The Outgoing Tide Is Ringing the Dinner Bell

What's Biting

Redfish are active in shallow bays, marsh drains, and tidal creeks where water temperatures are climbing through the upper 50s into the 60s. Flounder are starting to show on sandy creek mouths, and speckled trout are nosing onto grass edges wherever bait is gathering. In freshwater, largemouth bass are beginning to stage near the first break outside spawning flats.

For the saltwater crowd, fish the last hour of the incoming tide and the first two hours of the outgoing. That is when the water has enough height to push bait onto the flat, then enough current to sweep shrimp and small baitfish past ambush points. Start around 6:30 in the morning if you can. The low sun makes shallow redfish easier to spot, and the first push of current usually beats the coffee to work.

The Main Column

My favorite early-season redfish rig is still a live shrimp under a popping cork, because sometimes the old stuff keeps working while everybody else is buying another box of plastic. Use a 1/4-ounce jig head or a 1/0 circle hook, 18 to 30 inches below the cork, depending on depth. In clear water, go longer. In stained water with a hard current, shorten it so the shrimp stays in the strike zone instead of touring the county.

Cast up-current past a creek mouth, let the cork drift across the seam, and give it one sharp pop every 10 to 15 seconds. Do not beat the cork like it owes you money. Most strikes come after the shrimp settles back down.

Last season, a ten-year-old girl fishing from the bow with her grandfather hooked what everybody assumed was a redfish. The fish peeled line, bulldogged under the boat, and then surfaced with a rubber dock bumper tangled around its tail. The bumper had been dragged off a floating dock, and the fish had apparently adopted it as jewelry. She landed the redfish, her grandfather got the bumper loose, and she announced that she was keeping the fish but not the “ugly hat.” Fair judgment. The redfish went back strong, bumper in the trash.

Watch for nervous water, flipping shrimp, and small mullet scattering across a flat. Ignore empty water that looks pretty. Fish need current, cover, and something to eat. Pretty does not count as structure.

Dock Talk

• Keep your drag light when using a circle hook. Let the fish load the rod before lifting.

• A falling tide muddies creek mouths first. If visibility drops below a foot, switch to a darker shrimp imitation with a rattling cork.

• Tactical advice: Find the narrowest drain feeding a flat, cast three feet up-current, and let the bait drift through the seam before making another cast. That little lane is where lunch gets delivered.