Stalking the flats for redfish

By PETE KATSARELIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 15, 2000

Perhaps the best part of flats fishing is watching it all unfold in front of you.

The cast, the presentation, the anticipation and finally the strike.

No local species gives better sight-casting opportunity than the redfish.

To find these fish, try looking during evenings, when the last couple hours of sunlight are marked by the first of the incoming tide. In the summer, these time periods will be right around the full and new stages of the moon.

Ideal setups for these reds would be 8- to 12-pound test on a seven-foot or longer rod. The extra length of the rod adds valuable feet to your cast, which sometimes makes all the difference in the world. Since the fish will be in open water and they have no real way of breaking you off, 20-pound leader will work just fine, though I sometimes use 30 because of the occasional snook bite.

For bait, try using top-water plugs, weightless, weedless soft plastics, jumbo shrimp, greenback or ballyhoo.

Dead ballyhoo is by far my favorite bait because of its easy and accurate to cast and because of its versatility.

Rig the ballyhoo by simply breaking off its beak and sliding a 1/0 or 2/0 hook through its mouth and out the top of its head.

To work it, keep your rod tip high and reel the bait over the top of the water. This will create a skimming action, which is the ballyhoos natural behavior when its scared.

When a fish gives chase, just stop your retrieve and wait for the inevitable bite.

Concentrate your search in areas where the water is about 6 inches to a foot above the top of the grass. Since the water is so shallow, a slow, silent approach works best. Though poling in on a skiff allows you to cover more area, I've found that wading usually allows you to get closer to the fish.

Redfish have quite a few shallow water mannerisms. The two that work best for sight-casting purposes are tailing and following large stingrays.

Reds are predominantely bottom feeders. They root around through the bottom of the grass looking for shrimp, crabs and other small crustaceans. As they do this, their bodies are positioned vertically, and in shallow enough water, their tails are exposed. The blue-edged tails seem to act as flags marking the fish. This behavior is called "tailing."

To present to a tailing fish, try to determine which way the fish is facing. Usually it will be the same direction as the tide. Make a cast well beyond the fish so that upon retrieval, the offering will end up about three or four feet to the directional side of the fish.

Another redfish behavior is following stingrays. Large rays scare up shrimp, minnows and other forage. The redfish patiently swim behind them, gobbling up whatever the stingrays stir. I've seen as many as eight reds following a single stingray.

To present a bait to these fish, make a cast so that your retrieve brings your offering directly across the ray. If a redfish is following, it'll usually pull off the ray and strike your bait.

Sometimes it seems that targeting reds in shallow water is more like hunting than fishing. Stalking through the grass flats, waiting patiently for that perfect opportunity to send a precision cast to your quarry, builds up anticipation and excitement that seems nearly unbearable until it comes boiling over in a crimson flurry.

Capt. Pete Katsarelis fishes out of Tarpon Springs and can be reached at (727) 439-FISH

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