Late Spring Surf Reds

Redfishing in the marsh is one thing. Sight fishing reds in the surf is another totally different game. These fish are usually bigger, stronger, yet just as spooky as their dark water relatives. I have been on some reds this spring off the beach and have been fishing them when conditions allow. It is very exciting throwing big baitfish patterns at these pretty pink reds, and there is always a chance at an excellent fish out in the surf. It has been decent so far this year, and it should only get better as the summer progresses.

Little guys eat big flies too

Afternoon Low Tide Success

With a good low tide about a couple hours before sunset, my bud Kevin and I hit the water looking for some reds. Since the water was still a bit high when we launched I made my way over to some higher flats that get bone dry at low. I found some reds working their way out of the grass and was rewarded with a nice 22" fish on the Abomination.

 We fished our way out with the tide and found a few more reds working as the tide fell. Kevin connected with one as I watched and told him there had to be a red sitting in a creek mouth.

Kevin and I split up, and I switched flies to a darker pattern as the water was a little turbid once the tide turned. I ended up finding some very nice reds working a bank hard. I made my way over to them quietly and was able to put a good cast over an oyster bar on one of them. I got the fish to eat on three seperate occassions, but could not get a good hookset because my line was laid up over the bar. This fish got wise to my tricks and I found another over slot red super shallow working some oysters. My first cast in to the fish was met with an explosive strike. It was a pretty precarious spot, wedged in between several jagged oyster bars, and the fish took me straight into one and cut me off. I was devastated, as the fish was well over 30", and I only get a handful of shots at fish like this a year. Hopefully this year will be different and I will meet him again soon. 

5-15 & 5-16 Flood Tides and Topwater Trout

After a couple of early flood tide scouting missions without much success, mid May finally brought some luck in the form of red gold in the grass. I found a nice spot to wade earlier in the year, and decided to give it a go during an evening flood. I found a pretty good fish working lazily in some thick grass and made a couple of casts to it before he finally decided to cooperate and swim towards the fly. He launched out of the water trying to get my fiddler imitation as it hung on a blade of grass. After he missed I picked it up and put it right back in his face and he ate. This was my earliest flood tide red to date...

I found one more nice red tailing on the edge of a big flat as the water began to fall and fed him the fly, only to feel the tell tale pop of a parted leader upon the hookset. I wasn't down though, getting them to eat is half the battle.

The next morning I ventured to a new area with a buddy who had been on an amazing topwater trout bite. It did not dissappoint. The fish were pounding bait on the surface right after sunrise, and most of them were solid trout. We ended up with around 20 between the two of us in a couple hours work.

Spring is quickly turning into summer and the fishing is heating up fast.



April 2011

March and April 2011 seemed to run together. Beside being extremely busy with work, and having the desire to hunt some spring turkeys, fishing took somewhat of a backseat. I was able to get out a few times throughout the month, but most of the good tides fell on inopportune days. Most of my fishing in April was at night. We still had some great trips, and I caught my personal best trout on fly, somewhere over 25" (I say somewhere because she slipped right out of my hands as I was measuring her, and I couldn't get a picture). I can say conservatively that my fishing partners and myself caught upwards of 150 trout this month on fly. So, I hunted, fished, and tied flies when I could. I gave the redfish a break, and had a pretty good month....

March Tides

With a nice warming trend, and steadily warming water the reds began to show themselves a little more in March. Surprisingly, I found some good fishing on morning tides. It seemed the fish were holding off on feeding hard until the low had come and the water began moving in. I did catch plenty of fish on the outgoing side of the tide, but it was bump and stop fishing. The real sight fishing occurred on the incoming tide when the fish worked the banks. I saw the first backing fish of the year early in March, and was rewarded with several throughout the month.

The fish on the outgoing tides came blindcasting areas I know to hold fish. Most of them were in that 22" to 24" range, but I did find a few nicer ones every once in a while. I came up with a new fly last fall that served me well in late 2010, and although I'm not one to name a pattern, especially when its modelled so closely after one of someone else, I began calling it the Marsh Demon. Its black and purple, has a good profile, and pushes some water. Its a great pattern for my neck of the woods because of our dark bottom. If my fishing day begins early, and low light prevails, its the fly I have tied on, but I have caught fish throughout the day on it. I primarily used this fly in March for blind casting duty, thinking it would show up better than a more natural colored pattern in the dirtier outgoing water.

When the tide switched and the fish became more active, I used an Abomination or some other light colored pattern to sight fish. It worked well, March was a great month...

The Warm Up Begins - Feb 2011

We had some very nice warm days in February, so against my better judgement, I left the trout and went looking for redfish. I got a nice new reel for my ultra-light rig and loaded it with 4lb braid. I knew where some reds had been hanging, so I made my way in there, set up and waited. It was a mid-day low tide, so the dark mud bottom had a chance to warm up a few degrees, which in turn warms the cold water coming back in on the incoming tide just enough to get the fish somewhat active. Sure enough, the reds began feeding gingerly, and I got a shot at one that came up on the oysters to feed. As soon as I threw the DOA in there the fish ate. It was a great fight on the ultralight line. Unfortunately, a local bait-chucking guide came in the same creek and ruined the bite. The cherry on top was when he asked me if I saw all the reds he just spooked. Yes I saw them jackass, but thanks for making sure. Anyway, I got my redfish fix, and got a good fish on the light rig...

