This week on the Northwest Florida Fishing Report, host Joe Baya is joined by biologist and Pensacola guide Capt. Evan Wheeler and Mobile Bay inshore specialist Capt. Patric Garmeson of Ugly Fishing. Together they break down how cold water changes fish metabolism, why solunar feeding windows matter even more in winter, how to balance deep-river tactics with shallow flats opportunities, and how to handle and release big trout and redfish for long-term conservation. Along the way they share detailed lure and gear preferences, talk about winter bull reds in Pensacola Bay, and explain when a “winter pattern” really kicks in across the Gulf Coast.
Conditions Recap
Both captains agree that true “winter fishing” starts when average water temperatures fall into the mid–50s and below. Around 57 degrees, speckled trout can still be aggressive and respond to faster retrieves, but once temps slide into the low- to mid–50s, more fish glue to the bottom or hold tighter to structure, and sink rates and cadence become much more critical. Extremely cold snaps can push trout to feed well even in 44–46 degree water if there is a slight warming trend a couple days after a front, but once water drops below the low 40s, the bite becomes much tougher and more window-driven.
Winter success is built around timing. Capt. Wheeler explains that as fish metabolism slows, they minimize daily movements and become more opportunistic, which makes solunar major and minor feeding windows even more important. Instead of spreading their feeding over a long tide cycle, many bites compress into tighter windows that often line up perfectly with the published tables. Capt. Garmeson uses these tables heavily, especially on winter tournament days, and has seen winning bites that happen in a narrow 5–7 a.m. window even when air temps are in the high 20s.
Tides and fronts layer on top of those solunar windows. In cold weather, Patrick generally prefers the tail end of a falling tide and the very bottom of the tide, especially when that low water overlaps a solunar minor. On warming trends a couple of days after a front, incoming tides and high water over mud or shell flats can be very good, particularly when a little sun warms skinny water. Weather-wise, both captains like the day before a front, if wind speeds allow safe access, and then the second and third days after a hard blow, once barometric pressure eases back down from those tough 30.1–30.3 readings and the wind lays enough to fish effectively.
Winter Speckled Trout Tactics
Capt. Wheeler starts from the biology: as water cools, trout slow down and shrink their daily range, which makes them more inclined to feed in short, opportunistic bursts. He expects resident fish to set up around heavy structure that is close to both deep and shallow water, where they can minimize movements year-round. In winter, those same fish become even more tied to specific tide and moon windows around that structure, and being in the right place during the right 90–120 minutes matters more than covering endless water.
Patrick builds his trout approach around water temperature and typical winter patterns in the Mobile system. Once water temps slip into the low- to mid–50s, he starts thinking about slowing sink rates rather than just slowing retrieve speed. In that range, he might still work a bait fairly aggressively, but he chooses presentations that fall more slowly and give trout time to react. As temperatures drop further, he is ready to drag baits along the bottom or let suspending lures hang over ledges and drops. He has caught trout consistently down to about 42 degrees, but below that he expects to grind and lean heavily on those solunar bite windows.
Both captains emphasize fishing the entire water column instead of assuming all winter trout are glued to the deepest water. Evan usually starts high in the column with something that can cover water efficiently, then works deeper only as needed. When he has solid data on a big fish living on a specific piece of structure, he will target that trophy with a very particular presentation rather than just catching schoolies nearby. Patrick echoes the need to experiment, noting that some of his best winter bites have come on surprisingly fast retrieves in “cold” water when a small warming trend or feeding window had the fish chasing aggressively.
Prospecting Deep Water vs. Shallow Flats
When Evan is prospecting without electronics, he relies on reading current, shoreline shape, and bait activity. In rivers, bays, and creeks he chooses tighter areas where he can see and feel flow better, then fans casts with a versatile twitch bait like a MirrOlure 17MR. That bait lets him fish anything under about six feet quickly, either high or low in the column, and often draws at least a swipe that tells him fish are present. When he gets that confirmation, he will switch to suspending twitch baits or a soft plastic presentation that hangs longer in the strike zone to dial in the bite.
