It's trout time after a year hiatus

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

What a difference a year makes.

In just one year, the trout fishing has gone from bare bones to excellent. Last year, it seemed the only time you could find trout was at night under the dock lights, but that’s not the case this year. Let me put it into perspective.

Last year, I couldn’t get a trout bite on a top-water fly all year. And now, I’ve had several already and that includes a 21-inch trout Sunday morning.

During the daylight hours, the bait of choice seems to be live shrimp. Live-lining the shrimp is working best and all you need is a 10-pound test braided line with a 15-inch piece of fluorocarbon leader tied to the end of it and then tie on a No. 1 short shank hook on the end of the leader. About 6 to 8 inches up from the hook, place a BB-sized split shot and your good to go. Oh yeah, don’t forget to place a live shrimp on that hook.

I have found the two best ways to hook your shrimp is to either horn hook it or tail hook it. When you horn hook it, the hook point will go under the horn on one side and out the other. Just make sure the hook is placed in front of that dark, pulsating spot on the head. That is the shrimp’s brain and if you hit it, it will kill it instantly. When tail hooking shrimp, I like to put the hook through the middle of the fan tail and thread the shrimp about a quarter of an inch up the hook shank, and then bring the point out on the bottom of the shrimp.

After all this is complete, you’ll want to cast your shrimp diagonally up current and let it drift down with the current as you slowly work it back to the boat, trying to keep all the slack out of the line. Once it gets past you and parallel to the boat, reel it in and cast out again. I also have lots of success by letting the person on the rear of the boat just letting the shrimp drift in the current, and every so often, letting out a little line to keep the bait down in the water.

I know that this might not interest some of you, but for those of us who saltwater fly fish, we lost a legend in the sport last month. Billy Pate passed away April 18 at the age of 81. Pate was a pioneer in fly fishing the Florida Keys. The first fly reel I ever bought was a Billy Pate bonefish reel back in 1985 and I still have it.