Wade fishing means getting out of the boat and walking the flats on foot, using your legs as power poles and your feet to read the bottom, so you can approach wary fish with far more stealth than a boat allows. It is how Chris Bush of The Speckled Truth chases trophy speckled trout in Texas, and the principles carry over to redfish, bonefish, and almost anything you sight-fish. In this How 2 Tuesday I sit down with Chris to cover the gear, the technique, and the mindset behind wade fishing.
Watch and listen now: press play in the player above and follow along.
Chris Bush says it starts with the right gear and equipment. For winter wading in Texas, his bread and butter for trophy speckled trout, he runs Sims G3 waders, Sims flats sneakers, and a Sims guide jacket. The flats sneakers let you wade long distances without burning out your feet, which matters because winter wading is a waiting game, staying in an area and letting the bite develop through the day. As long as the water stays in the low fifties to around sixty degrees, the right shell and waders keep you fishing comfortably.
You feel it through your feet, which Chris calls the great part of wade fishing, that direct connection with the environment. Walking a flat you can feel the difference between shell, mud, sand, grass, and the sand-shell mix, and that crunch helps you pattern fish that hold on an edge where hard shell meets a sand-shell mix. You also feel subtle depth changes, going from knee-deep to thigh-deep right before a hit, and even water temperature changes against your waders. Build a mental map of bottom, depth, and temperature, and you start to understand the bite.
Stealth and control. Wading removes the external factors of a boat, the trolling motor, hull slap, speed, and height off the water. His two legs are his power poles, so he can stop on a dime without any hull slap to spook conditioned, eight-to-ten-year-old fish that have likely been caught before. Wading lets him take variables out of the equation and approach those wary trophy trout far more quietly than he ever could from a twenty-one foot bay boat.
Because you can feel it instantly through your waders. When we wade for bonefish in Florida, the easiest way to know the tide has turned is the temperature, the outgoing tide is warm water that has been heating on the flat, and the incoming brings cooler water from the Gulf. It is like standing in a hot room when someone opens the door and cool air pours in. You glance at your watch, confirm the tide is moving, and even work out how far behind the nearest tide station your flat runs. You would never feel any of that from a boat.
Very few, and managing that expectation is part of the game. Chris has caught five thirty-inch fish in his entire life, and he has been at it a long time, while many anglers never catch one. As his friend Mike McBride points out, thirty-inch trout are about one half of one percent of the speckled trout population, which is why these fish are true unicorns. You have to mentally prepare that this is not an everyday thing and fish with confidence in your ability to read the water, knowing the payoff is rare and earned.
It is a citation program from The Speckled Truth for trout thirty inches and over. Anyone who catches a thirty-inch-or-better speckled or spotted seatrout can photograph it on a measuring device and submit the documentation through thespeckledtruth.com, and they send back a Dirty 30 certificate, a sticker, and a state sticker for where it was caught, signed by the Speckled Truth crew. As Chris says, you cannot buy it, you have to earn it. They collect the data to study these fish, their feeding habits and moon-phase patterns, so anglers can learn more and ultimately help take care of them.
Here are the steps Chris and I walk through. We cover the details and stories behind each one in the episode.
We unpack each of these in the episode. Press play in the player above.
Chris calls it the great part of wade fishing, the ability to feel that connection with the environment. You feel the crunch of shell, the give of mud, the firmness of sand, and those subtleties let you pattern fish on an edge you would never see. He explains how he builds a mental map of bottom, depth, and temperature in the episode, so press play in the player above.
Wading takes the trolling motor, the hull slap, and the height off the water out of the equation. Your legs become your power poles, and you can stop on a dime to approach a conditioned, decade-old trout that has probably been caught before. Chris breaks down why he prefers it to a boat in the episode, so press play in the player above.
I share how the temperature change against your waders tells you the exact moment the tide turns when we wade for bonefish, and Chris lays out the Dirty 30 program for thirty-inch trout. These are true unicorns, about one half of one percent of the population. We get into all of it in the episode, so press play in the player above.
So much of wade fishing is feel and patience, reading the bottom, the depth, and the temperature, and trusting your ability to put it together. Manage your expectations on the big ones and enjoy the connection to the water.
Chris Bush runs The Speckled Truth podcast, available on all platforms and on Instagram and Facebook. Go learn some special truths about catching these giant fish. Press play in the player above.
How 2 Tuesday is my weekly series where I break down one fishing skill at a time, from knots and casting to gear, tactics, and the habits that make you a better angler. Watch and listen to every How 2 Tuesday episode from Tom Rowland.
Chris Bush · The Speckled Truth · speckled trout · wade fishing · Sims waders · Laguna Madre · Texas · bonefish · redfish · Dirty 30 · Mike McBride · Black Rifle Coffee · How 2 Tuesday · Saltwater Experience
I'm Tom Rowland, a professional fishing guide based in the Florida Keys, host of the Tom Rowland Podcast, and the longtime host of the Saltwater Experience television show. On the podcast's How 2 Tuesday series I break down one practical skill or lesson at a time, from fishing technique and gear to the habits that make you a better angler, in short, focused episodes you can put to use right away.
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