Spring brings excellent opportunities to catch spotted seatrout from Southern coastal waters. Learn how a veteran guide capitalizes the season’s offerings.
As the year’s first quarter nears its end, snowbirds start wrapping up annual Southern visits and returning to Northern abodes. Similarly, Northeast Florida trout make their version of this temperature-driven migration, and savvy anglers who understand the movement enjoy the tasty rewards.
Jacksonville’s Chris Holleman capitalizes on this opportunity by following a straightforward seasonal pattern that’s easily applied to most Southern waters. In his region, major rivers and sprawling salt marshes define the playing field, but his tactics deliver through various coastal habitats.
“It seems they like to be close to the ocean in wintertime,” Holleman said of the trout transition. “The water salinity is higher there, and the water might be slightly warmer there.”
Holleman said that winter sees commercial shrimpers dragging trawl nets in deeper coastal waters, but recreational cast netters that load buckets later in the year, rarely collect these crustaceans during the colder months. Like all predators, speckled and sand trout respond to feeding opportunities, and early spring sees a prime example.
“I think they move farther into the rivers in the springtime because that’s when the shrimp start running and the pogies come in,” Holleman said. “That’s what moves them away from the ocean.”
Reproductive patterns also factor into the early spring movement, as the trout’s lengthy spawning season begins in March. The Florida trout spawn can last into the fall, but the front end finds transitional fish fired up and ready to eat.
Where to Find Spring Speckled Trout
Holleman described his favorite spring trout scenario as a small ledge that goes from about 7 feet to 15. This makes an ideal spawning zone with strategic feeding potential.
“Even though they’re mostly spawning on those ledges, when the (food sources are shallow) they will come up shallow to get them,” Holleman said. “So, they’ll be on shallow flats close to those ledges also when it’s time to feed.”
Elsewhere, Holleman finds dependable spring trout action around spoil islands. Formed from the sand, mud and rock excavated during channel dredging, these manmade land masses often end up sprouting vegetation, but the subsurface features offer the most interest to anglers.
“Anywhere you can find a spoil island, there’s all kinds of little ledges and little points that pop out and form eddies and current seams that the fish hang out in,” Holleman said. “One section of the island may have rock, and another section may have grass.
“When the tide is moving, you’ll have an eddy on both sides of the spoil island’s point, and the trout will get on the ledge off that point. You’ll want to fish one end of the island or the other, based on the tide direction.”
Holleman also looks for spring trout around bridge pilings and docks where pilings create current-breaking ambush spots. The best docks, he said, have hard shell bottoms nearby.
“Mill Cove (near downtown Jacksonville) is one of the more popular places to catch a big trout,” Holleman said. “It has these flats where the trout will move to on high tides. That’s where you’ll find the finger mullet on the grass lines.
“The newly hatched shrimp is also a big attraction. Sometimes on the tip of a spoil island where there’s a little eddy, you’ll see birds hovering, and there will be trout under them eating shrimp.”
Best Baits for Seatrout
Expecting to find spring trout in a variety of depths and around a diversity of habitat features, Holleman arms himself with baits to cover the playing field. Topwaters, he said, offer the most exhilarating way to find and engage these predators of underrated aggression.
“My favorite is a Bone colored Heddon Super Spook Jr, but you can also catch them on the Heddon Spin’n Image,” Holleman said. “If I have customers that aren’t as experienced at walking to dog, I’ll give them a prop bait.
“Also, a live shrimp or a live pogy under a Paradise Popper works well. I like the oval shaped popping corks best for that.”
Jerkbaits/Divers: Calling this style of lure the ideal spring search tool, Holleman uses shallow divers like the BOOYAH Flash Point Jr to cover water and locate active fish. His favorite jerkbait scenarios find the trout leveraging moving water over those ledges.
“I’ve always been a big fan of the 4 1/2-inch Cotton Cordell Red Fin,” Holleman said. “To me, that’s the best finger mullet imitator in the way it swims. It stays just beneath the surface like a school of mullet swims. I also like the Suspending Bomber Long A and the 4 1/2-inch Smithwick Suspending Rattlin’ Rogue.”
As for jerkbait colors, he prefers a match-the-hatch approach with silver or gold sides and dark backs.
Jig & Swimbait: Holleman favors the 3.5-inch YUM Pulse, noting that the bait’s profile appeals to a predator that commonly snacks on small baitfish.
“It’s more slender than many other paddletails, and it’s the size of most baitfish during that season,” Holleman said. “The fish can get it better because of its size, and the scale pattern helps them grip it.
“You can swim it, vertical jig it, or bounce it along the bottom. A 3/16- or 1/4-ounce jig is most common, but you want to go as light as you can and still get to the bottom.”
Slip Float Rigs: Using Thill and Little Joe Pole Floats, Holleman will drift a live shrimp or baitfish across a promising area. That could be a bridge corner, a spawning ledge or a marsh edge.
“If a bank stair steps off into deeper water, I’ll start shallow and then gradually work deeper,” Holleman said. “You want to keep your bait a couple of feet off the bottom, so if you throw the slip float rig up shallow and the float lays on its side, you just drag it out until it stands up. Then you know you’re right on that ledge.”
The key, Holleman said, is proper cork positioning and weighting.
“It’s important to have enough weight so the cork stands up but it’s not sinking,” he explained. “I put beads on both sides of the weight to prevent it from beating against the cork or the knot (connecting the main line to the leader swivel).
“I tie my own stop knot on the main line and I use beads with small holes so the slip knot doesn’t go through.”
Preferring a 15- to 20-pound main line, Holleman makes an important rigging distinction. Some anglers use a leader that’s lighter than their main line so snagging only claims their hook and leader. Holleman’s certainly not fond of losing an entire rig, but, he goes with a 20-pound leader because he would rather lose more tackle and fully rerig than losing rare opportunities.
“When I get that 8-pound trout, I want to make sure I have the best chance of boating that fish,” Holleman said.
A size 1-3 wide gap hook usually does the trick, but Holleman stresses prudent rigging decisions. Match the hook to the bait size, but don’t overburden the bait, which diminishes a realistic presentation.
“If I let the bait drift over an area three or four times with no bites, I’ll move to another area,” Holleman said. “Minn Kota’s Spot-Lock has made this a lot easier than it was when you had to set an anchor. Now, you can just release the Spot-Lock and move to your next spot.”
Holleman closed with a strategic point relevant for any of his spring trout baits: “If you get a bite, chances are there’s probably not just one fish there, so you want to work the spot. If you find one trout, you might have the opportunity to catch several.”
