Redfish on the Fly- A Comprehensive Guide

Acknowledgements

I want to thank all my fishing buddies through the years, especially Steve Baker. The flow of information both ways with all of you has been a continual source of joy.

I'd like to thank every guide I ever fished with, especially all the ones who helped directly with this book. :-)

I'd like to thank my family, especially Susan, for their inexhaustible patience.

And of course I'd like to thank you, reader. Without you, why bother?

Foreword

The print version of Redfish on the Fly was published in 2007. It sold thousands of copies. But print books don't sell like they used to. Just ask Books-A-Million.

I've used the process of publishing Redfish on the Fly as an ebook to revise and update the text.

The only guides listed in this edition are those whom I’ve interviewed, and often fished with. Fly shops are listed, and both they and the internet make finding good guides a fairly simple process.

No book will in and of itself put more fish on the end of your leader. I fervently hope that this one will be a valuable aid to that end. Best of luck to you as you fly fish for redfish.

John Kumiski

Chuluota, Florida 2015

The Copper Coated Crab Cruncher

by John Kumiski

The copper coated crab cruncher

just crunches crabs all day.

He’ll also eat some shrimp and fish

to while his time away.

You’ll find him sometimes tailing.

Sometimes he just sits still.

Sometimes he keeps a-cruising,

hoping his belly to fill.

He’ll sometimes be all by himself.

Other times he’ll be with friends.

No one can say why he does what.

On him it all depends.

They come sometimes as little rats.

They come as big bull reds.

I’d rather see them live and swimming

than in someone’s cooler, dead.

I catch them while I’m wading.

I catch them from my boat.

Some days I catch none at all.

But always I have hope.

I catch them with my spinning rod.

I catch them with my flies.

No matter how I catch them,

It almost gets me high.

I really love that redfish,

though he’s a simple beast.

Spending a day where redfish live

is a wonderful sensory feast.

I know this is a silly poem,

but then, I’m a silly boy.

One thing you can be sure of though.

Redfish make me jump with joy!

Prologue

A thin mist, tinged pink in the early morning light, rises from the still water. Along the shoreline ambles a raccoon, searching for crabs. He spots one and pounces, and the sound of sharp teeth crunching shell carries across the water, clearly audible to two anglers in a nearby boat.

A great blue heron stands almost motionless at the mouth of a small stream, waiting for a careless mullet to swim into range. Before long one does. The bird strikes like lightning. The fish quickly disappears down the heron's gullet, making a lump in the bird's neck as it journeys to its doom.

These little dramas hardly distract the two anglers, however. Working as a team, one handles the boat while the other mans a fly rod. They search intently for any sign of feeding redfish- a skipping shrimp, a pushing wake, perhaps a bust along the shoreline. What they soon find makes their hearts beat faster, their mouths get dry.

Three tails appear, working out on the deeper part of the flat. They rise and fall sporadically. Sometimes they disappear. Sometimes an entire tail clears the water and waves, appearing almost broom-like. The water in which the fish tail is at least two feet deep. These are big, quality fish.

Both men are tense now. Taking utmost care to move silently, the boat handler positions the skiff sixty feet from the fish. The caster false casts once, twice. The line shoots toward the still tailing fish, a small counterfeit crab attached to the leader. A nearly perfect cast presents the crab, which lands with a soft splat two feet ahead of the fish.

As the fly settles a large boil appears in the surface of the water. The fly line tightens. The angler strip strikes and the rod comes up. The line clears and the reel starts to sing as the fish rushes away in response to the sudden pressure in its jaw.

Variations on this theme occur daily all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, thousands of anglers, millions of redfish. Redfish appeal to fly fishers almost as much as do freshwater trout.

Redfish, lovely creatures themselves, live in places of subtle beauty: salt marshes, mangrove estuaries, along beaches, on shallow flats caressed by clear waters where lush seagrass beds carpet the bottom. They bring us to places we might never visit otherwise. We appreciate them for that.

