# Thawing Out With Redfish



## karstopo (Jun 29, 2009)

Itâ€™s hard to believe we had snow in the air and on the ground Friday considering yesterday, Saturday, was spectacularly sunny and relatively warm. I took a look at the tides Saturday morning and they looked promising. The wife and daughter #2 were in the Christmas shopping and gift wrapping frame of mind. Guess I better get out of their way. 

Two trucks at the ramp by the time I got there at one and zero boat trailers, zero, gosh, I love this time of year. I paddled in the clear water marveling at the soft bottom dotted with burrows and signs of the the creatures that call the mud home. But nothing living was showing in the water column. Paddle until you find bait is the sure fire cold season formula for finding the predators. 

It didnâ€™t take long to find the sign. A few mullet were hugging the shallow oyster shell. They seemed nervous. Good, nervous bait means something is making them nervous. Out just a few feet in marginally deeper water was a mud boil. Mud boil means redfish. Cast there. 

Now I should say I had on a size 6 beaded chartreuse hackle black marabou woolly bugger. This fly has been great out on the lake for largemouth bass and catfish and I have wondered how a redfish might see one. A redfish will eat a woolly bugger. I did find that out. Twice, one took the chartreuse and black bugger and another took a yellow and black. But the woolly bugger wasnâ€™t a Prime redfish fly. I passed the yellow one right in front of a nice red just off my bow and got a big yawn. Experiment over, I put on a more proven redfish pattern, the redfish crack, in Black and Tan. 

The crack did well. That got me my biggest fish, a 7 pound brute that wrapped itself around my stake out stick before I finally subdued it. It took another 21â€ fish I didnâ€™t weigh and some near slots. I lost that fly and a carbon copy so I went to a shrimp fly. The fish went crazy for the shrimp. I stopped counting after a couple of dozen fish. Too bad there werenâ€™t many bruisers in the mix, I did lose a good one, but everything else seemed to be in the 15-18â€ zone. The setting sun drove me in, but I definitely left them biting.


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## Ish (Oct 30, 2008)

good job! nice report. thanks for taking the time to put that together. what boat you using?


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## karstopo (Jun 29, 2009)

Ish said:


> good job! nice report. thanks for taking the time to put that together. what boat you using?


WS Commander 140.


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## Permit Rat (May 13, 2014)

Wow....great going! And with water temps dropping as you were fishing!

I have been wondering about the prospects for redfish during the Winter months down here. I always figured they'd be hunkered down in deep holes right about now, along with the snook. Was getting ready to put up the skiff for Winter and head to Mexico!

Fact is, I really don't know that much about reds. I have only fished for them during the Summer months and at that, I'd have to trailer up to at least the Everglades, after the guiding season was over in the Keys. I guess I need a tutorial!!!


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## Ish (Oct 30, 2008)

Permit Rat said:


> Wow....great going! And with water temps dropping as you were fishing!
> 
> I have been wondering about the prospects for redfish during the Winter months down here. I always figured they'd be hunkered down in deep holes right about now, along with the snook. Was getting ready to put up the skiff for Winter and head to Mexico!
> 
> Fact is, I really don't know that much about reds. I have only fished for them during the Summer months and at that, I'd have to trailer up to at least the Everglades, after the guiding season was over in the Keys. I guess I need a tutorial!!!


in the winter they're usually over thick, black/dark muddy bottoms. you usually won't find many over sand in the winter, unless there's a bunch of food on the sand.


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## karstopo (Jun 29, 2009)

Winter is my favorite time mainly because the crowds thin out and because the fish get concentrated. Plus, the water gets clearer in a lot of places. And itâ€™s not blazing hot. Lots of good stuff about a Texas winter.


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## Outearly (Nov 17, 2009)

Karstopo- are you sitting down or standing up in your yak? I tend to have a problem seeing reds sitting down. Just wondering- good post. 

I'm thinking about experimenting some more with with woollies- maybe a monster white one.


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## karstopo (Jun 29, 2009)

Outearly said:


> Karstopo- are you sitting down or standing up in your yak? I tend to have a problem seeing reds sitting down. Just wondering- good post.
> 
> I'm thinking about experimenting some more with with woollies- maybe a monster white one.


I didnâ€™t make any casts while sitting and did most of my scouting while standing. Once I got in a zone where I was seeing fish, I stood the whole time until I got a fish on then I usually sat sometime during the fight. I have trouble seeing them while sitting although the bench seat helps a little. I did most of my scouting and casting while staked out. See a fish, try to get into position, stake out, cast, get a fish or not, move a little, repeat. I did a lot of staking out and just watching. Fish werenâ€™t in that mass roving school impossible not to see them mode like the earlier in the fall type of stuff. Most of the fish would just circle around in a small area instead of just marauding along destroying anything in the way. I had to be a little patient and see what developed. It wasnâ€™t flat calm. Mud boils were the best pointer to where they were. There wasnâ€™t an abundance of bait to confuse the signal and especially no big mullet. The lack of bait really helped me to hone in on the reds.

At the end in the last hour, the fish got hard to see in the failing light but they were holding close to a reef and it was just a matter of tossing a weighted pattern over against the reef.

I sort of donâ€™t like casting while sitting. Iâ€™ll cast from a kneeling position in a canoe. I tried to make a flat deck for my Commander. The deck worked, but raised the center of gravity just a little and that really made it feel unstable. I wouldnâ€™t be in a kayak that I couldnâ€™t stand comfortably in, not any more.


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## karstopo (Jun 29, 2009)

The Black and Tan are like the one I used that got the biggest fish. I tied up a few replacements along with some other colors. The Black and Tan and all black ones have a collar of purple eyelash yarn under the collar of black EP. I pick out almost all or all the flash in the tail to use in clearer winter water, but will usually tie some flash in to have if the water is more muddy.


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## southpaw (Feb 25, 2009)

Where you been Karstopo? Been missing your reports and this one is a great one per usual.


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## karstopo (Jun 29, 2009)

southpaw said:


> Where you been Karstopo? Been missing your reports and this one is a great one per usual.


I moved to a house on a lake. I've been casting Buggers and other fluff at bass, grass carp, tilapia and cats.






























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## Fishsurfer (Dec 14, 2014)

Sweet. Nice report!


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## karstopo (Jun 29, 2009)

Put an olive crack into action this afternoon . Fish were getting after the bait up shallow on an incoming tide. Whiffed on plenty, but got 2 to hand including a 10 pound 29" mini bull.






























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