There are winter over fish. They are eminently catchable. Josko knows more about them than anyone I know, and I share in his skepticism.
76 fish in 120 minutes is a pretty brisk pace at any time of the year, and there are some other howlers embedded in that "fish tale".
I am not quite as kind a soul as Josko -- I don't take pity on all winter-over schoolies -- but I do take it easy on the suicidal ones in that creek that gets the heavy pounding.
My guess is that the author did indeed have a fine day in January, that his southside estuary is really on the north side, and that the trout is...umm...oh, there have to be charitable explanations for the trout story.