# Limits in Horrible conditions



## troutsupport (May 22, 2006)

I had the pleasure this week of fishing with a great friend of mine in South Texas...Mr. Aaron Saenz. Aaron is a pastor at a united methodist church in Harlingen, Tx. Winds 'been blowing down there lately..non stop.. that equates into sustained 25mph, and gusts to 30. Dirty...scratch that...muddy water; did I say slack tide, did I mention 'high' slack tide? Did I mention floating grass out the wazoo? and miles and miles of areas with seemingly no fish?

Monday we focused on redfish... pretty much the patterns and techniques identified in the TroutSupport.com Redfish DVD "Shallow Marsh and Grass Flats". Most of the reds were out of reach of our rig and were way up shallow on sand flats with the high tide. But we still managed 3 reds and 2 trout, and had another red lost, and saw some monster blow-ups. Not bad for those conditions. Pattern was soft broken bottom with current and bait present fishing soft plastics and topwaters. Best color plastic was motor oil with red and gold flake, black produced as well. The top was a super spook junior popper pink and chrome.

Tuesday we focused on trout, and you gotta know it's been super tough lately with those conditions so I was estatic to put my friend on these fish.. 15 trout with 10 keepers to 20 inches... Aaron caught the 20 incher... not a beast but a nice fish and was great to catch a limit under those conditions; I had one that was about 18. Similar pattern just a little deeper. Edges of grass over mud bottom some sparse scattered grass, plenty of bait present, was definitely reading all the signs to locate them. In all what we really did for the trout was a combination of the techniques found in the entire set reading the water and conditions.

With conditions like that you have to constantly adjust and be willing to... we actually had an earlier plan to go chase reds again that we pretty much scrapped (mostly because what we saw when riding between our first and second stop... we didn't have to leave the second spot and stayed there till dark. The trout were not in the pretty water even though it was very much available... in fact they weren't even on the color change... they were solidly into the muddy water some 25 to 70 yards using the muddy (turbid) water to ambush prey. Also, we spent the first half hour casting downwind...for obvious reasons...I mean who wants to cast quartering up wind in those winds... we were about to leave and I started casting quartering up wind and working the lure with the current and that's what they wanted...sometimes that is what it takes. Color really didn't matter although we were still throwing our confidence colors motor-oil, black, and then later as it got darker we had to use pearl and one fish was caught on a nearly clear bait in highly turbid water. "We forget that these fish eat nearly silent, almost invisible forage, in highly turbid water, at night and they do it every day, they don't go looking for pretty water, why do we?" (attribution -TroutSupport.com- Tobin Strickland)

Stay on your toes, read the water, and commit to finding the sign no matter where it shows up as long as it's in the right habitat you'll be in the right stuff.

Using quality equipment and being able to trust your gear is important in fishing all conditions much less the really bad conditions- Lew's Reels, Simms Fishing, Titeline Fishing Rods, SunCoast MarineWorks (LaMarque), Suzuki, and G-Spot Services all go the extra mile.

And if you are in the Lower Laguna or Port Mansfeild area, hook up with Capt Ernest Cisneros and he'll show you what we did as well. Nothing like seeing it on the water, especially after seeing it in the vids. For that matter, if you are in other areas, I highly recommend making annual trips with teaching guides to see how they apply the information; You deserve it.


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## troutsupport (May 22, 2006)

*Here's some screen shots from the GoPro*

more pics


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## troutsupport (May 22, 2006)

*Pic of water color conditions*

Here's a pic that show's the water color a little better.

1 more!!!!!


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