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Hooking Up Anglers Since 2011.
It has been a chilly start to the winter season here in St. Augustine and Palm Coast, but cooler temps bring lots of good, such as clean water, negative low tides and happy redfish, for fly fishermen and light tackle anglers that can mean perfect conditions for some great days of fishing! This time of year is all about getting super shallow and seeing some very cool scenarios that redfish will put themselves into in order to feed, utilizing the shallow draft of my Hells Bay Professional we can make it to the backs of some very skinny creeks where the redfish like to hang out. On low water I have been finding schools of redfish working the banks and oyster bars of these creeks tailing, crawling and launching out of the water feeding on small shrimp and minnows, whenever I see this kind of activity a like to scale down my presentation to small flys or artificial lures to match the hatch and have found that it increases the amount of bites that we get.
Fishing for redfish or any other fish in shallow water is all about staying calm and being smooth, when casting everything needs to happen quickly but carefully to much movement will rock the boat and create pressure wakes that will alert the fish too your presents. This is something that is very overlooked when practicing your cast, shifting your weight back and forth is not helping your cast and is a bad habit.
Garret with a nice redfish caught on a small paddle tail lure.
Maddie with a redfish she sight casted out of a large school on a negative low tide in St.Augustine.
A quick accurate cast is important when looking for redfish in these shallow creeks, as the fish work up and down the banks searching for something to feed on, in some cases we only get a few second window to place a fly or lure in there sight. In this photo Shad is holding a nice redfish that was working a shallow mud bank he had a short window of opportunity to place a fly, making a quick cast without the fish seeing the fly enter the water he was able to strip the fly to the fish and make it his idea with a textbook shot Shad was rewarded!
This is a great fly for shallow water redfish it lands very softly in the water, and is subtle enough to not spook weary fish.
For light tackle anglers fishing in clear water it is very important to cast far enough beyond and lead the fish far enough that the fish does not see the lure make entry into the water it is a very important factor. Making it their idea is crucial to success in sight fishing, getting the bait in the fishes path and on the bottom before the fish sees it, as it approaches I like to lift my rod and slowly creep the bait once its in the fishes area of awareness.
This Fishing Report was submitted on 12/22/2024 1:31:08 PM by Seamus and last updated on 12/27/2024 11:02:26 AM.
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