Fishing Dirty Low Salinity Water

[TroutSupport.com]

While not in LA, I did fish some super low salinity water (post Harvey) in West Matty and POC (middle Texas Coast) over the weekend with a buddy of mine and did well. Many of our upper bays have zero salinity but if you hunt the outer edges of the lower sections of the bays, the fish are there. There are also fish holding deep where they can find salt despite fresh surface conditions.

Sunday I hit a middle Texas coast area on the south shoreline and used what we teach in the videos to hone into the right spot. We had structure, bait, and current and then started seeing and reading the slicks and the bait activity more intricately to pin point small groups of fish working and using that to pinpoint cast. Some of those small groups of fish had some real studs in them. We ended up with limits of trout to 22 (most ranged in the 17 to 22 range) and the reds were solid from 24 to 30. Water was still very fresh with only minimal salt in it probably somewhere in the 5ppt range was lucky enough to find the water on the shoreline a little saltier and a little cleaner. Forage in the area was mainly mullet and shrimp. This time of year if you can find where the shrimp are and fish structure near it you're going to catch fish despite low salinity and and dirty (turbid) was conditions.

The strikes were lead by using one knockers and she dogs but the Trout Support lure (Grass Walker / TSL) did the HEAVY lifting lifting easily catching the majority of the bigger fish accounting for 90% of the solid fish and studs on the stringer.

Since we were fishing shell in waste deep to chest deep I slowed it down and used a slow rod pump followed by a twitch twitch at the end. This would also allow someone to get the feel of the bites faster starting with a lure like this. Don't have to walk this bait for it to produce. Did miss one fish with a weak sheepish short hookset. Caught me off guard. LOL. All good hooksets resulted in solid hook ups. Reel down and set the hook! Finally got a chance to try the bait with a 4/0 VMC unweighted swim bait hook and results were good.

[jpeff31787]

5ppt is considered good salinity for vbay... right now its a 0.4ppt...

[BassAssasin]

Originally Posted by jpeff31787

5ppt is considered good salinity for vbay... right now its a 0.4ppt...

hahahaha! truth

[MattMigues]

When I see 5ppt I get excited!

[TroutSupport.com]

LOL.... you guys are hilarious. I've caught plenty fish in 0ppt. This was HIGH salinity for me ;-)

[calcutta37]

Your water clarity is a 10 compared to the water in VBAY. Vbay looks like the Mississippi River.

[meaux fishing]

Yeah I'd call that pretty clean water lol

[TroutSupport.com]

I get it guys.. yes, the pics look much clearer than what you're dealing with. That was just the back corner of the wade.. where I caught the trout and the big reds, most of our fish that morning came from much dirtier water and on the edge. We were fishing the edge of where our fresh was pushing up against the slightly more salty water pushed along our south shoreline. The pics aren't revealing of all conditions of the title. And yes over here we get conditions like yours and very much so right now. Out Trinity bay has a zero ppt surface right now and we're catching trout over there as well. Same with Sabine and Big Lake.. but where we're all catching fish is under it and along the fringe edges where the fish are pushed to. Caught about 1/2 of our trout that morning in YooHoo with the frothy fresh bubbles on top. These fish in the pics were around a corner and just happened to be bigger... some studs.