Trout around structure

On Wednesday, I had a buddy come fishing with me. He was reluctant to get into the water and wade fish. Seems he was concerned about sharks. While wade fishing, we do have regular shark encounters, especially at this time of the year. Being sensitive to his concerns, I decided to fish from my boat. I went to a sunken boat of some kind. It’s about 15’ wide and about 40’ long, and it shows up well on my structure scan. It’s resting in water about 16’ deep, and it appears to come up 5-6’ off the bottom. I got right over the edge of the sunken boat on the up current side. We’d cast away from the structure and let the jigs sink to the bottom. The we’d work our plastic back toward the boat. A lot of bites were very subtle and you had to be on your toes or you’d miss 'em. Our biggest trout was 25" and weighed 5.2 lbs, plus lots of 3-4 pounders. I thought we were going to have to leave because of the lady fish, sharks, and Spanish mackerel. We lost a lot of tackle to those toothy fishes.


But isn’t there something satisfying about fishing in tough conditions and bringing home fish when you know others would just give up? These high winds this spring have made me perservere and try stuff i have not tried.

Kerry, I feel your pain. The wind is NOT my friend. I often run 20-30 miles across open water to get to where I want to fish. When seas are 2.5+, I’m not going. It’s no fun, especially if they start building from 2.5’. I’ve been caught in thunderstorms that popped up quickly, and big waves make my 24’ bay boat feel awfully small. I try to avoid such conditions whenever possible.


Harold Wilcox www.haroldshogwash.com