Speckled trout, red drum fishing torrid along length of coast

Spotted seatrout fishing is at its best right now up and down the North Carolina coastline.

Trout and redfish are thick, providing great fishing action.

Speckled trout and red drum fishing is as hot as it has been all year along almost the entire North Carolina coast, from Albemarle and Currituck sounds in the northeastern corner of the state all the way to the South Carolina border.

Whether Topsail Island to Wilmington is any better or worse than other places is anyone’s guess. But it’s good, according to veteran guide Jot Owens of Wilmington’s Jot it Down Guide Service (910.233.4139).

“Right now speckled trout fishing is wide open, along with redfish and flounder fishing,” Owens said. “Speck fishing, in fact, is extremely good.”

Owens and his clients are whacking trout with Berkley Gulp firetail shrimp in watermelon and red flake, root beer and gold, and pearl colors. He’s also using Saltwater Assassin Sea Shads in chicken-on-a-chain color, along with silver phantom with a chartreuse tail, cantaloupe and chartreuse diamond colors.

“Live shrimp are doing just as well but may not be available too much longer,” he said.

Best places to find trout are estuary creeks and the mouths of such creeks, Owens said, “and specks are all around the inlets and quite a few already are in the surf. The surf’s been, in fact, really good at Topsail Island.”

If specks are holding in shallow water, Owens said he reverses course from most guides and gets shallow, and then casts to deeper water and retrieves his lures toward him. If they’re deeper, he likes to cast from deep water toward the shoreline, and then work his bait back toward him.

“You catch a lot of the biggest trout of the year this time of year,” Owens said.

Recently specks have been averaging between 2 and 4 pounds, “but as it gets cooler, we’ll get into bigger fish” Owens said.

On Nov. 23, he and two clients caught 12 trout and four red drum.

“The reds will hit just about anything you throw at them in the way of a trout lure,” Owens said. “But I usually stick to Gulp! baits, as well as fresh-cut shrimp or live mullet on a Carolina rig.”

Owens’ trout rig includes a Penn Battle 3000 and a Penn Legion 6 1/2- or 7-foot medium-class rod with 10- or 12-pound-test Berkley Nanofil, a new type of braided line.

“You can cast it a country mile,” he said. “I also use a small section of 20-pound-test fluorocarbon leader because trout have such good eyes.”