The fly fisher waded slowly toward the duck blind along the shoreline of the lower Laguna Madre.  Casting a fly that had evolved over years of fishing for giant spotted -- or "speckled" -- sea trout, Bud Rowland did not wonder if the big specks were there. He knew. Having taken more big trout than probably any other fly fisher alive, he felt confident that there was at least a couple of trophy fish feeding along the banks of his familiar home waters.
     A fish swirled near the blind, chasing some unseen prey. Bud repositioned his fly, and suddenly there was a familiar boil. The fish came out of the water shaking her head and revealing the distinctive yellow mouth of a speckled trout. It was a familiar scene,  but somehow different this time. Bud realized that this fish was probably the largest trout he'd ever hooked. Ten minutes later, he landed a speck that measured 36 inches in length. She was so full of roe that the eggs oozed from her as he lifted her gently from the water. After measuring her, Bud lowered her into the water and revived her, never considering for one moment the possibility of killing her. She was a world's record on any tippet, and perhaps a new all-tackle world's record. But that no longer mattered to Bud.
     There was a time when it did. Not long before, he'd weighed in a new class tippet world's record, and had all the documentation to send to IGFA. But at the last minute, he was overcame by a deep sense of remorse over having killed the beautiful fish. Most of the big ones have gone free since that change of heart.
     A half hour later, Bud was wading near the spot where he'd caught the giant trout. Suddenly, he saw a trout of similar proportions swimming toward him. It had to be the same fish, Bud concluded, so he just watched to see what she would do. She came within a few feet of him, and stopped, facing him. After a brief eye-to-eye, she turned slowly and swam away.
     "I know it sounds crazy," Bud said to me later, "but I swear that she was saying 'Thank you.'"

     Bud is a member of an unofficial fraternity of fly fishers who regard stalking big speckled trout in the lower Laguna Madre of south Texas to be one of the greatest challenges in fly fishing. I count myself a member of that loosely defined network. Growing up as I did on the pristine waters of the lower Laguna Madre has a way of instilling a respect for big trout, but it takes an adult mind, if not a mid-life perspective, to awaken fully to the beauty, predatorial perfection, and glorious unpredictability of cynoscion nebulosis  -- that is, "starry nebulae."
     The lower Laguna Madre of south Texas is a vast shallow water estuary that is becoming well known to fly fishers as a world class fishery. First-time visitors are stunned by the seeming endless clear water, the semitropical temperatures, and the virtual absence of other fishermen. Stretching over 60 miles from the "Land Cut" north of Port Mansfield to the South Bay near Port Isabel -- and about five miles wide -- it has an average depth of about 15 inches. Known best for its abundant redfish population, the lower Laguna Madre has produced three current IGFA world-record trout on the fly rod -- in the 2, 4, 6, and 20-pound tippet classes.  Besides these documented catches, many  go unreported by fly fishers who have come to appreciate giant specks so much that the thought of killing them just to break a record is inconceivable.
     It is probably true that only in the lower Laguna Madre do fly fishers regularly sight cast to big trout cruising on top and tailing in 6 to 12 inches of water. Fred Arbona, who has fly fished the lower Laguna Madre for 16 years, said to me recently, "Scott, what you have in the lower Laguna -- sight casting to big trout -- is pretty unique. Few people realize what's available there."
 Fred's assessment proved correct this past June when I invited the fly fishing editor for Texas Outdoors Journal, Jim Kuper, to fish with me. He asked me to help him decide what he might write about. In response, I suggested that sight casting to tailing trout might prove to be of some interest.
     "Tailing trout? I've seen plenty of tailing reds, but I don't know if I’ve ever actually seen a tailing trout,"he admitted.
     "Well, if things continue as they have been," I replied, "you’ll see plenty of them here."
     On our first morning out, we left the dock well before daybreak. I knew that the tide was falling, and that the trout would probably be feeding near the edge of the Intercoastal Waterway during the first two hours of the day. Thirty minutes later, we stopped at one of my favorite places for finding big trout. As the sun approached the horizon, we looked around us and saw, in Jim’s words, "five acres of tailing trout." Needless to say, we were in the water within minutes, casting tiny poppers to blackish tails shimmering in the sunlight.

