For the most part, fishing has been a blast throughout Jan-Feb with some great catches of Redfish. Some days the fish have been pretty sluggish and lethargic, and other days the wind has made sight fishing difficult. One day we actually had some sort of small microburst come though the marsh and spook all the reds, it almost looked like a big school of baitfish moving over the water.
I have been using mudminnows and gulps on average days, fiddler crabs on the cold slow days, and on the warm days with active fish it seems like anything will work, including small gold spoons that otherwise might spook the fish. I saw some nice 28-30″ reds busting topwater with this recent nice weather and got them on the flyrod (I’ll post another entry soon with video footage).
Dolphins have been fun to watch, but frustrating at times when they come up and spook the fish. You may not want to give up hope though when they come, I poled up on some dolphins working the reds and as soon as the dolphins moved off our group landed 18 reds in about 45 minutes! These fish had been chased by dolpins just moments before!
In the winter I really like to play the wind to my advantage and fish flats that are in the lee of the wind. Also, I work the flats slowly and keep an eye out for swirls rather than relying on actually seeing the fish. There isn’t much bait around right now so if you see a swirl there is a good chance it’s a spot tail!
