High Water Redfish

It had been a while since the last time I visited Eddie & Lisa at PAC Kayak Rentals, so I headed down there with Mark on Tuesday. I wanted to get reacquainted with these oh-so familiar waters.

After leaving Eddie’s, Mark & I headed north. He was on a mission to upgrade some CPR stats in the local club, I just wanted to catch fish. We headed through the well-known shrimp nets and immediately started trying to stay stationary against the incoming tide (This is where a pedal-driven kayak comes in handy). There were gulls everywhere and fish hitting the surface! We both started chucking topwaters hoping for trout. We got the trout, but also the needlefish and ladyfish.

After spending about an hour playing with the schoolies, we started for the marsh. It wasn’t much longer before we had separated and I started finding reds. They weren’t biting for me yet, but they were appearing.

I started the morning throwing a black & gold Curl-tail Jig by Buggs, but the reds were spooking from it. My initial reaction was to put something more subtle on, so I tied on a Click-bait Shrimp, also Buggs. It started getting some action. The water was high, of course, but the reds were floating just under the surface making sight-casting an option.

After a few fish on it, I decided to swap out to a lure I’ve seen plenty people catch on but hadn’t tried myself for reds. A Crawfish plastic. Specifically, the only one I had at the moment… a Crackin’ Craw by Cajun Lures. I have to say, I’m a believer now. There’s a few different versions that people have been using and they all look good: Cajun Lures, Shu-Shu Lures, and Matrix Shad’s Matrix Craw.

After putting that on, it was the only thing I through for the rest of the day. Every fish I threw it to ate.

By that point it was near noon, maybe a little after, and the thunderheads were starting to sound-off so I started back for the marina. I fished a little on the way in with no additional success.