Quote:
Originally Posted by jpeff31787
I've always wondered where do all those trout go when the water turns like it has done the past week. Maybe someone with some knowledge can chime in. There were tens of thousands of trout located anywhere from the hammock, cove, to weeks bay and once the water muddied up, they have seemingly disappeared. We've fish some clear pockets with some success, but now there are really only a few pockets of good water if any. Do you think those trout migrate into sharks bayou and surrounding little marsh that they have or do you think they know to make a swim back to the gulf? Are they still around in the muddy water just much harder to catch? If they are still in the muddy water, trout must be extreme sight feeders or much more than bass anyway, because trout are nearly impossible to catch in muddy water. You can still catch a mess of bass in no matter the water color
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I can generally do well the first few days after the water muddies up after a front or a rain but after that I have trouble finding them. If the waters been clear and the salinity high I find that they will stack up at the mouth of a bayou. Especially if that bayou drains protected marsh or lake. They will feed as the tide turns from ebb to flood, I can set my watch by it. I think there are a few reasons for this. Typically, the last portion of the falling tide will be the cleanest, (unless the height of the low tide is not drastically lower that mean sea level). Also the incoming tide will contain the bait in a more concentrated area. If the wind is blowing in the opposite direction of the water coming out of the marsh it essentially does the same thing and have found the bite will be on during the last 1/4 of the falling tide. The secret is finding a drain that has sufficient structure at the mouth of it to attract fish. Just about every bayou on the Northwest side of Marsh Island will have some hard bottom or oyster reef within a 500 yards of it. But if the waters really dirty they will be right in the mouth of the drain. After a few days of dirty water they will be gone, or if they are there I can't catch them. I think salinity doesn't play as much a roll in it this time of year, from what I have read their tolerance for lower saltines is greater in cooler water temps. If they are trying to bulk up for the winter it seems counter intuitive that they would exert the energy to head too far away from the northern part of the estuary. However, it would make since to me that if bait is harder to see that the fish would scatter into smaller groups to hunt for food to lighten the competition. But who knows. The trout in VBay are no doubt experts when it comes to hunting in muddy water. It doesn't take a big rain or front to gum up the works out there. The wind shifting from East to West will cloud it up almost as bad. The conditions change so fast and often out there, its hard to catch them in one area for an extended period of time. The Cove is the exception, but I would rather mow my grass.