with Sonny Schindler
During the end of October through mid-November, the speckled trout and the white trout along the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts are feeding up for winter. Fishermen want to catch fish to put in their freezers for mid-winter fish fries on Friday nights. Most often the speckled trout that we catch at this time of the year will be schooling trout that run 12-14 inches each. We’re giving up the size of trout that we generally catch in this area to catch and keep larger numbers of trout. Every now and then we’ll catch a trout bigger than this.
At this time of the year, our boats at Shore Thing Charters, usually fish more in Louisiana than in Mississippi, since Louisiana’s limit is more liberal. In Louisiana, we can catch 25 speckled trout 12 inches or longer per person each day.
One of the bonuses at this time of year is when we locate schools of speckled trout, often large schools of white trout will be mixed in with them. One of the advantages of catching white trout is that there is no limit on the number of white trout an angler can catch in a day and take home. The white trout are so aggressive at this time of year, that when they’re schooling, you even may catch them on bare hooks. The white trout generally will be 10-12 inches long, with an occasional 14-inch white trout. Yes, they’re smaller than the specks, but in many areas they’re called sweet trout, since their meat tends to be sweeter than most other saltwater fish. The white trout are delicious to eat.
I think the white trout get a bum rap, since most anglers don’t consider them as cool or as sexy as catching specks. But they fry up well. We have had trips in late October and early November where we’ve either had to quit fishing or practice catch-and-release, due to the lack of room in our ice chests for any more fish. We’ve had multi-boat trips where our anglers have brought in 400 white trout for 10 people.
