Oak Island / Bald Head Island North Carolina Spring Redfish Behavior and Patterns
Ep. 192 Spring Redfish Behavior and Patterns
Jud and Mike sit down to talk about the behavior and patterns of Redfish in the Spring in Eastern NC
Bait preferences this time of year
Topwater Tips and Tricks
The benefits of changing it up
Spring Redfish: Feast or Famine
Jud: Mike, excited to be doing a legit podcast with you. Not just a PAteron exclusive ramp talk. Thanks for jumping on with me.
Mike: Yeah man, looking forward to it.
Jud: It’s been a while since it’s just been me and you, but if you do want to talk go to the Patreon Page and pull up the Ramp talks. We are going to talk about the Spring Feast or Famine. The time of year when you can have the most epic days ever and the most confusing days ever just based on transitioning fish, patterns shifting and changing and locations of fish shifting and changing which is something we see a lot. But it is also something that is exciting coming from a long lull of winter redfish and speckled trout, kind of beating up the same old areas all winter. Trying to fish to fish as little as possible, keep them happy. But Mike, how’s your spring fishing been so far?
Mike: You hit the nail on the head. This time of year is hero or zero for a lack of better description. You know, some days it’s not that you’re not finding fish or seeing fish, but other days you see 75 fish, had shots at them, but never got them to eat. I don;t know if its pressure or weather changes during the transition time, they are just happy some days and some days they are not. It’s just figuring out that balance, I fished four times last week with shots on four different days with the same groups of fish. The first few days, I watched them swim around baits, and by the 4th day I could get within 25 feet of them and we fed 5. It’s just there going through that spring transition, the water warms up and cools down, the pressure is all over the place as the storms come through and wind changes direction. The water is clean one day and dirty the next. The fish just have a lot of variables they are trying to overcome and work through everyday to decide if they want to eat or not.
Jud: That’s so true man. And this time of year you see that so much; on Monday and Tuesday, Monday was really cloudy. It was supposed to be windy but it stayed pretty calm and I had way more shots that day, than the following day that was warmer and sunnier. It was a cooler start, but with the amount of shots we had int he clouds, I thought the sun was going to be awesome. We fed on the fly yesterday, we probably had 15 shots, but 305 really catchable fish shots in the whole day. It was tough, 15 shots where we got to cast. We mudded a ton of fish, but a lot of fish are sitting deeper which is just one of the things you deal with this time of year. IF I can go out and get 12-15 quality shots, which means you’re seeing 75 fish at that point, and not just casting, but a quality shot is catchable fish. Then I feel like I can put my stamp on that day and feel good about. Some days you go out expecting that and they kick your butt. This time of year can be frustrating, but some days you can go back to the ramp feeling like an absolute champ catching 30 fish on top water or something.
Mike: There are days when they are happy and everything is just right. Whatever ticks the box for that day to make those fish happy, like you said, it can be one of those days where they are tailing in shallow and big groups just letting you get close and good shots, and you can put some numbers on the board really fast.
Jud: For sure, it’s the time of year when you and I talk about this on the podcast before and on PAteron, but it’s the time of year when hard baits can come into play. You can be throwing soft plastics, right on the bottom, but then you throw a top water plug and they absolutely crush it and don’t think twice about it. IF you’re struggling, don’t be afraid to try the top water plug. It’s the time of year that can be the little secret for them to try to chew, especially when they are still schooled up.
Mike: For sure and I was going to say the other thing is cadence, you know like two weeks ago I’d be like slow strip, tick tick tick, that constant speed and the other day I had one fish in this group tick tick tick, he followed it, but never pulled the trigger, but I told the guy big strip! And he jerked that thing two or three feet and that fish came out of nowhere and smashed it. So sometimes a cadence change. Same thing with top water, walk walk walk walk, try walk walk walk and stop it, almost like a Bass lure for something like a speckled trout. Pop pop pop, fish will come up look underneath it but as soon as it stopped and they didn’t hear it anymore, they’d come back and smoke it. Everyday they want something different. So be flexible and move with what the fish are giving you and it can make a huge difference.
