During the winter months last year I saw a large influx of young 12-15" redfish in the marsh. These are fish that have spent the last year of their life in the rivers and are now moving out to their new homes in the marsh. It's always great to see a lot of these young fish in the winter, because it means that barring a tough winter, the following season should be a good one. By the next summer, most of these small fish have grown into decent size quarry.
Although I saw a good number of these young fish in the marsh last winter, I have seen even more this winter. I have high hopes that this coming season will be the best one in the last few years. In some of the creek systems we've seen hundreds of drum in several schools, ranging from singles and doubles, to over a hundred in a school. Seeing these fish in a foot or less of crystal clear water is a heck of a site. We've had a lot of luck catching these fish on both spinning and fly.
Our water temps have been in the low 50's lately, but this week our unseasonably warm temps pushed the water up into the low 60's. I knew the warm temps would have the reds on fire, and with sunny skies and no wind this past weekend, it was a no brainer to go find some redfish.
The first creek we visited has been holding several hundred drum over the last two months. I have been very careful to not spook these fish and not hammer the schools and over fish them. I'm a big believer in catching a few and moving on...otherwise with too much harrasment the fish will move on. We've treated the fish well and because of that, we've had no problem locating them every time we've come back.
This past Saturday was a different story. I had Jason Barnes onboard and we entered the creek with anticipation. We spent about 30 minutes working through areas that always hold fish, but saw nothing. No blue tails, no pushes or wakes, no mud puffs. We finally found a few reds working bait but they never slowed down long enough to investigate our flies. We pushed on and found a red here and there, maybe 10 fish total in the creek. All but one of these fish had the same thing in common. Net marks...white banding around their neck where the monofilament cut through their scales and skin as they struggled to get free of the nets. The marks on these fish were obvious enough that on every fish we saw, we could spot the white cuts in them before we actually saw the fish. The week prior, none of the fish in this creek had gill net marks, nor had I even seen a net in the area. Obviously at some point during the week prior, someone netted the creek and took out the hundreds of fish that have been wintering there. Let me say, that I am not against commercial fishing, but the purposeful targeting of red drum for commercial sales is against the law. It really stings to know that the fish that you have followed for the last two months, can be taken out with so easily by one person with a gill net and no regard for the law. 
The following day I had the pleasure of having Kristen and Michael Cook on my boat. Kristen and Michael have a daughter and weren't able to find a babysitter so they made a request to have one of them fish and then come back half way through the trip to trade off places on the boat. We only had 4 hours and at least an hour of it would be spent running back and forth, so I knew it would be a challenge to get them both on fish. Fortunately I knew where the fish were, so it was a challenge I was excited about.
Kristen was first up and we made a quick run to the spot Jason and I found the night before. The water was so low that we had to spend a good bit of time poling through sections of water that we could normally run through without a problem. Once we got to the back of the creek, she jumped to the front of the boat and started pitching out a DOA shrimp. Kristen has been on several trips with me and although we've caught several species of fish, the redfish has been eluding her since last summer. Well not today...Kristen hooked up on her first redfish within five minutes of fishing. Although Kristen was super excited about finally landing her first red, I'm pretty sure I was every bit as excited watching the whole thing go down. Kristen is a pro and ended up landing about a dozen fish in the short hour and a half we had to fish together. Although it's always tough to leave happy fish, we called it quits and made a run back to the ramp to pick up Michael. 
Thirty minutes later I had Michael up on the front of the boat and casting the first fishing rod he'd casted in 10 years. He picked up on it pretty quick and before long was casting to redfish as they pushed their way through 8"s of water. After about 10 minutes Michael hooked into his first redfish ever and his first fish in 10 years. We stuck with it for about an hour landing around 5 redfish, and then snuck out of the creek with the last bit of daylight fading out of sight. We made the run back to the ramp in the pitch dark and arrived just as the flounder giggers were starting to line up a the ramp.
If you've got that itch to go catch some quality fish, and are holding out until spring, you are missing out on some of the best fishing of the year. These fish will continue to hold tight in certain creeks and bays over the next few months. We get plenty of decent weather days throughout the winter and those days can produce some of the best sight fishing of the year.
Capt John Mauser
