I have found some shallow grass beds (foot tall eel grass in about 2 to 3 feet of water) up river here in the Biloxi area. I missed some nice specks that were hiding in the grass, and caught a couple. I know you guys have alot of grass beds on the Texas coast. What are your favorite baits for this situation? Other than surface baits. They weren't hitting topwater. I'm looking for something that would be subsurface, weedless, or if not weedless, I could fish it within that foot difference between the top of the grass and the surface. And it's for specks. Thanks for any advice!

Suspending Mirrolures, popping corks like Mansfield Maulers or DOA with a Gulp Shrimp on a 20" leader, gold spoons (weedless) and even a soft plastic carolina rigged.

Live shrimp or mullet free lined.....Bill

Oh yeah...Rat-L-Trap. I like the ones with chrome and chartreuse backs.

Corky - original or fatboy in the floater version. .. Works right under the surface. You can begin to time your rhythem to work the different depths ie.. faster or slower retrieve... You'll have to tune them by bending the nose and tail down just a little.. but when done right you can walk the dog right under the surface.

The other is texas rigging a jerkbait with a flutter hook (that's a wide gap hook with a weight on the shaft). or go weightless with this same rig... bass assasins, ttf troutkillers, mirrolure jerkbaits etc.

There is a lot more instruction including pool footage of how to work and tune those lures over grass in our "Finding and Catching Big Speckled Trout DVD" from http://www.troutsupport.com ...check out the testimonials on the site, don't take my word for it. also there is a section called personal best where customers who have caught a new personal best with info they acquired from the DVD. check er out...
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If the water is a foot or more of clarity a sand eel rigged on a 1/8" oldham screw lock head is death on big trout over grass, if it's a little more colored, a swim tail bait on same jig head usually is more productive.

20# braid with a fairly stiff rod tip will allow you to pop the grass off the jig fairly easily, and keep fishing.

Bass Assassin, copper , chartruse tail, worked weedless like Texas rigged worm, put a nail weight to make it sink level, twitch over the grass, we fished Pensacola bay over eel grass all the time this way - spooks if you hit sand potholes

I like this! Definitely going to give this a shot. Anyone have any advice on how to rig a DOA shrimp weedless? I think this may work too. The trout I did catch, hammered a Gulp shrimp on a jighead, but it was too tough keep the grass off of it.

Your Gulp baits will free line as well. Needs to be worked a little slower, and be sure to tie off with a loop knot. Since your already having hits on it...

corky, mirrorlure, weedless salt water assassin, weedless swim bait, jerk bait, maybe even something like a wake bait would work.

Mann's Baby Minus One, chartreuse sides blue back

I throw a 1/16 oz screw lock jig head with a Texas Tackle Factory Trout Killer II. I work it pretty fast to keep it out of the grass. It will get the reaction bite. If the water is gin clear try the "laguna glass" color. I don't go weedless unless I absolutely have to.

Most definitely super spook jr.

or hackberry hustlers on a 1/16 oz screwlock

Wabolure the shallow running spoon, silver with a pink or chart. tail.