While searching for redfish the observant angler watches Nature unfold. The sun travels through the sky. Clouds form and build, their shadows racing across the water. Rains lash the fisherman. Lightning bolts threaten his life.

Birds add an aesthetic to the scene and show the knowledgeable angler where to direct his casts. Dolphins provide entertainment and sometimes aggravation, chasing down mullet and frequently redfish too.

Redfish lead us out into the dynamic spectacle of planet Earth. Like our ancient ancestors we hunt, hoping that knowledge, skill, and a touch from Lady Luck will reward us with success.

We see, hear, smell, and feel stimuli that non-anglers can't imagine. We experience emotions lost to those whose lives are cluttered with clocks and deadlines. Our lives are ruled by winds and tides, currents and moon phases. We prefer this.

If you are reading this it's because you love redfish. You love the wild, wet, and muddy places where they live. You love the feel of wind and sun and rain on your skin. You don't love mosquitoes or no-see-ums, but you philosophically accept them as part of the angling experience.

Take the time to count your blessings and thank your God, every time you fish, whether you catch a fish or not. Take the time to share what you know and love with others, especially children, who will try your patience and bring you much joy.

Best wishes for a long lifetime of angling adventure.

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Section 1, Understanding Redfish

The Biology of Redfish (Sciaenops ocellatus)

Distribution and Habitat

Redfish, properly called red drum, were historically found in the Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to Key West and in the Gulf of Mexico from Florida Bay to Vera Cruz, Mexico. They are now fairly rare north of Chesapeake Bay and south of Vera Cruz. They spend most of their lives inshore in estuaries or near shore just off the beach.

Redfish prefer to live near barrier islands. Along the Atlantic coast these barriers extend from the south end of Chesapeake Bay south to St. Lucie Inlet, Florida. North of the Chesapeake and south of Jupiter reds are rare until we get around the Florida peninsula to the mangrove wilderness of Everglades National Park. Barrier islands and marsh estuaries then extend along the Gulf coast past the Mexican border to Vera Cruz, the southern extent of the fish's range.

Redfish typically spawn along beaches in the vicinity of inlets and passes. Currents carry the eggs shoreward. Once the eggs hatch, the larval fish move into estuaries and sea grass areas. Juvenile and subadult fish live in bays and estuaries for three or four years, then move out into nearshore ocean waters to spend the rest of their lives and repeat the cycle. We can reasonably assume that destruction of salt marshes and pollution of estuaries for the past 50 years or so has caused significant decline in redfish stocks in parts of their range. With some local exceptions we rarely find redfish in New Jersey anymore.

Redfish tolerate a wide range of salinities, from 0 to 50 parts per thousand. They prefer 20 to 40 parts per thousand. Juveniles tolerate freshwater better than adults can. Adults want higher salinities, around the normal seawater range of 30 parts per thousand. To easily determine relative salinities while fishing in estuaries, periodically taste the water.

Reds can also tolerate a wide range of water temperatures, from 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10ºC) to 81.5ºF (27.5ºC). Small reds can stand an even broader temperature range. All reds are sensitive to rapid temperature drops. During the winter when the water temperature drops, redfish usually move into deeper water.

Life History

Generally redfish begin spawning in late summer as daylight hours decrease and water temperatures start to drop. Ordinarily, mature adults move close to passes and inlets for this activity. Anglers can find them here during the spawn and catching them on flies then is a distinct possibility. Depending on where in their range you find them, adult males may be as young as three years and weigh only four or five pounds. Females mature later, at a minimum of four years old and thirteen pounds. Most spawning fish are much older and larger than this, though. Nearshore fish throughout their range often exceed thirty pounds. Most spawning activity coincides with the increased tidal flows around the full and new moons.