     Trout reach sexual maturity at the age of two, and at a length of 16 or 17 inches, and subsist mainly on shrimp for the first couple of years of their lives.  As they grow even larger, they eventually leave the schools and roam the Laguna as solitary hunters.  At this stage of their development, their movements become largely unpredictable. My friend Richard Weldon, who has fished for big trout for most of his life, says, "If anyone claims that he can always find big trout, he is simply a liar. It’s just not possible."
     Most of the largest trout are female, with the males rarely growing beyond 20 inches in size. A six-year-old male runs about 19 inches in length, while a six-year-old female will average 26 inches.  These large "sow trout"  tend to feed only two hours out of every 24-hour cycle, and when they do feed, they usually gorge themselves on one or two large baitfish. In fact, it is not uncommon to find a trophy trout choking, if not already dead, with a large mullet hanging from its mouth.
     Three discouraging assumptions emerge from these "facts":  1) You can’t find big trout when you want to, 2) They aren't often hungry, and 3) If they are hungry, they are not interested in something as small as a fly.  Over time, however, a dedicated fly fisher discovers that these assumptions are just excuses for why we fail to catch the big ones.
     You can't find them when you want to.  As for finding the big ones, Weldon is surely correct in saying that one cannot find them all the time, but the most experienced fly fishers I know often locate the big ones in two locales: around the spoil islands that line the Intercoastal Waterway; and on the east side of the Laguna Madre -- near the west shore of Padre Island.  Both venues provide excellent sight-casting opportunities, because the water is even shallower than the average depth of the Bay.
     During the spring, the big trout -- heavy with roe and weighing considerably more than they do the rest of the year -- tend to congregate along the grassy banks of the spoil islands. There a stealthy fly fisher can often spot the backs of these big trout breaking the surface in ankle-deep water. Since stalking these fish on foot can be difficult due to heavy siltation around some of the spoil islands, kayaks can be immensely valuable.
     During the non-spawning months, the big trout spread out into the other areas of the Bay, but they can be more easily seen and stalked on the eastern side of the lower Laguna Madre, where there is a virtual absence of bottom vegetation.  Here you can often see a big trout coming from a hundred yards away when the sun is high. While fishing in this area one winter day in the mid-1980s, Tom Kilgore -- who holds the four-pound tippet IGFA speckled trout record -- caught and released 10 trout, each of which averaged over seven pounds!
     The sight casting opportunities on the eastern side of the lower Laguna Madre are what Fred Arbona terms "classic." Recently, I fished with Fred on the east side, at the end of his annual three-month retreat to the Laguna Madre. We waded northward with the prevailing southeasterly wind, about 50 yards apart, and saw nothing for the first 20 minutes. Then I heard Fred exclaim in a loud whisper, "A big trout, and a red with her!" He cast to the trout, but did not hook up. Then he said, "She’s headed your way!" Minutes later, I saw the trout coming. Looking like a greenish-black log on the sandy bottom, she turned and followed my Mother’s Day shrimp pattern when it landed a foot ahead of her. She hit it twice, and each time I pulled the fly out of her mouth. Then she turned and slowly swam downwind. I realized that she had never seen me, so I followed her as quietly as I could, casting whenever I thought I had come within range. Finally I managed to cast the fly ahead of her. I saw her suddenly turned toward the fly, and then she was on! Minutes later, Fred and I photographed and released a fat 27-inch trout, celebrating the catch with boyish shouts and -- of course -- requisite high-fives.
     They aren't often hungry.   Large speckled trout may not be hungry while they're digesting a big mullet, but they can still be enticed to hit a fly. Recently, Bud Rowland surprised me by saying, "I can get a big trout to eat almost any time." In support of his bold contention, he recently caught a 10-lb, 11-oz. trout that had a foot-long mullet lodged in its gullet. What made that fish eat? Was it responding from lingering hunger, or a reflex action more akin to aggression? The latter, more likely.
     Of course, hunger may determine whether a trout keeps attacking your fly again and again. When a big trout hits, she may give up after a half-hearted slash at the fly, or she may pursue your fly like a largemouth bass, hitting it again and again even after feeling the prick of the hook. Last summer, I cast to a surface-feeding trout, and she hit my popper four times on my first retrieve. I was on my knees by the time she missed it for the fourth time only eight feet away from me. Without getting up, I made short casts all around me until she hit the fly one last time; and five minutes later, I landed a very tenacious, if not very hungry, 28-inch trout.
     If they are hungry, they are not interested in something as small as a fly.  Even though big trout always flee from poor presentations, they are opportunistic feeders, and will often attack whatever crosses their paths, even if it’s smaller than the usual fare. Indeed, some of the flies that work well in this fishery are tied on size 4 and 6 hooks. Of course, it is natural to blame the fly whenever we fail to entice a big trout, but it’s probably the least important factor in determining our success.

      Cecil Marchant, co-owner of The Shop in Port Isabel, says, "The question we hear the most is, 'What are the fish hitting?' I say the same thing every time. 'Anything that you can present to them well.'"
     Presentation is not just a matter of casting well. It begins with how the fly fisher presents himself on the flats.  Capt. Skipper Ray -- the first fly fisher in 62 years to win Grand Champion in the Bay Division in the Texas International Fishing Tournament (TIFT) --says that patience is the key to catching trophy trout.  To be successful at stalking giant specks, you have to move so slowly that you have a chance of seeing the trout before she senses you -- the aquatic equivalent of "still hunting" for deer.

