Chug Bugs For Sea Trout

Fishing Chug Bugs for sea trout is one of my favorite pastimes when they are biting and this afternoon for the most part, the sea trout were eager to please.

I haven't been able to get as much fishing in as I normally do but this afternoon I decided to hit Peacocks Pocket road to see if anything was moving around after the rainstorm.

Fishing the fronts is usually productive and this afternoon was no exception.

It was raining when I drove into East Gator Creek Road and it continued on and off until around 6:30 pm.  The air temperature dropped to 71 degrees and there was a mild breeze blowing until dusk.

There were several flocks of Rosette Spoonbills in the marsh and the alligators were pretty much everywhere I stopped to fish.

 

I didn't bother fishing around East Gator Creek because I usually spend too much time on the ladyfish that inhabit the grassy shallows, so I drove to Peacocks Pocket road to fish some of my favorite ponds instead.

There were a lot of fish moving around but they were spooky.  I started fishing a ZMan soft bait and missed a couple of small sea trout so I decided to start fishing a gold Johnson's Sprite spoon to cover more water.

After several dozen unfruitful casts to some very active fish I decided to start fishing topwater baits.  The fish were hitting finger mullet on the surface in several areas so I pulled out a Skitter Walk and started casting around the mullet pods.

I had a couple of follow ups but no hits so I decided to change over to a freshwater Frog pattern Chug Bug.  

I smeared on some Pro-Cure to enhance the bait and started casting to the banks of the marsh canal and other likely looking areas. 

As the water became a lot calmer, the Chug Bug was the trick.  After only a few casts I had a nice hit with a sea trout of about 20 inches.  The fish nailed the topwater bait at the bank and put up a brief fight before I released it.

Things were looking up.

I moved to a large marsh pond where there were some large sea trout and redfish chasing mullet on the surface.

I started blind casting the area and after several casts managed to briefly hook up with another nice sea  trout.

I missed two more sea trout and spooked a nice redfish before I hooked up with this 26 inch fish.

The fish hit the Chug Bug as soon as it hit the water, missed the bait and hit it again.  It hooked itself on the second strike.

After taking a pic I released the fish and moved to another spot.  When I got to the pond, an oriental gentleman already had the spot staked out.  Literally.  He had five rods out with live finger mullet.

When I asked him if he caught anything, he told me he landed and released a 41" redfish and a 28" sea trout both caught on live mullet.

For some reason, I wished him more good luck and moved on to another location.

It was getting closer towards dusk and it started to rain again but the fish also started to bite.  

I hooked and released two more sea trout on the Chug Bug.

The largest fish was 27" and  I missed one that was well over that size as I was leaving the refuge to head for home.

That fish hit the Chug Bug in the marsh canal right at the bank.  I thought it was a redfish when it hit and I set the hook so hard it pulled the plug out of it's mouth.

One of these days I'll learn.

Until next time, Tight Lines.