KING: New speckled trout regulations helps fishing in October

To me the month of October has been one of the faster months of the whole year.

There is only one week left in my favorite month to fish, and until last weekend, the fish have been hard to find.

This recent cold snap has done a good job to drive the fish from the depths of the Pamlico Sound closer to the shoreline.

Finally, we are starting to catch speckled trout in more predictable places.

For the past two months the trout have been very elusive.

We speculated they sought refuge in deeper, cooler waters offshore. Rarely do we venture far from shore because fishing out there usually is unproductive.

We often blamed our lack of success during late summer and early fall on the commercial fisherman.

A rumor circulated throughout the community that the speckled trout had indeed schooled tightly on the Pamlico near a place called the Middle Grounds.

The commercial fishermen found them in masses, and netted them all summer. The school was huge, and all those trout that were poised to make a run up the shoreline this fall were all but wiped out.

It was frustrating to fish in places where we caught so many speckles last year.

We might catch one here and there, but there was absolutely no consistency in the action for the past few weeks.

The water temperature dropped almost a degree per day for the last ten days. That told the rest of the trout winter was coming, and it was time to make that fall migration.

This past weekend we started seeing more speckled trout up the rivers and creeks.

Many of these fish were small, but they bit the baits and that is all that matters.

Occasionally, a larger trout would strike the lure, and that kept the fishing interesting.

It seems the colder, windier and rainy days actually were the best ones to fish.

It is good to see some trout showing up in our favorite fishing places.

We thought for weeks this was going to be one lean year.

It seems there was some truth to the commercial fishermen harvesting a great abundance of trout in the Middle Grounds.

The trout now have been declared “overfished,” and the minimum size limit has been raised to fourteen inches for both the recreational fisherman as well as the commercial fisherman.

Studies have proved that twelve inch fish do not have much of a reproductive capability, but fourteen inch trout get to spawn at least once before they are harvested.

It is important that all fishermen abide by the new rule, and keep only the trout that are greater than fourteen inches.

Trout lay hundreds of eggs during each spawn. Although mortality rates are high, some of these eggs will hatch and mature.

It actually might be in our best interest to catch and release all speckled trout more than three pounds.

Most likely that is a female, and she could lay more than a thousand viable eggs in one spawn.

We all need to do our part while there is time to save this valuable sport fish from extinction.

Area / Outdoors