Posted By: Capt. Chris Martin
Fishing Trip - Lodge - Dining - Great Times - 02/06/20 01:56 PM
Bay Flats Lodge is here to give you the trip of a lifetime. We’ve built what we believe to be the finest lodge there is to go with our world-class fishing and waterfowling. We have 20,900 sq. feet of comfort for you to put your feet up after an awesome hunt or epic fishing trip. Your stay will be fueled by an awesome dining experience each evening. Corporate groups are our specialty, so bring your team for team building experiences like no other. We offer accommodations, meeting-conference room and seasoned-veteran guides to accommodate up to 56 guests. Our goal is to ensure you have the best outdoors experience possible. Since 1996 Chris and Deb Martin have been entertaining fishing and duck hunting guests. The lodge & Marina offer 40,000 feet of parking. Come stay with us at Bay Flats Lodge.
February Fishing Forecast Tips & Tricks by Captain Chris Martin
There will inevitably be cold days in February, but that shouldn’t stop saltwater anglers from getting out on the water if they want to. Some of the year’s nicest fish are sometimes caught during the coldest times of the year, and this year should be no exception. Most all that many coastal anglers will need in order to get through their wintertime bay fishing episodes is a slight change in the way they work their lures and a small dose of patience, as painstakingly slow retrieves as well as mental composure and diligence can often become key items for cold-water success over the course of the next few months.
When bay waters get cold, so do the fish. And when the fish get cold they tend to slow down (considerably). This means that anglers will need to slow down the presentation of their baits. Granted, some of these wintertime methods may sound boring compared to spring and summer techniques, but they have been proven quite effective for quite a while. For those who are willing to spend time becoming proficient in these slower techniques, good catches of wintertime trout and redfish should no longer be out of the question. Many baits discussed here may already be part of your tackle box, but if not they should be added just so you have access to them during the year’s cold months.
Before we get to the lures, however, let’s talk a bit about the rest of your equipment. Winter conditions call for some level of skill and subtlety, or finesse. Not only will you need to slow things down right now, you may also need to downsize things a little, as well. This means you may prefer to use a rod that’s a bit more limber and a reel that’s loaded with lighter line, like in the eight to ten pound range. Some anglers may even prefer to switch to the use of a spinning reel for tossing lighter lures because they are typically known for handling lighter lines better than other types of reels. And because it will be so very important for you to be able to feel even the slightest bump at the end of your line this winter, it may be a good idea to consider some of the newer polymer and braided lines over that of monofilament simply because they don’t stretch nearly as bad as monofilament does.
Many of you may not spend a lot of time tossing top water baits this time of the year, but they are my favorite type of lure and I just can’t help myself. Some top producers include baits like Rapala’s Skitter Walk Junior and Heddon’s Zara Spook and Zara Puppy. And when it comes to plugs, it’s difficult to fish for trout in the winter without some of the more traditional suspending and slow-sinkers like the Corky, the 51M MirroLure, and the Catch 5 and the Catch 2000. If it’s soft plastics you prefer, try those with a straight tail instead of a paddle tail. Some favorites this time of the year include TTF’s’ Texas Flats Minnows and Texas Trout Killers, and the Norton Sand Eel and Sand Eel Juniors. Many of the old, standard shrimp tails work just fine, too. And if you’re really having a hard time drawing a strike with your plastics, try rigging a couple of them in tandem. Right now when the fish are cold and lethargic, they may often see the first bait on the tandem rig, but will generally strike the second one.
When working surface walkers in cold water, some recommend letting the bait sit motionless atop the surface for a solid count of five seconds before twitching it ever-so-slightly a few times before letting it rest again. It’s sometimes hard to imagine this technique working, but it’s a method that’s been confirmed over and over again. For your suspending and slow-sinkers try a simple twitch and pause similar to that which you would use on a plastic tail, but much slower, or you can also walk-the-dog with them just like a top water bait, but just do it beneath the water’s surface and make it purely a “slow walk” versus a “trot” or a “run”. For soft plastics, many indicate their best results occur when simply dragging the lure across the bay floor just as slow as humanly possible – the colder it gets, the slower you should reel.