Patrick leans heavily on his electronics in the deepest systems around the Mobile River and Theodore Industrial Canal. Rather than sitting in 40–50 feet of water in the middle of the channel, he looks for shelves or ledges that step up into the low- to mid–20-foot range and create wide flats that he can scan with his graph. He is generally looking for trout stacked near or on the bottom at these depth breaks. In many cases, multiple classes of fish hold within the same cast distance, with smaller trout in one depth band and larger trout or redfish in another, and soft plastics allow him to adjust sink rate and contact to target each layer.
In the smaller tidal rivers that flow out of the Delta, which often top out around 20 feet deep, Patrick still uses electronics but relies even more on visual cues like mullet, pogies, shad, and subtle surface nervous water. He warns that when mullet get excessively thick and fill the entire water column, he rarely gets bites from predators and will often slide back down the river until bait becomes a bit more sparse and trout and redfish can ambush rather than be overwhelmed by forage.
Both anglers caution against overlooking shallow water in winter. Evan routinely finds fish on grass flats in Santa Rosa Sound and Pensacola Bay all winter long, especially around guts, troughs, and mud-bottom drains that warm faster in the sun. Joe notes similar patterns on Choctawhatchee Bay, where winter redfish and trout often stage just outside tiny marsh drains that push slightly warmer, bait-rich water onto adjacent flats. Patrick believes there are similar opportunities in Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay, but notes they are harder to access consistently because of frequent north winds, longer boat rides, and generally dirtier water that makes subtle structure harder to read.
Redfish, Flounder, and Bull Red Opportunities
Flounder factor less into Evan’s winter approach in Florida due to lower local abundance and the state’s seasonal closures that push many fish offshore to spawn. He occasionally encounters them incidentally while trolling for trout or working deep structure, but they are not a primary winter target. Patrick points to tagging work out of Dog River that shows just how far some flounder travel offshore to winter in deep water, reinforcing the idea that inshore opportunities are more limited in the coldest months.
Redfish, by contrast, offer solid winter action for both captains. In Pensacola Bay, Evan looks forward to a unique bull red run that lines up with big pogie pushes into the bay. On the right day, schools of bull reds feed on the surface like tuna under diving pelicans, creating rare sight-fishing opportunities in truly open water. He notes that this is one of the only times of year when following pelicans is absolutely worth the effort for redfish. At other times, he leans on standard marsh points and sound-side docks that hold slot reds much like they do in warmer months.
Patrick often finds redfish mixed with trout in winter rivers, especially where current speed changes, bottom composition shifts, or deeper edges rise toward flats. He also enjoys hunting reds in clear, shallow marsh creeks and bayous on low, cold water, where sight-casting is possible but tidal awareness is crucial to avoid getting stuck on shoals. Around Mobile Bay’s endless piers and wharves, winter redfish fishing with live or fresh-dead shrimp can be excellent, and a falling tide combined with reduced catfish pressure compared to summer makes dock-hopping a productive strategy. Nighttime dock-light fishing for redfish around both Mobile and Pensacola remains an overlooked winter option, especially on calm, cold nights.
Tackle Talk and Gear Highlights
Throughout the episode, the captains share specific tackle setups that help them feel bites and control sink rates in cold water. In brutal post-front conditions with super-clear water, Evan sometimes downsizes to 2500-class reels, light to moderate power rods in the 6’6”–7’ range, and straight 8–12 lb monofilament to avoid the memory issues that long fluorocarbon leaders can create on the spool. He favors light loop-knotted soft plastics or small hard baits that dart and fall slowly, which lets him coax pressured trout in skinny, quiet water where stealth is critical.
Patrick prefers braid for deep-water work, often in the 10–20 lb range on spinning gear and up to about 30 lb on baitcasters to reduce digging into the spool. The thin diameter cuts through current, helps lures reach bottom faster, and dramatically increases sensitivity over 20–40 feet of water. He typically pairs this with a 20 lb monofilament leader such as Berkley Big Game, dropping to 10–12 lb when fish are finicky or water is exceptionally clear. When he needs baits to sink faster in deep water, he is not shy about switching to fluorocarbon leaders.