Courtship consists of males chasing females for three or four hours while drumming loudly and butting the females with their heads. Several males pursue a female simultaneously. Their coloration intensifies greatly during the excitement of the spawn. Just before dark the animals shudder and eject clouds of eggs and sperm into the water. Although there are millions and millions of them in the water together, these cells find each other by pure luck. A female may lay between two million and 60 million eggs in a single spawn, depending on her size, and she may spawn more than once during the season. Clearly, carefully releasing trophy fish benefits the long-term health of the resource.

The fertilized eggs, tiny clear spheres, measure about one millimeter in diameter. Tiny oil globules inside the eggs keep them afloat. The eggs hatch in 20 to 30 hours. The larval fish have an attached yolk sac for nourishment. These redfish larvae are quite sensitive to pollutants. If they hatch in water of poor quality they usually die.

At the end of a week the larval redfish have absorbed the yolk sac and measure 2.5 millimeters long. They begin to feed on small plankton. If the water temperature drops below 68ºF the larvae can no longer feed, so a severe winter following spawning may seriously affect the tiny fish, since they starve.

In the early larval stages, a salinity of 30 parts per thousand (normal seawater) is best. After the fragile early stage ends, changes in salinity usually cause no serious problems.

The larvae drift with other plankton for two to three weeks. Tidal currents transport them through inlets and passes into estuaries where they settle out along mangrove shorelines or in grass beds until the fins develop enough to allow swimming.

Young redfish grow rapidly under favorable conditions, about a half-inch per month. Although like humans each fish is a unique individual, redfish usually reach six or seven inches long and may be a foot long by their first birthday. At the length of eight inches the fish begin to school up. We call them rat reds at this stage in their life. Larger fish continue growing rapidly. Although the rate at which they grow longer slows, the rate that their girth grows increases. One individual, 26 inches long when caught, was tagged and released. After eight months in the wild it was caught again and measured 34 inches in length.

Juvenile redfish live in estuaries, although they may leave for short intervals and move alongshore. At three to five years of age redfish mature sexually and move out of the estuary to join near-shore schools of breeder fish. Keep in mind there are exceptions to this behavior, with Florida's Indian River Lagoon system and North Carolina's Pamlico Sound being the best-known examples. Here redfish mature and spawn without ever leaving these lagoons. They provide fly fishers with a unique opportunity to sight fish for large fish in a protected, shallow water environment.

Since estuaries are vital nursery grounds, deterioration or loss of estuarine habitats may seriously limit the number of fish that develop into adults. Redfish have been documented to live up to thirty years in the wild. At the time of this writing the all-tackle world record redfish weighed 94 pounds, 2 ounces and was caught on November 7, 1984 at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Migration

Although some seasonal migration of redfish occurs along the northern extreme of their range (from North Carolina to Virginia and back again), reds don't move around much, according to tagging studies conducted in both Florida and South Carolina. Depending on where the studies were done, 50 to 85 percent of recaptured fish tagged in estuaries were caught within six miles of the original tagging site. If you find redfish in an area today, you will find them there again in the future.

Feeding

Redfish have an inferior mouth (it's not of poor quality, it's on the lower side of their head). They’re designed to feed on the bottom, and often do so.

Although redfish feed opportunistically on almost anything they can catch with ease, they particularly relish both shrimp and crabs. I find crabs in the guts of about half of the redfish I filet. In other areas, and depending on the size of the fish, crabs are an even more important part of their diet. These crab varieties include blue crabs, stone crabs, fiddler crabs, mud crabs, even small horseshoe crabs. Reds love crabs!

Reds use visual, tactile, and olfactory stimuli while feeding. In spite of popular opinion to the contrary they see quite well. They often key on their sense of touch or smell while feeding however, ignoring offerings lacking smell or tactile qualities. Redfish have tiny filaments at the end of their pectoral fins. These are sensitive touch receptors, and also have taste buds on them. They can taste with their fins!

Occasionally redfish feed quite selectively, keying in on a particular prey species and ignoring all other offerings. Although considered voracious feeders, sometimes they just don't eat at all. Please keep this in mind the next time your guide puts you on a bunch of uncooperative fish.

