Tough Anglers Prevail on Tough Bite

I had the honor (or challenge) to fish with the father and son team of Jeff and Jeff for another artificial only trip on the marsh. These guys are excellent anglers, and know their way around the marsh pretty well. On our previous trip we fished deep for trout with plastics and these guys whacked the specks pretty good. Todays trip (2/22) was to entice the spot tails to eat artificials...if we could find a few. We checked a few creeks and saw a few singles that were not interested as well as a small pack that blew out pretty quick. After some intense searching we found a nice school...a nice, finnicky, SPOOKY, school. The two Jeffs made perfect cast but the reds were not interested. We switched to tipping the jigs with natural baits, and the guys started hooking up. With every fish we caught the school would scatter. Had a few even blow right into the boat. But as the fish regrouped Jeff and Jeff Sr. would pick one off. It was another tight area loaded with shell and these guys got nearly every red back to the boat somehow. Jeff Sr. lost a heartbreaker we couldn't turn before he headed to the oysters and had a few that would pick up the bait only to let it go. It was tricky casting the light jigs, but it was the only way to approach these fish and the duo mastered it with no problem. You will lose some jigs and fish, but that all comes with the territory! These guys have the trout figured out pretty good, but I couldn't help suggesting we plug for some trout as the tide was rising, wind was dying, and the cloud cover thickening. (good set-up for plugging bigger specks) We broke out the trusty Bomber Long A's and went to work. It wasn't long and we were into them. Both guys hooked some good ones. For the day, Jeff Jr takes big red, but dad takes big trout. Awesome time on the marsh again with two great guys...and two great anglers!

 

By Tim Cutting