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| This chunky puppy hit a live shrimp cast into a weedbed pothole. |
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Puppy Love
Few fish are as popular as red drum – and sometimes, it seems as though few are as tough to catch. When you’re ready to set your sights on reds, use these five tricks and you’ll hook more of ‘em every time you fish.
1. Note the down-turned mouth of a puppy drum, and you’ll realize that these fish feed on bottom most of the time. Keep your baits low in the water column, and you’ll have a better chance of getting redfish bites.
2. For whatever reason (some theorize it’s the vibrations) gold spoons are a favorite of shallow water redfish. Cast and retrieved through shallows with a slow wobble, they can be deadly. Those with rattles, such as the Nemire Red Ripper, often out-perform other styles.
3. Weedbeds are favored feeding areas for red drum. Look to catch them in the “potholes” (circular holes in the weedbeds). Reds tend to move into these holes during falling tides, and can be caught either by cast and retrieving through them or by tossing a bait into the area of open water. Another effective way to pry reds out of weedbeds is to troll alongside of them with un-weighted spoons, screwtail jigs, or Sluggo-style lures. Keep your boat just far enough out that you don’t drive through the weedbeds, and slow down all the way to idle speed. If you have several people onboard it’s a good idea to post one on the foredeck armed with a spinning rod and a lure; when he spots depressions or near-by potholes in the weeds, he can take a shot at them.
4. When rays are thick, fish with lures. Many of the areas you’ll find redfish also have a lot of rays, and usually, if you fish with bait they’ll find it before the fish do. If you catch a ray or two when bait fishing, switch over to lures before you find yourself inundated with these large, flat, anti-fish.
5. The water you’re fishing in is discolored? In stained or muddy water, try lures that are root beer colored. For some reason reds seem to have an easier time spotting root beer in discolored water. Remember to slow down your presentation, and you’ll sometimes catch just as many reds in dirty water as you will in gin-clear conditions. Boost your chances even more by using noise makers and vibration producers, which redfish respond well to. Chuggers, rattling lures, and lures with vibrating blades should all be on your list of red-friendly offerings.
Redfish Factoid: Many anglers believe that drum have a keen sense of smell and poor vision, but studies by marine biologists at the University of Miami have more or less debunked this theory; in fact, their eye sight is average for a fish.
--Lenny Rudow
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