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Anatomy of Redfish Habitat

A redfish tails in a Spartina grass marsh in South Carolina.

In this chapter I wanted to examine each of the various types of habitats redfish use, and how, when, and why they use them. Sadly, not enough is known about habitat utilization by redfish for me to have pulled that one off. We just don't know the hows and whys, and by we I include scientists, not just anglers. Over their range redfish use various habitats within the different ecosystems in which they are found. The most logical approach looks at those ecosystems and the habitats within them to see in a general way how the fish utilize them.

Redfish use lots of different saltwater and brackish habitats, most associated with barrier islands and their adjacent estuaries and near shore waters. I’ve caught redfish five miles out in the open Atlantic, 20 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, in the surf zone right along beaches, along mangrove shorelines, in flooded salt grass marshes, around oyster bars, on grass flats, on mud flats, in tidal creeks, in marsh ponds, in lagoons, in canals, around docks and bridge pilings, and from power plant outflows. They have been known to wander up freshwater rivers quite a long distance. Every year people catch redfish in Florida’s Lake Monroe, over 100 miles upstream from the mouth of the St. Johns River, and people stock them into freshwater ponds in Texas.

Redfish thrive in places where there are no tides as well as in places where the tidal range is seven or eight feet or more. My research into the literature and experience on the water tells me that there really is no way to predict exactly where you'll find the fish under any specific types of conditions. There are just too many variables in the equation. Fishing always remains a game of searching, hunches, and luck, and I for one hope it always stays that way. The more time you spend on the water, the more luck you will tend to have.

First off, let’s make sure we understand the term habitat. Habitat consists of food, shelter, and space in an arrangement that maximizes the survival potential of a species. Red mangrove roots furnish abundant food and shelter for reds at certain tide phases but are high and dry at others. Oyster bars supply plentiful food, and their sharp shells may deter dolphins, thus providing shelter. Seagrass beds produce large numbers of shrimp, crabs, and small fishes, regular redfish food factories. Redfish use one set of habitat types when juveniles, another set as subadults, and still another, different set of habitat types as adults.

Redfish thrive in such a large range because they have evolved to fit the large estuarine habitats found throughout the southeastern United States.

The Texas Parks and Recreation website (http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/reddrum/) says this about redfish and their habitats: Red drums prefer shallow waters (one to four feet deep) along the edges of bays with submerged vegetation such as seagrasses. They are found over all bottom types but they seem to prefer areas with submerged vegetation and soft mud. These fish are also commonly found around oyster reefs. Breaks in continuity of shorelines such as coves, points, jetties, old pier pilings, and guts attract them. They prefer soft mud along shorelines, pier pilings, and jetties. They are often found in water so shallow that their backs are exposed while swimming. During cold spells large numbers of red drum can be found in tidal creeks and rivers. They can live in fresh water and have been found many miles upriver.

In the North Carolina Red Drum Fishery Management Plan they go into more detail about redfish habitat requirements: "Red drum use a variety of estuarine and oceanic habitats during their life cycle. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council recognizes several habitats as Essential Fish Habitat for red drum. These natural communities include tidal freshwater, estuarine emergent vegetated wetlands (flooded salt marsh, brackish marsh, and tidal creeks), estuarine scrub/shrub (mangrove fringe), submerged rooted vascular plants (sea grass), oyster reefs and shell banks, unconsolidated bottom (soft sediment), ocean high salinity surf zones, and artificial reefs.

Other areas of concern are barrier islands, since these geologic formations are vital to maintain the estuarine conditions needed by larval and juvenile stages. Inlets between barrier islands are also very important, as the slow mixing of fresh water and seawater is critical to the ecological functioning of an estuary. Although general habitat usage is known, quantitative ranking of fish utilization within and between habitats in North Carolina cannot currently be done with existing available data. (Italics