Jud: It’s a huge thing. A couple days ago fishing some skinnies, they weren't spooky, they were flashing and floating and super happy but they wouldn’t bite a top water or a soft plastic. When you’re not getting bit, you think downsize or work it slow or make it really subtle. But sometimes what they want, that killer instinct they’ve got. We were fishing spin rods, it was little nedrig creature bait and we started ripping it quick at the right angle and the fish couldn’t be spooked, but if you could make that happen they were crushing it. That speeding up of the bait got the fish fired up for an hour. I was fishing slowly and letting it sit on the bottom, but finally ripping it was the ticket.
Bait Preferences this time of Year
Jud: What do you tend to find to be your baits of choice this time of year?
Mike: You know for me, topwater is one and the second is still just a 4-inch minnow. For me, I tend to like to be able to see my bait and really be able to have a little bit of range in color and weight so I will kind of stuck with that and I feel like I can keep less tackle, but still have a lot of effective range and movement throughout the day as I’m fishing. The next thing I’ll carry or keep on the boat is MR-17s in case that’s what I need for the day.
Jud: The merrilure is great when they are schooled up and not wanting a soft plastic.
Mike: For me, the last two-three weeks, I’ve been able to finally fish in the shallow and I have dropped to the ⅛ ounce, because this time of year it’s so hard to keep it in the right zone and out of the grass and algae, which can also bring frustrating to me as a guide and as an angler. You got so much algae starting to die off and flush out of the creeks that you’re not just contending with picky fish, if they are sitting in a foot and a half of water and you;re trying to keep that bait in the right spot, so I stick with the texas and eye and diesel minnow.
Jud: Oh yeah the Diesel Minnow is great and the way it falls slow and the tail kicks they really like it; you can fish it up there in the water column like you’;re saying and really be effective in a lot of different parts of the water column fishing up higher, letting it sit down low, dragging it across the bottom. You should check out our most recent youtube video is underwater slow-mo look at soft plastics to see where they shine and what their flaws were as a bait as a soft plastic. I learned a lot looking at that and being able to analyze. What sttof out to you?
Mike: I think how much movement the different densities and plastics have and seeing how many actually floated and how fast they sank. I was always under the impression that the diesel minnows would fall a little slower. But some of the denser plastics, their sink rates weren’t quite as aggressive as I thought they would be. That really stood out to me. I think that’s something I haven’t picked up on in the past. I always steer away from certain things because I think it’ll sink too fast.
Jud: That’s one thing I really learned with it, is the fact that if you want to fish a paddle tail, you should probably pick a plastic that does float. If it’s one that is not as floaty as like a z-man, if you will, it’s way less action and way less kick and paddle because that tail wants to resist sinking and going through water, so essentially the floatation is resisting the water. That tail is resisting moving forward, you get more kick and more action. The only soft plastic that would sink was the matrix shag. Some floated way more than others, and I wasn’t surprised but that Diesel Minnow has hands down the best paddling action out of bait. I could totally get behind and dense and sinking soft plastic as far as a flute goes. Or even a little john bait. Baits like that can really benefit from the denser plastic and being down there near the bottom; that’s what you’re trying to fish and stay down low.
Mike: Yeah, it all depends on how you’re fishing it and what water depth you’re in. Most of our fishing is sight fishing or at least when we are throwing soft plastics. We are looking for different characteristics than what somebody else might be looking for. They all have their place, but for what we are doing , that’s our best soft plastic right now.
Jud: It’s a good option for sure. It is very versatile. I swim it a lot but a lot of times I am just jigging it.
Redfish Behaviors Right Now
Jud: What did you find to be the behavior of the fish today after the last couple of warm days in a row?
Mike: Honestly, after yesterday I thought it was going to be one of those days where is was like a hit out of the ballpark per say, but it definitely was not. I fished up north yesterday and they have been sitting shallow. I went down south Saturday and I had a lot of good opportunities just picking apart areas with the trolling motor, so I wasn’t fishing the best way but just scouting and locating and it seemed like today they were just not wanting to be happy. Most of the fish were in two feet of water. The fish that were moving were looking for higher, moving water, which right now we’ve got really big tides right now so the water is getting super low and it seemed like once the tide dropped down past the normal low mark, they just slid off and sat in deep water so they weren’t super active. I don’t know if that is because it’s been the warmest day and the water got up to like 75-78 you know in some areas, so maybe it just got warmer than they expected. But I did also notice that we got one fish today. I opened up the stomach and I think they are sitting deeper because a lot of their diet right now is crab. You see a lot of mullet and stingray on the surface and grass shrimp, but it seemed like they were focused on fiddler crabs, mud crabs, blue crabs, it seemed like that was their diet focus today.
