First solo outing on the skiff went off without a hitch. Put in at Charlie’s at 8 or so and stayed close to home base, explored shoalwater and long island. Id never fished that, so, it was a scouting day. Well, that sounds good at least! Got pretty comfortable drifting and poling, fishing from the platform.
Saw a good 30 or so reds all in all, most of them in the slot probably. Water was a bit deep most places I went today.
On the bright side, I got my first ladyfish on the fly… this one ran and did a ton of acrobatics. Unfortunately she slammed the fly just before a redfish i was targeting saw it…
Don’t ask me for pointers! But it is always a nice day on the skiff. I just need to learn how to catch fish. Last couple trips have been very slow. I think casting from the poling platform probably spooked more than from the bow today.
Used an old bike tire tube for a pole leash like those recommended here and it worked very well.
Nice. Does your Sabine have the tunnel? What were the tides like this weekend? Heading back to POC on TUE and itching to get out and fish. Have been away for a week.
There was an extra foot of water in the bay and you could run everywhere even on a low tide. Until a north comes through, expect the water to remain high. There was an onshore east wind last week which pushes a lot of water into the bays.
I was down there for one day this past week on Wednesday. I fished a little further south earlier in the week and the water was insanely high. Residual tide like that causes the water to be murky in the shallow regardless of tide - it was hard to find clean water.
Kind of what I figured looking at the weather reports. ES Bay is definitely a wind-driven bay. East Wind in & West Wind out. Sounds like the redfish will be having a lot of places to hide….
Oh well, that never stops me from trying…
Thanks for the report. If it’s still that high on WED I will definitely do some exploring since places will be easier for my boat to get to….
I never liked high water over there. But there is some super cool stuff to get into when it floods. It just depends on if you get in there the same time as the fish. I caught more than one redfish on a road last year before one of the hurricanes. He was tailing down the tire tracks like it was a normal day.
I put my fly reasonably in front of easily 15 or so fish that day, but no takers. Using redfish crack from sightcast. Anybody have any clues?
I attributed it to fish spooking; all of my shots were 30 feet or less in deep (2’) water and ai was on the poling platform. The fly didn’t sink very fast, so in some cases they probably didnt see it. I know presentation is a lot of it. Just wondering if anyone has any other insights. Been having a hard time getting takers the last few trips out there.
The fish I found that day were eating small baitfish - lots were around, so I used a crack style fly with a good amount of flash. My typical crack flies didn’t work, but changing over to something more flashy worked especially with the murkier water due to the extra high tide and NE wind.
When they aren’t eating what myself or the person on the pointy end are presenting I like to change the fly and figure out what triggers them to eat it. Change size, type of fly, color etc until you crack the code. Sometimes all it takes is going to a more natural/ neutral color. Sometimes a hint of color for them to key in on (chartreuse, orange, lime green, blue, red, white) on the eyes, thread behind the eye or legs. Sometimes the sink rate needs fine tuning so try a lighter fly with no eyes or just light plastic or bead chain eyes or maybe heavier eyes to get it down quicker and in their field of view. I have noticed many times all of the fish we try to feed are super spooky and that can be attributed to too much pressure from shoreline burning boats or what we have right now in our area which is super high bull tides that they just act funky until we get a hard tide dump and they’ll revert to eating just about anything you get relatively close to them. I wouldn’t overthink it. I honestly think it’s more the bull tides right now than anything. We should get our typical hard norther blowing through around Halloween that will flush the back lakes and get them back in feed mode. There’s a common theme that the legendary Texas fisherman Mike “McTrout” McBride taught me. Fish of all types generally have three feed modes. Aggressive, Neutral and Negative. What gets them in these modes is a few things which are tides/ moon phase, bait, temperature, spawning etc. This seems like an overwhelming amount of information but just keep in mind the old KISS principle Keep It Simple Stupid! We are most likely going to fish no matter what so while we’re out there we should try to recognize what’s going on since we’re out there anyway and not one of the cherry pickers who only fishes when the conditions are “perfect”. Fish have to eat eventually so we need to recognize what feeding mode they are in. Right now they are in the neutral mode in my opinion which means if you want to catch them you are going to have to do more fine tuning your offering than you would when they’re in the aggressive feeding mode where they’ll eat just about anything. Give three fish a chance to eat a well presented fly and watch how they react to it. This is what determines who’s out there just flinging whatever fly or lure they have and hoping for the best and a well seasoned angler who has learned how to feed a fish based on thousands of days of observation and not just being out there drinking and listening to music and maybe getting lucky and catching a fish or two. If you make three good presentations to three fish that haven’t been spooked by the boat, a shadow, a school of mullet etc and they didn’t eat it try to observe how they react to it. Are they even remotely interested in it? Are they turning on it and inspecting it or are they avoiding it like the plague where they absolutely swim around your offering like it’s toxic? Adjust your fly and presentation every three until you notice a change. Maybe try dropping it way past them and way in front then barely moving it when it’s in front of them like they are spooking a bait out of the mud, grass or shell. Sometimes they get freaked out if you cast too close to them. If you recall how I taught you how to present the fly to your first two black drum try the same approach for the redfish. This is what makes this so much fun…cracking the code and tricking them into accepting your offering. I hope this helps!
I was focused on figuring out fishing while poling and didn’t change my fly all day ha. You Know what they say about insanity…
I’ll have to get used to experimenting more. I do have some untried patterns with more flash, and with crab legs, chartreuse colors. Thanks for the insight!
Always super helpful Mac - I didn’t change up my approach all day because I was mostly getting used to solo fishing. I did change my presentation and retireve several times. But stu k with the redfish cracklin I had on when I went out with you.
It is all part of learning. Definitely appreciate the input. Next time ill be ready to swap flies more easily. I cant afford to save it for perfect days! Im here for the chase too, and get out whenever I can!
Also shoalwater fish get run over a bunch. You’re fishing one of the most fished places in that whole area. If you hit them right after they’ve been run over they’re going to act snotty. I used shoalwater as a poor weather spot and would hit it on the way in after all the bait boys went home.
Generally you want a lighter weighted fly over that grass. Once the fly gets down under them they won’t be able to find it.
This. My MO for any fly is “three strikes and you’re out!”
Three good looks and no eats, it’s time to change. I’ve not changed flies for three days at a time before. I’ve also changed flies a dozen times during one day.
And important part of this is understanding their mood:
I learned how to read fish behavior from scuba diving, specifically, how to read sharks. Their back bow up and their fins point outward when aggressive. As I got more into sight fishing, I saw this same behavior.
A redfish that is actively eating exhibits more of a bow in their back and their fins are out. If you’ve ever came up on a fish that was casually cruising, you may have noticed their pecs fins out and their body at the gills seems wider. This is a fish that is eating and aggressive. Tailers and bait crashers are obvious, so this applies more to cruisers.
The opposite of this is Negative. Take away the bowed up body and collapse the fins - the shape looks more streamlined and rigid. The fish is conserving energy. I refer to this as “shaped like a missile” - they aren’t going to eat no matter what you do. I typically do not count against a fly in front of a negative mode fish.
Neutrals are hard to feed but can eat, they don’t go out of their way for a meal or may not even care about your fly. They may nose the fly, or nip at it. But they aren’t as bowed up or collapsed down either. I count fly presentations on this fish. I usually step down my fly size in this case and spoon feed them - right on the nose, slow little twitch strips.
Other fish also exhibit the same body behavior, specifically bonefish and tarpon. A bowed up tarpon is a great sight, but when they are collapsed down it is nearly impossible to get them to eat anything. Bonefish will have a very noticeable bow in their back that gives them an arch shape and their fins will be pointing out.
