We are in thaw mode here,hoping for an early spring.Creeks are running strong into the ponds and lakes.Open water fishing in a week or so.

I'll second that! I went down to the coast and linked up with Josh and Bulldog during the freeze. Our hope was to catch the redfish and speckled trout as they returned from the deeper and warmer waters of the Gulf into the warming flats to feed after several days without access to their normal food supply. It turns out that the speckled trout had not left the shallow bays, like the redfish apparently had, and we saw hundreds of dead and dying specks from the cold.

We did find a spot where the redfish were stacked up and caught over 30, several of which were in the harvest slot. Between us we brought five home to cook and released the rest. Great day, and although there were fiberglass rods doing the work, we fished with spinning gear, bouncing the bottom with good success. Mea culpa to the fly fishing gods..

Speckled trout kills from winter cold spells happen pretty often in the shallow sounds of North Carolina. Usually this happens after a fast moving cold front that makes the air temperatures drop very fast and in the shallow creeks. Luckily the speckled trout stocks rebound in those areas in a few years.