Jud: We have probably talk about this before, but it is going to take the fish longer to break the crab down, so you will almost always find crab in their stomach, but I don’t know what the actual break down time is for the shells, but always in the spring, there are always multiple mud crabs in their stomachs, but I have cleaned plenty of redfish back in the days where there are shrimp and mullet in their stomachs. The ones belly crawling down the bank are usually pretty loaded up with the grass shrimp. Mud crabs are a large part of their diet this time of year and so you often find them where those crabs live on hard bottoms, like oysters and rock.
Jud: Remember the mudcrab rig I was talking about for bait fishing? Like the reverse drop shot mudcrab rig; so for bait fishing trip, it can be tough in the spring, it can be tough to get fish to eat, once they break out of schools and they are transitions and the mullet aren’t on the grass edges they want to hang out around the oysters but you can put a mud minnow there. So I was thinking about a tear drop weight so essentially a drop shot rig, so a tear drop weight and come up the line about a foot and pop a mudcrab on a circle hook right there and run that up to float, so you could throw it over an oyster rig and then your mud crab is suspended over the oysters by 6-12 inches and he can hide and he is just sitting there where the redfish will find him. We need to try that this year as far as bait fishing goes. But we’ve got so much bait and live tackle that I can’t complain.
Bait Fishing and Sight-fishing
Mike: I was going to say, this year especially we’ve had a lot more fly and light-tackle guys which is awesome. I think for myself, I am going to try to open up a little bit more. I think it will be a good learning season for me. Spending that many more days focused in on different areas and expanding my horizons. I think a lot of time, we get a little stuck, you have a good idea of what’s going on, but this time of year it pushes you try different stuff and really move around and just looking everyday at something different
Jud: You can learn a lot about where the fish are hanging out. If I do end up bait fishing, most of the spots are because I’ve seen fish while polling.
Mike: The other day we tried to sightfish a little bit but the fish weren’t wanting to sit shallow, so we switched to bait fishing and the spots I found were because I have been finding them sitting there That’s the nice thing that it’s not just like finding fish now, but you're adding to your back pocket for later on.
Jud: What’s your anticipation, based off of what you’ve seen so far this spring, what do you feel like the season is going to be like?
Mike: There are already finger mullets here, and last year at this time I don’t remember seeing any. Even the bi mullet kind of seemed to disappear. There was a good push of fish in the marsh system, so I am thinking this year should be a good year. We got into May and it was good sight-fishing and the bait fishing just never really turned on. I am hoping this is shown that this could be one of those years where we have a lot of fish on the marsh. The fish will be here and it might be a slow ramp into it but it will start to pick up as we get closer to summer.
Jud: Just because you looked at something yesterday doesn’t mean it won’t be loaded next time you’re on the water so it is constantly checking and rechecking. It is a lot of networking, which is so helpful, it really helps everybody stay in the loop with what’s happening and where fish are and where they are moving and where they aren’t anymore. It saves us from unproductive fishing. Having multiple sets of eyes on the water and being able to keep track of everything.
Mike: Yes total time saver and it makes us realize they have moved on, so where could they be? And elimination of water is almost more helpful than finding new stuff.
Jud: The more water you eliminate the closer you get to finding the next best spot. It can be discouraging to check lots of stuff, but it is funneling down that map of where the fish are.
Mike: Every fish you find is another piece to the puzzle because this time of year there aren’t always patterns but there are things that you can find a pattern in especially in the next few weeks. As the fish start to ramp up the patterns get more consistent. IF you find two fish in similar spots, you can typically run with that pretty easily this time of year.
Jud: You can take it and run with it for sure. IT’s cool when that happens; it seems like they are on islands near the inlet and then you find them. So think about that when you’re looking at where to fish, a lot of fish winter in the ocean where there are more consistent temperatures and more bait, so as they are pulsing back in through the inlets and rivers, where are they going to hit first? Where is the current going to take them? They are creatures of habit but they are also victims of the tide. You can almost pick the spots before you even know the fish are there.
