Reds: South Carolinas top 9 redfish destinations, and exactly how to fish them year-round
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Larvae feet on yolk in their egg sacks for several days until their internal organs develop, then they turn their attention to plankton. Shortly after they are hatched, tiny red drum ride flood tides into the nursery habitat of the coastal estuaries, where they grow to a quarter-inch in two weeks.
Reds: South Carolina's top 9 redfish destinations, and exactly how to fish them year-round [Dan Kibler] on bahana-line.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Editorial Reviews. About the Author. Dan Kibler, managing editor of South Carolina Sportsman Buy Reds: South Carolina's top 9 redfish destinations, and exactly how to fish them year-round: Read 7 Kindle Store Reviews - bahana-line.com .
The trip can be as long as 20 miles before they enter shallow creeks where they start to grow. Juvenile redfish live in the estuary for around four months and grow to around two inches before cold weather drives them into deep water in the main channel of rivers and creeks.
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Simply Reds: Fly-Fishing South Carolina’s Kiawah Island
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In reality, they don't see the fish; they see signs in the water that tell them fish are there. Pate believes reds are so keyed in on the crabs, when their scent begins to roll through the marsh, they think food, not safety first. He echoes the locations suggested by Dickson and Stacy and emphasizes the creeks and marsh just inside Tubbs Inlet, which has silted in and is no longer navigable. Probably the most popular artificial bait - and a favorite of guide Richard Sykes, is a jighead and soft-plastic Gulp! Recognizing a good, low-tide flat is a key to finding fish at all stages of the tides because that home-base, low-water location provides the jumping-off place for migrations into adjacent grass lines and up into high-tide feeding locations.
Other times you can cast for hours and never see a thing. But each little creek is unique, and has the possibility of holding belly-crawling, shrimp-gobbling redfish. A flood tide is the term for the highest high tides of each month. The food chain on these flooded flats goes something like this: The result is a unique and challenging visual fishery for three or four days on both sides of a new or full moon. Nor are redfish the only quarry worth chasing around Kiawah Island. On two consecutive mornings fishing with Irwin and Stemple, a black drum at low tide was my first fish of the day.
Black drum are a close cousin to red drum, but grow even larger, with a few recorded catches of more than pounds. Mine were both about 4 pounds, and were just losing the vertical dark stripes they sport as juveniles—markings that sometimes cause them to be mistaken for another Lowcountry specimen, the sheepshead. The state fish of South Carolina is the striped bass, but with stripers falling on hard times of late, visitors to Kiawah target everything from dorado to cobia to seatrout to sharks to amberjack to false albacore—even the occasional tarpon.
We saw several fishermen targeting sharks close to shore, but offshore options are also available, especially during summer months, when bluewater captains use bigger boats to target species like wahoo, snapper, grouper, tuna, mackerel and billfish.
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We caught redfish each day on both dropping and rising tides. Some were tailing in the shallowest water of a small bay, some were milling about near the mouths of creeks, waiting for the tide to rise, and a few bigger fish were found cruising alone or in pairs, looking for unsuspecting shrimp, crabs or glass minnows, or working the oyster beds, which they love. Nor is it possible without the eyes of a competent guide, which Irwin certainly is.
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To accommodate both inshore and near shore clients, he has an foot skiff for redfishing and other shallow-water endeavors, and a foot V-hull boat for trips to the ocean side of the barrier islands, when chasing migrating fish like dorado also called mahimahi or dolphinfish.
Come fall, flood tides in South Carolina can last longer than in spring or summer, which keeps most fly-fishers targeting redfish. But as temperatures drop during winter, crabs start hibernating, causing fewer redfish to feed on the flats during high tides. While this reduces the number of tailing redfish, it causes them to school up into larger groups.
Winter is when some of the biggest schools of reds can be found, sometimes along the beach, but also in the same marshes they occupy the rest of the year. Three great fly shops in the area—Charleston Angler in Charleston, Lowcountry Fly Shop in Mount Pleasant and Bay Street Outfitters in Beaufort—all have knowledgeable staff that can outfit you or connect you with a guide.
