Reading what the water has to say, you may like it.

Reading what you may ask – the water of course.  What does that really mean to a fisherperson? Odds are it doesn’t mean much to some, some may not know how care, but if you do read on to find out what works for me.

It’s not as simple as fish this creek and around the bend there is an oyster bar.  Though that works and is successful but continued success takes a little work.  Work – nobody wants to work this is fishing it is suppose to be fun.  Working on something you like is a lot of fun and the success of the work is your reward.

We can talk about map reading and looking at google earth, but that is another story.  The meat of looking and reading water is done while on the water.  If I landed in your home water and was looking for redfish I would do the following:

• Hire a guide (just kidding)
• I would run my boat down a bank looking for a change on the bank.
• I would look for mullet and working birds
• I would look at the water

Let’s break each one of these parts down into a little more detail.

I would run my boat down a bank looking for a change on the bank

This is not buzzing a bank, its safely navigating a close distance to the shore.  You can do this a mile or so off the bank.  Watch the grass line, tree line and bank.  A change usually means a creek or a point.  A creek or a point is what?  Correct – an ambush point for large fish looking to eat smaller fish, shrimp and crabs.  Looking at the shore line or grass line can tell you a lot about a bank, whether its muddy, sandy and even if it’s deep or shallow.  Spartina grass with water up to it along the bank usually suggests a deeper flat.  Sand along the bank usually means – you guessed it sand on the bottom.  I’m sure you can tell me what a dark bank would mean, mud of course.

Sounds simple and it is…the idea is to locate habitat to support the food chain.  If you have a sandy bank with no grass on the bank or in the water on the bottom – there is no bait.  You can catch fish in these areas, but there generally just moving through to the next “feeding station” as my friend Capt. Ron Schurr says.  If you have spartina grass and a dark bank and maybe some oyster shells around you might be looking at something worth checking out.  An ideal bank to my liking would be spartina grass to the water and growing in the water with either a sandy bottom with grass or muddy bottom with shell. You goal is to find the food chain – grass and shell on the bottom is a place for small crustaceans and fish to hide, the larger fish want to eat and this place is like a food court to them.

I would look for mullet and working birds

You have now honed into a bank and decide to troll or pole in for a closer look, Its time to start looking for the second ingredient – bait.  The easiest way to find this is to look for “happy mullet“.  No – its not some guy dancing with a mullet, it’s mullet jumping or schooling.  A large school of mullet is easy to see from a distance.  Even though large speckled trout and redfish eat mullet, they still hang around each other.  The mullet cause the small crabs, shrimp and minnows to run from their hiding spots as they move through an area.  The redfish and trout lag behind looking for these fleeing morsels.  If the trout or red is big enough they can also eat a good-sized mullet if the opportunity arises.  I once cleaned a trout that had a pogy in it that was almost half the size of the fish.

Look for the resilient stance of the great heron – they are looking for the same thing as the redfish and trout.  Ospreys are a good indicator of fish – as well as seagulls feeding on the water surface.  All of the creatures are doing something for a purpose.  If they strike out and go home with nothing to eat, they go home hungry.  Learn to look for the critters. They are doing the same thing you are, but they do it every day and count on it for survival, no quick stop at the taco stand for them.

I would look at the water

This goes hand in hand with “I would run my boat down a bank looking for a change on the bank”.  As you idle into an area look at the bottom.  Is the water clear, muddy or what?  You need to know what’s on the bottom, if you can’t see it.  Take your rod tip and gently see if you can feel some grass or shell if you can’t see the bottom.  Safer on your rod, you could take a sinking lure, say a jig head and explore the bottom with a few casts.  You need to know what’s on the bottom in order to find that habitat that supports your goal of catching fish.

We could spend a few more paragraphs on this subject, but I don’t want to be to long winded.  Hope you find this information useful and informative.  Please feel free to leave a comment – I profess not to be an expert, but I like talking fishing and what has worked for me.