Realizing this is not, by any means, an all-inclusive list of things coastal anglers can do to persuade picky wintertime fish to bite, my hope here is that this may have possibly given you a new idea or a new plan for catching some really nice trout or redfish next time you’re out there waiting for things to warm up a bit. Keep grindin’!
www.BayFlatsLodge.com
1-888-677-4868
Seadrift/Port O'Connor, Texas
February Fishing Forecast Tips & Tricks by Captain Chris Martin
There will inevitably be cold days in February, but that shouldn’t stop saltwater anglers from getting out on the water if they want to. Some of the year’s nicest fish are sometimes caught during the coldest times of the year, and this year should be no exception. Most all that many coastal anglers will need in order to get through their wintertime bay fishing episodes is a slight change in the way they work their lures and a small dose of patience, as painstakingly slow retrieves as well as mental composure and diligence can often become key items for cold-water success over the course of the next few months.
When bay waters get cold, so do the fish. And when the fish get cold they tend to slow down (considerably). This means that anglers will need to slow down the presentation of their baits. Granted, some of these wintertime methods may sound boring compared to spring and summer techniques, but they have been proven quite effective for quite a while. For those who are willing to spend time becoming proficient in these slower techniques, good catches of wintertime trout and redfish should no longer be out of the question. Many baits discussed here may already be part of your tackle box, but if not they should be added just so you have access to them during the year’s cold months.
Before we get to the lures, however, let’s talk a bit about the rest of your equipment. Winter conditions call for some level of skill and subtlety, or finesse. Not only will you need to slow things down right now, you may also need to downsize things a little, as well. This means you may prefer to use a rod that’s a bit more limber and a reel that’s loaded with lighter line, like in the eight to ten pound range. Some anglers may even prefer to switch to the use of a spinning reel for tossing lighter lures because they are typically known for handling lighter lines better than other types of reels. And because it will be so very important for you to be able to feel even the slightest bump at the end of your line this winter, it may be a good idea to consider some of the newer polymer and braided lines over that of monofilament simply because they don’t stretch nearly as bad as monofilament does.
Many of you may not spend a lot of time tossing top water baits this time of the year, but they are my favorite type of lure and I just can’t help myself. Some top producers include baits like Rapala’s Skitter Walk Junior and Heddon’s Zara Spook and Zara Puppy. And when it comes to plugs, it’s difficult to fish for trout in the winter without some of the more traditional suspending and slow-sinkers like the Corky, the 51M MirroLure, and the Catch 5 and the Catch 2000. If it’s soft plastics you prefer, try those with a straight tail instead of a paddle tail. Some favorites this time of the year include TTF’s’ Texas Flats Minnows and Texas Trout Killers, and the Norton Sand Eel and Sand Eel Juniors. Many of the old, standard shrimp tails work just fine, too. And if you’re really having a hard time drawing a strike with your plastics, try rigging a couple of them in tandem. Right now when the fish are cold and lethargic, they may often see the first bait on the tandem rig, but will generally strike the second one.
When working surface walkers in cold water, some recommend letting the bait sit motionless atop the surface for a solid count of five seconds before twitching it ever-so-slightly a few times before letting it rest again. It’s sometimes hard to imagine this technique working, but it’s a method that’s been confirmed over and over again. For your suspending and slow-sinkers try a simple twitch and pause similar to that which you would use on a plastic tail, but much slower, or you can also walk-the-dog with them just like a top water bait, but just do it beneath the water’s surface and make it purely a “slow walk” versus a “trot” or a “run”. For soft plastics, many indicate their best results occur when simply dragging the lure across the bay floor just as slow as humanly possible – the colder it gets, the slower you should reel.
Realizing this is not, by any means, an all-inclusive list of things coastal anglers can do to persuade picky wintertime fish to bite, my hope here is that this may have possibly given you a new idea or a new plan for catching some really nice trout or redfish next time you’re out there waiting for things to warm up a bit. Keep grindin’!
www.BayFlatsLodge.com
1-888-677-4868
Seadrift/Port O'Connor, Texas
