Winter Redfish Update for January 2023

Hey y'all!  Well we are officially 1/12th of the way through 2023.  Time flies!  I spent a good bit of the past month out on the water with clients chasing Redfish.  I can honestly say that this January was my best January of fishing in 18 years of living here on the Crystal Coast.

Lot's of days with pleasant temps, blue skies, calm winds, and really clean water formed the perfect storm for some epic winter time sightfishing.  Many of the days, we saw obscene numbers of Redfish, and managed to fool at least a handful of these very educated fish most every trip.  I'd be lying if I said every day was killer, as we had one or two more challenging trips, but overall we did excellent.  

Most of my trips were fly trips, and several of them were with anglers who had never caught a Redfish on fly.  I'm happy to say that we solved that problem, and then some, for most of our anglers.  I don't care if it's your 1st Redfish on fly, or your 101st...seeing them eat up close in crystal clear water is always exciting.  It will never get old.

Fly might be my favorite way to pursue these fish in winter time, but there's nothing wrong with chasing them on ultralight spinning rods either.  Pitching a small soft plastic in and around a school of wary fish takes some skill, and successfully sightcasting them on fly or spin is nothing to be taken lightly.  If you were wondering, bait fishing is not something we normally do, and it's definitely something we don't do in winter.  I really believe in giving these fish a decent chance to outwit us, so we stick with feathers and plastics during the cold weather season.

We've seen all types of situations so far this winter, from single fish hidden in the grass, to groups of a half dozen cruising oyster beds, to schools of 200-300 fish daisy chaining in big open bays.  You never know what's going to be waiting around the corner.  Not only have we seen lots of Redfish, but we've seen quite a few big Speckled Trout and tons of small Black Drum.

All good things must come to an end some time, and our winning streak of beautiful weather came to an end this week.  Right now, we are experiencing day after day of rain, clouds and cold.  We took all of our trips from this week and pushed them into next week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the return of that giant glowing light in the sky.

That's about it for this update.  I have been blessed with bookings this winter (thank you to everyone who has fished with me!), but I still have a handful of openings for February.  March has a decent number of open dates, and the winter fishing should be just as good then too.  Until then, I hope you enjoy these images from the last few weeks, they are just a small percentage of the fun we've been having.

Sending them back home to tell their friends.

The ol' Clouser rarely let's me down.

Not an ugly one in the bunch.

This fly has been "seaducing" fish since it was invented back in the 1940's

Taking a breather

Ocellatus

Getting it done

Bittersweet Goodbye

Set, set, set...!

Another first!

These guys asked me why most of my clients would choose summer Redfish over winter Redfish.  Good question.

Half a dozen black feathers and a hook.  I'm telling ya, it's 95% presentation.

Thanks for swinging by, we'll catch ya later.