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Marshes full of munchies

Grassy flats and tidal flow create the perfect grocery aisle for redfish

By DAVID A. BROWN
Published October 7, 2006

If you want to learn the basics of hunting inshore redfish, visit a salt marsh. Here you'll find countless case studies for virtually every major principle of this game.

Among them:

Food Factory: Redfish are gluttons. They love to eat, and they will hang around food sources like that one relative who won't leave the dessert table during a holiday party.

With muddy, grass-lined banks washed by daily tides and fertilized by coastal rivers and creeks, area marshes comprise highly efficient environments for producing bountiful supplies of crabs, shrimp and various invertebrates that reds crave.

Until shifting weather patterns shuffle the deck, reds will follow fairly predictable patterns based largely on where they can find chow. Learn to spot the food sources and you'll find the redfish.

Opportunistic Feeding: There's no such thing as breakfast, lunch or dinner for fish. They eat when they can. For example, when a strong wind piles baitfish against a marsh shoreline, you can bet the reds will find and exploit this smorgasbord.

Tides play a big role here, and redfish will maximize any advantage afforded by either end of the cycle. Low water concentrates forage species into tighter confines and the reds know their quarry has fewer options for escape. That means they can press forward and trap a school of finger mullet against an oyster bar or herd them into a stand of marsh grass sprouting from a sandy ridge.

Likewise, when the tide floods a marsh, it's like handing the redfish a step ladder. Their favorite target of opportunity: snails clinging to the upper ends of grass blades. Maximum high tide puts these tasty morsels at or below water level and reds simply can't resist.

Flood tides also enable redfish to snoop around within the grass for crabs and baitfish hiding within the vegetation. If you spot a patch of grass that is wiggling and shifting contrary to the wind, there's a good chance you'll find feeding redfish.

Texas-rigged jerk baits, weedless gold spoons and buzz baits are good choices for such scenarios. Just be careful not to plunk a bait right on a fish's head or it is game over.

Go With the Flow: The randomness of a marsh makeup inherently yields lots of twists and turns and countless avenues of tidal flow. Redfish that spend much of their time in this habitat know where each creek drains, so anglers should target these runouts during outgoing tides.

Tossing a jig or soft-plastic jerk bait into a creek and retrieving it through the tide-worn furrows skirting the mouth makes for a pretty good impression of a minnow or a crab exiting with the tide.

Corking a live shrimp in these areas also is effective, but a swift current will zip your bait through the strike zone pretty quickly. Threading a live shrimp tail-first onto a quarter-ounce jig allows you to bounce the bait along the bottom for a longer presentation. Just keep it moving, so the rig doesn't snag on oysters or any other bottom entanglements.

Where two or more marsh arteries merge into a single flow their combining momentum creates turbulent zones of noticeably strengthened movement. The water pushes over marsh grasses and scrambles like bustling shoppers elbowing their way through a crowded mall.

Redfish are powerful, but they won't expend unnecessary energy fighting a current. Instead, they'll lie along the edges of shoreline breaks, oyster bars or anything that diverts the flow, and pick off passing meals as they tumble into range.

Watch how the water moves. Look for where the tide has a straight run to pick up speed and note where it bounces off solid masses and redirects itself. Consider where a redfish's window of opportunity will occur and present baits accordingly.

Politics of Proximity: When redfish turn jittery - typically in clear water, or after other anglers have fished the area - you have to allow the fish a comfortable distance. Even moving around with a trolling motor will emit pressure waves that reds detect through their lateral lines.

Casting to your target area can be tough, but you'll do well by staying off the fish and letting the water do the work for you. Corking live shrimp or pinfish is a good presentation strategy. Just cast uptide of where you think reds are staging and let your rig drift down to the fish.

Redfish are bold, but they're easily startled, so stealth matters. A schooling species, reds typically are found in groups, so if one spooks, they all dash.

The challenge of fishing coastal marshes is numerous blind curves, dips and shoreline pockets make it easy to unwittingly stumble across a pod of fish and send them packing.

The upside is that the same scenario in which you found the fish likely will occur in several other spots within the marsh. Maybe it was a deep trough between an oyster bar and a grass line, or perhaps the fish were snooping around the edge of a grassy point.

Analyze what you saw, look for similar scenarios and approach a little more cautiously next time. The Nature Coast holds plenty of marsh habitat and there's plenty of redfish looking for their next meal.

[Last modified October 7, 2006, 06:39:52]