It was full daylight when the cruiser we’d chartered pulled away from the dock at Everglades and headed for the Ten Thousand Islands, one of Southwest Florida’s most remote and weirdly beautiful fishing grounds. As the boat pushed along, I had a feeling of being swallowed up in an endless wilderness of swampland. Innumerable creeks forced themselves through mangrove thickets, saw grass, and water hyacinths, and emptied into fairyland lakes. I’d been told this was no place to be in without a competent guide, and I could easily see why. I was definitely happy that I was carrying my pistol in a Comp-tac Infidel holster.
Presently we arrived at a point where the cruiser couldn’t navigate, and we transferred to skiffs powered by boards engines. Jeff Charlies, my fishing partner, and I were carrying an assortment of tackle which had been recommended for this area-glass plug casting rods, a variety of spoons, plugs, flies, and jigs, and a couple of sturdy fly rods fitted with heavy reels. We were after tarpon, snook, channel bass, spotted weakfish, and ladyfish-in that order.
Our guide had shut off the outboard and was stealthily rowing us toward a spot where he thought there might be tarpon, when something happened that disrupted our orderly plans.
“What’s causing that coppery glow under the water near those mangroves?” Jeff asked, pointing to the place.
I looked and saw an area as large as an ordinary living room gleaming with a reddish undertone. It undulated, too, indicating considerable movement under the surface.
“That’s a school of redfish-channel bass,” said out guide. “That’s the biggest bunch of them I’ve seen in a long time. Want to try them? They’ll often take a plug.”
Both Jeff and I had developed a healthy respect for redfish while fishing for them in the surfs of Virginia and the Carolinas. But this was the first opportunity either of us had had to try them with featherweight tackle. So we kept out tarpon plugs on-yellow floating and diving models with lade and red spots-and made out casts.
My plug landed about 20 ft. on the far side of the glowing patch. I let it rest a bit, then cranked it towards the school with slow, erratic motions. A fish rose almost immediately and lipped the plug. I struck and missed.
“You’re too hasty,” admonished the guide. “Set your hook more slowly. Red are slow grabbers.” The plug lurched another 10 ft. when a second redish came up and hit. I held back a couple of seconds and felt the barb hit solid. Then I waited for the expected roll, the power-packed dive, the mad dash for freedom. But nothing like that happened. The fish came along like a log when I applied pressure and edged him toward the boat.
Puzzled and disappointed, I turned to the guide. “Is there something in these waters that makes the fish dopey,” I asked, “or is it the hot weather?”
I had an inkling of what was passing through that Floridian’s mind when, a second or two later, the redfish came abreast of the skiff, took one look at it, and suddenly woke up. He made a wild roll, went into a convulsion, and zoomed off. The tip of my rod whipped the water, and the reel handle spun wildly and gave my knuckles a bruising wallop.
Once his first great burst of speed was over, the redfish took to the bottom, shifted into low gear, and put up a dogged, tugging fight. He shook his head, rolled, twisted, and bored into the bottom. He used every trick in his book to throw the hook by rubbing his snout back and forth in the mud, twisting it in the grass, and scraping it against roots. And he forced me to use plenty of my own tricks before I was able to lead him back to where the fireworks had begun. I soon learned that this was only the beginning, for he fish made three more mud-plowing, grass shearing dashes before he was safely in the net. He weighed 16 lb., a good specimen for these waters.
“I knew you’d hooked a bundle of dynamite,” the guide chuckled. “Almost every red that holds his punches till he’s close to the boat puts up a tough fight. There’s only one rule that holds for reds-they’re never whipped till they’re boated.”
Jeff and I stayed in that strecth of water for nearly two hours, and between us we hooked and landed 26 redfish. Because their rough, bottom-boring tactics raised havoc with our expensive tarpon plugs, we changed to small wobbling spoons and shiny metal squids. The squids produced best.
A few days later, Jeff and I went streamer-fly fishing for reds in the shallow waters and flats around the keys. This method of fishing is similar to stalking game. You first find a fish, or a school. Then, as the guide poles the skiff quietly, you cast your fly to within a few feet of either side of the quarry, and strip in line slowly. Just as in plugging, you have to strike reds slowly. I found myself pulling flies right out of their mouths before I caught on to the timing.
