Fishing topwater baits can be a truly exciting way to catch speckled trout, especially under the right conditions. But frustrations set in quickly when an explosion on the surface yields just another empty hook.
It’s a fact: Surface lures have a low hook-up ratio most of the time.
But fishermen can tilt the odds in their favor.
For starters, never lift the rod after a strike until pressure is detected. A trout will be more likely to hit a lure once than on follow-up casts. Natural instinct is always to set the hook immediately, but hesitation will improve hook-ups.
Guide Gene Dickson likes to keep a surface walker moving side-to-side to mimic a baitfish evading an approaching predator, but he will change his tactic with a missed strike.
“If you get a strike, let (the lure) play dead for five seconds and then twitch it; the fish will reflex smash,” he said.
Luckily, speckled trout in the low-light hours can be quite aggressive. They will continue to follow and strike a lure again. A single missed topwater strike may not always get a secondary hit on the retrieve or on successive casts.
Dickson will follow up missed surface strikes with shallow-running Rat-L-Traps and small crankbaits.
“Follow up with intermittent retrieves by buzzing lures by, and then stopping,” he said. “They will hit it when they sometimes wouldn’t normally bite.”
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