Other Fish Popping up this Time of Year
Jud: What else do you feel like we should update at least here in the southeast, Va, NC SC? What else is kicking off fishing wise this time of year?
Mike: We just had some Spanish off the beach so that’s exciting. We also get a good spring trout fishing bite, but it hasn’t been as good this year. It hasn’t happened yet, but we are still in that transition so it could still happen at any point. The other thing are the big blue fish, we definitely had a good fish about a week or two ago of bigger blue fish moving through the creeks in the 2-4 pound range. There is definitely a lot going on in the marsh, it’s coming alive.
Jud: Yeah for sure a lot of flounder coming in. Everyday I am spooking a flounder which is just a good filler right now. If it’s a tough day, catching a flounder will round you out. The spring Speckled-trout fishing in the southern part of NC is often overlooked. It is a great time of year to catch big speckled trout on top water. People are starting to think about redfish or stripers, but it is the prime time to throw a top water for 30 inch speckled trout. If I am not sight-fishing redfish, I am looking for a speckled trout.
Benefits of Switching up your Baits
Jud: Are you still a yasuri man on your top waters or are you trying anything new this year?
Mike: I’ll never fully put them down or step away from them, but I think I have definitely added some other stuff some Rapalla’s and other stuff like that. I really have kind of focused on the sizes of topwaters that I was throwing. I had one day last summer where I had a group of guys who wanted to throw it all day long and one guy was just throwing a massive triple treble hook scoop and that’s what got bit and I think that’s something as angler we get stuck on the bait we like, so I am adding some range to size of baits i am throwing especially as we get into later summer when those finger mullet are fishing that 5-inch mark and really stepping up to that big top water can make a huge difference. I still think I’ll stick with yasuri, they walk really easy even on some choppier days, but there has definitely been some stuff added to my box for the year.
Jud: Topwaters can be hard to fact check and test unless you're sitting on a school of fish and keep throwing different ones to see what they eat the best. It’s a longer test if you will. There are definitely some standards that ring true in the salt water world you know the 808 color which is the black, orange and gold, chartreuse is popular, red and white is popular, bone color, a lot of it comes down to cadence and the way it walks. That Berkley Cain walker which is a little spitting walker with a cup in the front of it, but more of pencil popper but looks like a northern type of striper lure, but shrunk down into t redfish style plug it’s a triple hook plug, but the trout really have liked that cane walker.
Mike: Trying different things, busting out of the box or your mold and doing something different. Sometimes it will surprise you with the results you get out of.
Jud: It was the hot bait that day for dang sure.
Mike: Yeah for a while now if he is still throwing them. And I think too just fishing an area that is heavily pressured or more pressured than somewhere else then having something slightly out of the box different, or not the thing that everybody is going to pick up, having something that’s slightly different whether that’s color pattern or something with spit or it chugs more, something like that is enough that the fish haven’t seen it a ton and are a little more willing to bite it or be more aggressive towards it.
Jud: Yes, changing it up a bit, in an area like we are, these fish have seen everything, but this time of year when they are a little spookier, changing it up is a great way to find success. But it is easier to just pick up what you are comfortable with and have always thrown. I like playing around with different top waters. I’ll try random ones out, but there are so many cool new shapes of top waters in the bass world, especially the Japanese baits, a lot of them are made with good hardware so you don't have to swap anything for saltwater, but giving them something different never hurts.
Mike: I think that stands true in our soft plastics too. I get stuck in a white on white on white especially in the winter, but I have to really go back and tell myself, go pick up a redbone or a Houdini or something more natural, that has a little bit of flake or color, pinfish color or something because the fish have seen the same white paddle tails five times in the last 2 weeks or whatever.
Jud: Yeah for sure, there are the tried and trues but switching it up sometimes helps. I think that’s a good wrap up of our spring look at redfish and an encouragement to not be discouraged if you get out there and check some new stuff and it doesn’t pan out. That’s just a piece of the puzzle that just gets you closer to find your next good spot. Any other words of wisdom to leave them with?
Mike: I think you summed it up pretty well. Try something different and don’t be afraid too.
Jud: Thanks for checking us out; don’t forget about our ramp talk podcast on Patreon too. See y’all next week.