Water temperatures have officially dropped into the 60’s! What does that mean? To us Florida natives it means “iceberg right ahead” or break out the ice skates, time to play some hockey! Who am I kidding, I wouldn’t last more than 5 minutes on ice skates plus they’re not as comfortable as flip flops.
Back to the topic, water temperatures dropping into the 60’s means normal fish patterns have changed. Most of the year when targeting trout, you look for grass flats (generally 4ft to 6ft of water), pick your favorite bait (live or soft plastic) and let it rip.
However, when water temps drop that might not work. Believe it or not, our sea grass does go dormant in the winter. You will notice it when you pull up to your favorite trout hole and instead of thick dark green grass, you will see light brown grass and it is visibly thinned out. When the sea grass is in dormancy, that means bait will not be abundant so the trout will go elsewhere to find a food source. It also means they don’t have a “safe space” to hide from larger predator fish so that will also make them move.
When targeting trout in the winter months, look for dark bottom, larger residential canals or darker bottom areas of the manatee river. Bait will tend to school up in canals in the winter months and makes for easy pickings for trout. Also the dark bottom areas will warm up faster during the heat of the day just like a black car will be hotter than a white car, same situation with dark bottom canals vs light sand bottom.
Fish want to stay warm just like we do!! One thing that does not change year round is try to fish when there is moving water. Generally I prefer an incoming tide to fish inshore but even and out going tide will move the bait and get the fish to bite.
We had a very busy Christmas/New Years holiday at Palmetto Bait and Tackle. Things have started to settle down and we are stocking back up on all your favorite fishing tackle. Be sure to stop by and check us out or just stop in to say hi. We always love to talk about fishing here at Palmetto Bait and Tackle!!
