The big speckled trout have arrived with the cold. All of the inlets are loaded with big specks.The best bait is live shrimp. If you can't catch live shrimp, try a mud minnow or mullet. Many places have live shrimp for sale for about $6 a dozen. You can go through a lot of shrimp so buy several dozen to feed the bluefish and pigfish along with the specks.

Best inlets are Masonboro, Topsail, Beaufort and all the areas at the Cape Fear River mouth. Find the rocks and other hard structure such as seawalls, oyster beds and pilings in deeper water and you will find the specks.

A great new lure is the Berkley Gulp Ripple Mullet. Use a color that has the green tail. These lures have better action that the older style BG lures with the exception of the Goby. But the Ripple Mullet has a more durable tail than the Goby.

The fact that anglers can buy live shrimp and use these excellent new scented lures is one of the main reasons the NCDMF has increased the length limit for specks to 14 inches and reduced the bag limit to six fish. Recreational anglers who don't know how to catch live shrimp for winter fishing can now get in on the action.

I remember when only a couple of anglers ever fished through the winter. Now, few anglers "winterize their boats. Instead, they continue fishing for specks until the water gets down into the 40s.