Fishing conditions are sometimes ideal, and you feel extremely good about your chances before you ever leave the house. More commonly, however, something nags at the back of your mind, causing you to question whether you should have stayed in bed and continued dreaming about fish instead of braving the elements to try to actually catch them.

When Chris Macaluso of Baton Rouge, Justin Bowles of Ponchatoula and I met up in a grocery store parking lot in the wee hours Thursday morning, it was wind and frigid cold (for South Louisiana) that made us wonder if we’d find any success at all. A really strong cold front had blown through two days before, and Justin’s boat and truck — as well as the grass lining the parking lot — were all covered with a thin layer of ice.

What would that severe drop in temperatures do to the fish? Would it stack them up in areas that made them sitting ducks, or would it give them chronic lockjaw, causing them to look at our baits as broccoli rather than beignets?

At the beginning of the trip, it seemed we’d be dealing with the latter, but before long, we got dialed in, and the fish were putty in our hands.

Hot baits of the day included a KVD 200 jerk bait and a pink champagne-colored Matrix Shad threaded on a 3/8-ounce Deathgrip Jighead. The speckled trout we caught were almost all between 15 and 20 inches.

For all the details, check out the video below.

Like the video? Please give it a thumbs-up, and subscribe to the Marsh Man Masson channel on YouTube. Also, leave a comment below or on the YouTube page. Do you prefer throwing hard-plastics or jigs for speckled trout? What are some of your favorite brands of each?