For winter lures, both guides lean heavily on Pure Flats slick-style baits. Patrick’s confidence bait is the original OG Slick, often in the Cool Beans color, rigged either on a weighted Beast-style hook or a quarter-ounce jighead with a long-shank redfish eye profile for deeper presentations. In very cold water he finds that an unweighted Slick worked over four to six feet of water, or allowed to fall slowly off ledges, can outproduce weighted versions by matching the slow, subtle movements of chilled baitfish. Evan favors a Slick Junior in croaker or sand-lapper patterns on a light jighead, along with suspending twitch baits like the MirrOlure 17MR and smaller subsurface plugs that can be worked high or low in the column during prospecting.
Other gear notes include the value of a high-quality rubber-coated landing net such as the Bubba net, which reduces slime loss and tangles compared to thin mesh designs, and the importance of compact lip-grips on lanyards for temporarily securing big trout beside the boat while anglers prepare tagging kits, measuring boards, or cameras.
Conservation, Handling, and Release Over 20
In the back half of the show, conservation takes center stage as both captains talk about their involvement with the Release Over 20 initiative. From a biological perspective, Evan explains that larger female trout and other gamefish are disproportionately valuable to the population because egg production increases exponentially with size, especially for fish over 20 inches. Releasing those fish preserves key breeders, sustains quality fishing long-term, and gives anglers a chance to catch those same individuals again when they have grown even bigger.
Patrick and Evan share practical winter handling tips that help released fish survive. Cooler water offers a bit more margin for error, but dry winter air can strip slime quickly, so they recommend keeping fish wet as much as possible by holding them in the water in a rubber-coated net or on a lip grip attached to a short rope or bungee. This gives anglers time to get cameras, tagging gear, and measuring boards ready without letting a trophy trout thrash around on the boat deck. When a fish is hooked deeply but not bleeding, they lean toward cutting the line at the knot, particularly with single-hook live-bait rigs, rather than digging aggressively and damaging gills or the throat. If a fish is clearly mortally wounded and legal to keep, they encourage anglers to put it on ice rather than releasing it just to feed crabs.
Both guides emphasize that smaller “slot” fish often make better table fare than big trophies. An 18-inch trout or mid-slot redfish has a cleaner bloodline and firmer fillets than a 25-inch specimen, and choosing those smaller fish for the box while releasing the over-20 class is one of the easiest ways anglers can support the fishery. The same principle applies to winter sheephead fishing, where larger fish can be more than a decade old and represent important spawners for the population.
When Winter Really Starts and How to Book the Captains
Although the calendar says winter begins on December 21, both captains define the start of the winter inshore pattern by water temperature rather than dates on a page. As long as water temps are hovering near 60 degrees and fish stay active all day, they consider it more of a fall pattern. Once average daily temperatures settle at or below about 55 degrees and trout behavior shifts toward compressed feeding windows, more bottom-oriented holding patterns, and heavier use of rivers and deeper channels, they officially switch to “winter mode.” That winter pattern often kicks in sometime between the winter solstice and early January, depending on the year’s frontal activity.
For anglers wanting to put this winter playbook into practice, Capt. Evan Wheeler runs trips out of the Pensacola area, focusing on grass flats, deep bay structure, and river systems throughout the colder months. Capt. Patric Garmeson fishes the Mobile Bay system and its tributaries year-round through his charter company Ugly Fishing, where his online calendar shows live availability and allows guests to book directly.
Whether you are planning to explore Pensacola’s winter grass flats, grind out a deep-river trout bite in Mobile, or chase bull reds under diving pelicans in one of the Gulf Coast bays, this episode gives you the seasonal conditions rundown, proven tactics, and conservation-minded approach you need to make the most of winter inshore fishing along Northwest Florida and coastal Alabama.