     Keep a low profile. Many Texas flats fishermen have boats with platforms towering above the decks -- towers far higher than the traditional Florida-style poling platform. Standing upon these platforms, a fisherman can certainly see more easily into the shallow, clear water. However, few fly fishers can cast far enough to catch a big trout before she sees the high profile of the boat approaching.
     All of the serious big trout fly fishermen I know prefer to wade, or to fish from a kayak. If you have any doubt that this low-profile approach works, consider that in 1998 Skipper Ray also won the TIFT Trout Division by catching two trout on his fly rod that weighed 8.2 and 7.4  pounds, respectively. He caught these magnificent fish by wading. And this past year, I won the TIFT Fly Fishing Division by wading and fishing from a kayak.
     The fly fisher can make himself even less noticeable by crouching and kneeling in the water. For myself, I don't hesitate to drop to my knees in shallow water whenever I spot a big trout nearby.  Wet shorts and muddy knees are a small price to pay for the catch of the year, or of a lifetime.
     A low profile is also ideally paired with an intentionally non-aggressive stance. For instance, Tom Kilgore refrains from even looking at a big trout that he has spotted, having discovered that big trout do not react as much to a person who is "just going about his business."  Tom also keeps his arms to his side as he casts to visible big trout -- again in order to minimize the appearance of aggression.
     Use topwaters early, and sinking flies later. Larry Haines, co-owner of The Shop in Port Isabel, says that he catches more big trout on tiny foam-head poppers than on any other type of fly. Similarly, a small popper comprised of a foam head and a spun deer hair body -- that I call the "VIP" popper -- is my weapon of choice.
     As a rule, poppers are used early in the morning when sight casting is limited, and the extra noise can serve to attract trout from many feet away. Topwaters are used later in the day, as well, in areas so full of floating grass that a weedless topwater fly is the only reasonable choice.
     There does not seem to be any consistent logic behind the subsurface fly patterns used by the Laguna Madre fly fishers.  Since large trout often feed on big mullet, many of the subsurface patterns -- such as Kilgore’s "$1000 pattern" -- imitate sizable baitfish.  But big trout are opportunistic feeders, and will eat shrimp, too. For that reason, many of the smaller subsurface patterns that have evolved in the last few years resemble shrimp more than baitfish. For instance, Larry Haines' Crystal Shrimp is one of the most popular local patterns for trout in this area.
     When it comes to subsurface patterns, Kilgore argues that sink rate -- not design --is the most important variable in designing a big trout subsurface fly. You might think that fishing in shallow water would make the sink rate of a fly irrelevant to its effectiveness. Certainly, in less than eight inches of water, an unweighted fly works fine. But big trout move quickly and erratically; and so, in deeper water, it is important to use a fly that sinks fast enough to get directly in front of the trout before she swims under the fly, or changes direction. Experience will show you that this "in the face" tactic will often provoke an immediate strike.  This may seem strange, considering how finicky a big trout can seem at times, but we must remember that shrimp and baitfish often jump out of the water to evade capture, and thus often drop in front of feeding gamefish upon reentry.
Learn how to hook and land big trout
     It is easy to overreact and pull the fly out of the trout's mouth.  It takes a great deal of discipline, and considerable faith, to pause before you set the hook after witnessing a big trout's explosive strike. Haines, who has caught dozens of big trout, says that he tries to look away whenever he expects a big trout to hit.
     Most fishermen put too much pressure on trout after hooking them. Unlike redfish, trout have a sensitive, paper-thin golden membrane that lines the inside of their mouths, and it tears easily. So, the best thing to do is to play the fish very gently after firmly setting the hook. Rather than increasing mortality, this approach seems to enable big trout to revive more quickly upon release, perhaps because they are never forced to exert themselves to the extreme.
     Many fly fishermen also lose trout by trying to land them too quickly. Big trout are erratic fighters, and may seem to tire out after only a minute or two, but they are famous for shooting through your legs just as you try to apprehend them. Take your time, and you’ll stand a much better chance of landing them.

     Sight casting to big speckled trout poses a daunting challenge even to the most skilled fly fisher. To succeed at catching them with any regularity, a fly fisher has to exercise prodigious stealth, learn to see what other fishermen typically overlook, and wait patiently for opportunities to present themselves. Once he succeeds in merging seamlessly with the realm where big trout rule, a fly fisher will discover that there is a sense of magic that accompanies the quest. And then he will be hooked -- even if the big one eludes him.