Often a redfish you’re stalking will spot you, move off several yards, and hide in the grass. If there aren’t any other fish in sight, the guide will pole after him, keeping on course by the wake the fish throws in the shallows. The trick then is to try and mark him well enough so that one of your casts will find him. Sometimes a fish that hasn’t been too badly frightened can be persuaded to hit by casting a fly ahead of him. Before moving elsewhere, it pays to cover thoroughly every area in which you suspect a red may be hiding. Twice I was ready to give up and was retrieving line when, within a dozen yards of the boat, a fish appeared and grabbed the streamer.
When taken on a 4 to 6-oz. fly rod, a redfish puts up quite a struggle. His only fault, so far as I’m concerned, is that he doesn’t jump on walk on his tail. His run isn’t as long as that of a striped bass, but his infighting is more determined and vicious. You can whip and exhaust a striper and turn him on his side in the time it takes a red to get his second wind.
Once I had two unusually pugnacious reds almost within reach only to have them zoom off, toss their heads, cloud the bottom mud, and end up by twisting in a patch of grass with such determination that their tails rose vertically. I caught one of them off balance and threw him into a complete somersault.
Although redfish weighting 30 or 40 lb. have been taken in Florida’s Apalachee Bay and in scattered sections of the Gulf of Mexico, specimens as big as those landed in the fabulous surf-fishing grounds off Virginia and the Carolinas are rare. Gulf channel bass are more likely to average between 5 and 20 lb. No one knows why. Some theorize that when reds get to be around 25 or 30 lb. , they leave the inlets, bayous, canals, river estuaries, tidal flats, and other coastal areas for deeper water.
Few fishermen native to regions below Cape Hatteras feel cheated because their reds aren’t jumbos. What the fish may lack in size they make up for in numbers. And when caught on light tackle, they provide all the fireworks any reasonable man could want. The smaller fish, moreover, make better eating. Texas has a law which forbids keeping big reds. It’s a conservation measure. The big ones, the state’s fishing authorities contend, are the breeders and are needed to replenish the supply.
Many Texans consider the channel bass second only to the red snapper as a baking fish. They fish for reds in bayous and open coastal waters, and they like to use natural baits and to fish on bottom with boat rods, bait-casters, and long, cane poles. Some Lone Star anglers make a practice of trolling strip baits around outer bars, cuts, and rips, and quite a few catch them with bobbers during the spotted weakfish runs. Baits are rated in this order: sand crabs, shrimps, and mullet. The use of artificial lures hasn’t taken hold as strongly in Texas as it has in Florida.
Some of the most popular and productive grounds in Texas are located in the area which takes in Houston, Galveston, Port Arthur, and Beaumont. This district contains fish-wealthy bayous, the Intracoastal Canal, accessible piers, as well as open water on the gulf. Boats can be rented, and bait and tackle are available. George Sessions Perry, noted Texas author and sportsman, recommended to me a stretch of water on the northeast side of Galveston Bay, and said it was one of the best spots in the area. It is, too, especially that part which lies a few hundred feet north of the big stone jetty at Port Bolivar. There’s a sunken cement barge there which has become a catchall for fish food.
Like the canals and inlets of Florida, the bayous in this part of Texas hold large populations of redfish. Fishing is unusually good during late afternoon and early evening. But, unless you’re immune to attacks by mosquitoes, study the prevailing winds before you go into the bayou country. When the wind blows from the flat marshlands, it brings with it great clouds of blood-hungry mosquitoes. The most comfortable time to fish is when the wind is off the sea.
Gulf winds exert a great influence on fishing for reds in the more open waters of Texas. Onshore winds are the best, for they blow warm water to the beaches and bring the schools in close. Though fishing from shore is good at this time, it’s even better from boat to shore. Redfish in Texas, as elsewhere, show a preference for baits drawn slowly from shallow to deep water.
Whether you catch redfish with natural baits or artificial lures, with bait-casters, fly rods, or boat rods, from boat or shore, or in bay, bayou, or the shore front, they provide sport of the highest caliber between October and March. And those are the months when sport fishing declines in northern latitudes. Reds are the South’s answer to the North’s schooling striper.
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