adjustmets as far as lures are concerned.

Basially when you are surf fishing you want to stick to deep running lures because you want the lure to run as close to the bottom as possible.

The best lure you can use would probably be a 3/4 oz. spoon. Whatever your choice but as long as you have an assortment or gold and silver spoons. If you are unsure then just go with something like a 3/4 oz. Johnson Sprite spoon.

And also use soft plasics rigged with a 3/4 jig head.

Topwaters early in the morning.

When you are fishing a gut in the surf basically what you want to do is cast your lure upstream from where the tide is moving and into the gut but parallel to the shore. Because if you cast your lure right across the gut and into the tide perpendicular to the shore all it is going to do is sink to the bottom and wash right back up to the shore and this is not the most effective way to get the best action. When you are fishing a moving tide coming in as it is approaching high tide the fish will be in that first deep gut. So basically you cast your lure upstream of the moving tide and into the gut parallel to the shore and just let the lure sink to the bottom and let the tide do all the work. The trick is to NOT cast the lure perpendicular to the shore but parallel to it and cast upstream to let the tide move the lure as you work it into the gut. You don't even have to retrieve the lure all that much or at all. And then slowly wade and move with the tide keeping your line tight. And that's pretty much it.

If I were working a gut in a bay then I would work the spoon a little different. I would cast across the gut and then let it drop to the bottom and then pop the spoon really fast across the gut. And fan my casts to find the fish.

But I would try some spoons, soft plastics, and topwaters early.