Early 2011 Trout Madness

Well, with winter temps set in, the reds had pretty much gone dormant. The few months of the year that they don't move are the worst for me. Being a kayak fisherman, you lose your sight fishing ability when the fish are laid up and not moving. No more tails, no more wakes, just lazy laid up redfish that you didn't know were there until you run them over and are left with a puff of mud. To make things worse, they bunch up, so there's no mistaking what you just spooked, it was a pile of redfish. So, what to do?

Hit some deep water creeks and fish for seatrout. At least they are good to eat. All kidding aside, this is something I have been wanting to explore for several years now. I always postulated that a sinking line and a heavy clouser minnow would be effective at catching these winter fish. My strategy was to throw a jig on the spinning rod to find them and then drill them with the fly once their area had been identified. It worked, and we had some great days. Most of the fish were cookie-cutter 14.5" fish, but we usually managed more than enough trout within the slot to take home. We had some awesome days with over 50 fish, and although they weren't all like that, we caught fish using the sinking line technique every trip out. I tied up a modified clouser in pink and yellow that really worked well...

Some other colors worked as well, from black to white, but nothing beat the "funky chicken". Here's another color scheme that caught a few...

Every once in a while a rat red would join the party, as they often do. I guess the big reds don't like them around, and they find a more friendly environment with the trout...

Once in a blue moon, on warm sunny days, you could find slot reds repositioning on the bank, but it was a right place, right time kind of thing...

We did run into some good trout on occasion, and felt obliged to take a few home....

It was a fine diversion while waiting for spring to break, and I can't say I was unhappy about doing so well on the trout. I picked up a new technique, and am ready for winters to come. Hopefully there are more facets to this type of fishing to discover. I think there probably are.

Early Winter Snookin' - December 2010

The snook is a fish that has vexed me for quite some time. I have tried to catch them in the past in all ways possible. I've been with others when they caught them and I didn't come away with more than a sniff. It was a fish, I had heard, that feeds sporadically, is super picky, and that you're lucky to catch once you finally break the seal and hook one. They live in rough places: mangroves, docks, places with swift current and plenty of line cutting structure. Even their bodies destroy tackle. They have gill plates like razors, and even the little ones are strong enough to get back in the structure from which you pulled them. So, of course, when a buddy asked me to go on a snook trip I was game. And I was going to do it on fly.

I had scoured the internet for info, looked up fly patterns, and read as much as I could about catching them. I was convinced this was going to be it. And it was.

I travelled south from Jacksonville along Florida's east coast in December in the midst of an incoming cold front with my brand new 9 weight rig and a box full of tiny flies. We were going to fish the docklights, and I was assured of success. I didn't know what I was getting into, but I thought I was ready.

The first snook I caught was on a DOA shrimp, being that I wasn't completely ready to jump in completely with the fly rod, but once I got the monkey off my back with that first snook, I put the spinning rod away and kept the fly rod out for the rest of the trip.

Snook are nocturnal feeders; they love to congregate under bright docklights because of the proliferation of small baitfish they attract.

The first time you see fish busting in the shadows of a lighted dock, and the shrimp and small bait running for their lives, you know its a sight you won't soon forget. The key though, is to present your bait as naturally as possible. Baitfish do not have the strength to swim against the current that gamefish do, so consequently, the snook know they have an easy meal that the current brings to them. A fly, or any type of lure for that matter, that moves against the current will be ignored. You may get a follow, or even a short strike, but the fish know its odd. The best way to catch any fish in this situation is to fish your fly with the current, with as much of a drag free drift as possible, much like trout fishing in freshwater. Anyway, once I figured this out it was game on.

The trip went great, and we came away with more than enough snook, considering the quickly dropping water temps. We caught it right before the bottom dropped out. Reports after our trip stated the fish were lethargic, and uninterested in eating. I finally accomplished something that I had failed to do in the past. Snook on the fly...

Fat Snook

Lookdown Jack (Fly Thief)

Biggest fish of the trip - 26"

Tarpon Snook

Fish of Fall 2010

Autumn is my favorite time of year for a lot of reasons. Florida is hot, but we get a bit of a reprieve in the fall, and as the temperatures begin to drop, everything kicks into gear. I don't think you could say we have harsh winters down here, but to animals who have evolved in this climate, any temperature change is going to have an effect on their behavior. Water, unlike air, takes a while to cool off, so cooler air temperatures do not necessarily mean cooler water. It takes a pretty good flush of cold air to drop the water temp any noticable amount. But the annual cool-off signals the coming feast.

Once the water cools a bit the fish start to feed more heavily, as their cold-blooded metabolisms kick back into gear. September is usually the starting point for this cool down, and the fishing just keeps getting better until the cold of winter finally decides to set in for good. 2010 was a good fall. It cooled off rather gradually, and the fishing remained good through the middle of December. Flood tides, low tides, and the surf all produced fish for me last fall. I'll outline below just how good of a fall it was....



A beautiful autumn sunrise over the marsh



This big red ate a topwater plug on the edge of the ICW in September

Not a fiddler, but I'm sure he shared a similar fate when the water came in.

There are low spots in the spartina marsh that flood first. The reds tend to stage in these areas before foraging farther into the grass.

Sunset red

Watch those edges on the falling tide after a flood, the reds cruise looking for fiddlers before departing.

Low tide

A bright ocean red from the surf.

Jacks run down the beach as well, following the mullet that come through in the fall.

My third red of the morning, right at sunrise.








Evening red on the Marsh Demon



Released to fight another day.

Bright skies and tailing reds don't usually coincide, but when they know winter is on its way, reckless feeding ensues.



The Abomination



COLD December morning red, had a little ice on my guides this morning. Not typical.

A pack of reds feeding up the bank. You could see them from hundreds of yards away this morning.

My last Northeast Florida red of 2010.