With the unusually mild winter weather we’ve been having in southeastern NC, anglers at the Carolina coast are still catching plenty of speckled trout. One of the top speckled trout lures is the MirrOlure, a hard and flashy bait which has been taking trout in the surf and inshore saltwater areas of the south for decades.
MirrOlures are popular because trout love them and because they target a larger size fish, which is important with today’s size limits. They also give you amazing casting distance for a small plug and their flash can attract trout from a long way away.
To see the many kinds of MirrOlures and read plenty of advice about them, as well as get links to the best prices through Bass Pro Shops, check out my MirrOlure page on Surf and Salt.
MirrOlures have come a long way from the first models, and are now available in a bewildering array of sizes, shapes and colors. Don’t let this deter you from buying a few (you don’t have to go out and get 40 different MirrOlures to start trout fishing) because most models do exactly what they are supposed to, which is imitate baitfish if they are retrieved correctly.
This means that although speckled trout have a (somewhat deserved) reputation for being finicky at times and honing in on one particular pattern or color, in most cases if you are fishing a MirrOlure correctly on a school of trout you stand a pretty good chance of getting some attention.
MirrOlures come in models that can be used as twitchbaits, crankbaits, topwater lures, and even as jigging plugs. Some float while others suspend at a certain depth, and some are made to dive erratically on retrieve. Many MirrOlures don’t have a lot of built-in action on their own so you supply it with the rod tip or reel, but don’t get carried away, especially in cold water.
The most important thing for you to remember when fishing MirrOlures in the Carolina winter is to retrieve very slowly. The baitfish that MirrOlures imitate (mullet, pogies, silversides, croaker, and even small trout) aren’t darting around at high speed in the winter, but instead are gliding slowly with the current counting on numbers and structure, as well as shallow water, to protect them. Big trout lay in ambush near structure, points, and drop-offs.
Sometimes the best retrieve for a MirrOlure is none at all, but in most cases you work the lure a little bit. A pull and pause retrieve is a great deep water method, while a walking-the-dog topwater retrieve can make trout go ballistic in the early morning bite just after the sun comes up.
For a lot more information on catching and cooking speckled trout and other Carolina fish check out my book Surf and Saltwater Fishing in the Carolinas.
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