A unique website dedicated to fishing information from Florida's Northern Big Bend. This includes the area from the Econfina River west to the Apalachicola River
I enjoy the gulf as much as anyone and try to learn interesting stuff every trip I make.
This past trip we caught a couple of funny looking trout.
I know what they are but thought it would be interesting to here from you all. Give me some interesting facts like different names, do you like to eat them, how often are they caught, where they are commonly caught, legal size and creel, etc.....
I also like to inspect the stomach contents of the fish i catch.
Can you identify the species of fish that this came out of?
White trout taste better to me than specks. Hardly ever see parasites like you do in the flesh of specks. Quite plentifull around the bridge at Panacea at times. Seem to catch the most about the same time and place as Whiting. Don't get as big as Specks.
Sand/White Trout. Put up a real good fight. They're angry when they strike. Love to catch them. If you get on em you can catch 100 in a day. I like fishing shrimp on a bottom rig for sand trout. You pick up whiting, like CS said, and a few stingrays from time to time. Ocklocknee Bay and "there abouts" are good places to get em.
I normally fish around Keaton beach and the Taylor coastline. I know what a white trout is, but have never caught one. Is there anywhere around here to catch them?
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing. ~Babylonian Proverb
I have caught a few of them in the Econfina River a couple of years ago. These two were caught in 7.5' of water using gulps. This was the only two we caught. I have heard them called white trout, silver trout and sand trout. A friend at church told me that he catches them in the Suwannee River in deep holes and sometimes in large numbers.
The second picture is the contents of a 22" Red's stomach. I was surprised at the number of tiny shrimp that the fish had eaten.
JC your friend is correct about Suwannee, I had a friend of mine take me to suwannee a couple years ago and we have been cathing all we wanted since mainly in the cooler months. they are great to put kids on I have a 5 year old that like to go catch them (he still prefers sharks though). I have caught a few out of stienhatchee but never really fished for them there. and the name i was told was sand trout
Sand trout are a great fish to catch. The only problem with them is that the meat is softer than a speck, which makes it harder to keep and freeze. Best if cooked and eaten fresh.
There are four species of trout, all in the drum family. The ones in the photo are silver trout. Not to be confused with sand (white) trout or weakfish (which are found along the Atlantic coast). Silvers are similar to specks, only smaller and without the spots. Average less than a pound up to 3. They don't have the yellow tint common to the bigger sand trout. Both sandies and silver prefer deep channels and holes and are more commonly caught in the winter months. Sand trout will sometimes be on the grass flats among specks, although normal habitat is sand or shell bottom in the open Gulf. Silvers are also open Gulf dwellers.
Source: Sport Fish of the GOM by Vic Dunaway.
On the stomach contents, that red was hungry! Was that shot from a recent trip? If so, it reinforces my Go-to lure, a DOA standard shrimp.
I was on a boat that pulled in one that was probably pushing four pounds. We were in about 200ft of water 40 miles out from the Mississippi coast. Could have caught em all day long but was looking for snapper...
