Know when a trout’s a speck

Fishermen in the Hilton Head area have three excellent nearshore reefs to fish that are close enough to the beach and close enough to each other to be visited in one trip: the Fish America Reef, the General Gordon and the Parris Island Reef.

When fishing the reefs, Capt. Rick Percy watches his depth finder and drops a buoy overboard when he spots good concentrations of fish around the structure. He then trolls around the buoy and jigs vertically with live bait or soft plastics.

Fishermen will encounter a number of species on the reefs, but not many speckled trout. A close cousin, the weakfish will often be present, and that can cause anglers some problems since the daily limit for weakfish is one per person, per day, as opposed to 10 specks per day.

Weakfish are known by several other names: gray trout, winter trout, summer trout and weak trout. They are not often caught inshore, but they can be caught in great numbers on nearshore reefs.

Specks and weakfish are shaped similarly, so knowing the difference in the species’ markings is a key to identifying them. One certain difference is that weakfish will not have any spots present on the second dorsal fin. Most weakfish will have no spots on their fins or tail, but they’ll never have spots on their second dorsal fins. Speckled trout will usually have spots on their finds and tails, and they’ll always have spots on their second dorsals.