Plastic favorites for trout

Terminology changes with the times. A lot of the older generation of fishermen know the spotted seatrout, one of the favorite targets for fall fishing, as the winter trout. And there's some irony in that because extremely cold water temperatures can wreak havoc on speckled trout (another popular name for the species) populations.

Nonetheless, chasing trout is one of the most popular options for Lowcountry fishermen this time of year. Not only are they tasty, but with a series of relatively mild winters they also appear to be plentiful. Although finding them in good numbers can be a day-to-day proposition. Just remember, the current creel limit for trout is 10 per angler and they must measure at least 14 inches.

While live bait — mud minnows or shrimp — is usually available year-round, I get a much bigger thrill of catching them on artificials. I haven't mastered topwater plugging for trout, usually done in the early morning or late evening. I'm adequately proficient with a MirrOLure, which is good bet for catching bigger trout once the water temperature really begins to drop.

I've enjoyed my best success with soft plastics, baits that back in the day were lumped together under the phrase "grubs," probably because that's what legendary bass fisherman Tom Mann named the earliest versions, Sting Ray Grubs.

The evolution of the grub has been phenomenal. Next came twister-tail grubs which imparted some action into the lure. That was followed by the paddle-tail grub, which offered another type of built-in action. In more recent years, manufacturers have offered plastics with built-in scents such as Exudes and Gulps. The best-known of the shrimp imitators is DOA, but Exude and Gulp also offer their versions of shrimp.

And don't get me started on the evolution of colors and their names. One of the most popular Stingray Grubs was the green firetail, a watermelon green grub with a bright reddish-orange tail. Today's most popular color is probably the Electric Chicken, a green and pink mixture originally introduced by Bass Assassin but now widely imitated. Care to try a Purple Canary? Opening Night? Space Guppy? Look in my tackle box and you'll probably find a sampling of most color combinations, a far cry from when the choices were either green or gray.

And there are just as many ways of rigging them. The standard way is to thread the plastic onto a 1/4-ounce (sometimes 1/8-ounce) leadhead jig. But they often can be rigged "bass style," embedding a weighted hook into the lure so it's weedless (and hopefully, oyster shell-less). There's an art to rigging these keel-weighted hooks without tearing up the bait, so use some inexpensive colors that don't work to practice.

Trout can be found in just about every Lowcountry river system. The Wando River might be the best known, but you can also find them in the Cooper, Ashley, Stono, North Edisto...well, you get the picture. Just like fishing for largemouth bass or any other predatory species, look for structure, such as mounds of live oyster shell, especially in areas where smaller bodies of water feed into larger bodies of water.