Over the past two weeks we have consistently caught some nice trout on top water lures in the early morning and just before sunset. The trout are out on the oyster reefs and in several of my favorite spots up river. These have been some very nice-sized trout in the two to four pound range.
We are also catching the trout on artificial cocahoes under a popping cork. You'll get a better hookset on the cocahoe compared to the top water plugs, so if you are looking for meat in the boat I would use this method instead of the top water. But it's hard to put down the top water lure and miss out on the explosion of water when the big trout strikes on top.
There have also been some good schools of smaller trout under the birds out on the reefs, but these are only 13" to 14" trout. You get a lot of action if you can keep up with the school, but about half of them are throw-backs.
We are catching some bigger reds (10 to 12 pounds) on top water out on the reefs. We've been catching a couple of these while fishing the bigger trout on top.
In the middle of the day we have had some nice catches of reds and specks on live cocahoes up river. The reds up river are running three to seven pounds, and the specks are 1.5 to three pounds.
With the good action on artificial lures early and late, and good results with live bait in the middle of the day, we have had some great trips lately.