Speckled Trout Fishing in Venice, Louisiana
Speckled trout at a glance
- Science Name
- Cynoscion nebulosus
- Family
- Drum (Sciaenidae). Not a true trout
- Other Names
- speck, speckles, spec, truite gris (Louisiana French), trucha de mar (Mexican Spanish), spotted weakfish, spotted seateague, southern seateague, salmon, salmon trout, simon trout, winter trout, seatrout
- Environment
- inshore, coastal
- Diet
- shrimp and small fish
- Life span
- Up to about 10 years
- World Record
- 17 lb 7 oz, Fort Pierce, Florida, 1995
- Louisiana Record
- 12.38 pounds, Lake Hermitage, April 1950
How to tell a speckled trout
The official name is spotted seatrout, and it is not a trout at all. It belongs to the drum family, the same family as the redfish.
The back is an iridescent, dark silvery gray and the underside is silvery white. Black spots run along the back and onto the fins and tail.
Look in the mouth for one or two prominent, sharp canine teeth at the tip of the upper jaw. The inside of the mouth is usually yellow.
Where speckled trout live and how they move
Speckled trout range from Massachusetts in the western Atlantic to the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf. They are an inshore fish that favors shallow bays and estuaries with oyster beds or grass beds.
They move with the water temperature. In spring and summer they hold in the shallow bays and estuaries. When the water starts to cool, around mid-October, they move to deeper water.
They are mostly a schooling fish, though the very large ones travel in smaller groups. Trout do not handle a hard freeze well, and a stretch of extreme cold can kill fish in numbers. They are also less at home in fresh water than a redfish is.
What speckled trout eat
What a trout eats depends on its size. Young trout feed mostly on crustaceans. As they grow they switch to a mix of crustaceans and small fish. The big ones feed mainly on other fish, including menhaden, mullet and croaker.
Growth, age and spawning
Speckled trout mature early, at one to two years old, and can live to about 10. The oldest that Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologists have aged, male and female, were eight years old.
Females grow faster and bigger than males. In Louisiana the average female is about 11 inches at one year old, 16 at two, 18 at three and 19 at four. The average male is about 9, 13, 15 and 16 inches at the same ages. The longest female the department has aged was 29.57 inches.
In Louisiana, spawning usually runs from April to September. It happens between dusk and dawn in water with good tidal flow, such as passes and channels. The males gather in groups of hundreds or even thousands and croak by vibrating their air bladders, and together it sounds like drumming. A female may spawn every seven to fourteen days and produces millions of eggs.
How fast speckled trout grow in Louisiana
Females pull ahead of males in their first year and stay ahead.
| Age | Female, average | Female, usual range | Male, average | Male, usual range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 11 in | 9 to 13 in | 9 in | 7 to 11 in |
| 2 years | 16 in | 13 to 19 in | 13 in | 11 to 16 in |
| 3 years | 18 in | 14 to 21 in | 15 in | 12 to 18 in |
| 4 years | 19 in | 15 to 23 in | 16 in | 13 to 19 in |
| 5 years | 19 in | 15 to 23 in | 16.5 in | 13 to 20 in |
| 6 and older | 19 in | 16 to 23 in | 17 in | 13 to 20 in |
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Ages come from counting the yearly rings in each fish’s ear bones.
Record speckled trout
The all-tackle world record is 17 pounds, 7 ounces, caught by Craig Carson at Fort Pierce, Florida, on May 11, 1995.
The Louisiana state record is 12.38 pounds. Leon Mattes caught it in Lake Hermitage in April 1950, and it has topped the list for more than 75 years.
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