Cold Water Redfish

Cold fronts have a big affect on fishing. Most of the time the fish don’t seem to cooperate with the changing weather. But there is one fish that can be especially vulnerable for saltwater fishermen if they hit the weather just right. Once you have experienced the non-stop chaotic battles with winter redfish, it will change your mind about fishing in the cold.

To prove my point I invited my friend Glen Wolfe from New Braunfels to experience something he had never thought possible. Glen has caught a few redfish before using live bait. He normally fishes in the spring or summer, when most people do. His best day on the water until this trip would be a total of 15 redfish landed. Not bad, but I was going to blow his mind with how many fish he would catch, if we hit the weather right. Plus, we would be using lures instead of live or dead bait.

I had watched the weather and seen a huge arctic blast of frigid air heading for the coast and I told Glen we would need to leave the day it had finished blowing through. It had rained and wind blew 25 – 30 mph for two days and my confidence was building as I eagerly waited and tried to put Glen’s mind at ease. “Don’t worry, the redfish are going to be in trouble,” I told him.

When we arrived at the coast early one morning it was cold with clear skies and a touch of north wind. We would need to bundle up with many layers of clothes to stay warm on a 45-minute boat ride to our secret spot.

We were joined by one of my video producers that has been working on a cold water redfish project and he needed the footage.

Inland bays along the coast are relatively shallow with very little deep water available. At first glance it may appear that there is a vast amount of water. But the volume of water simply isn’t very great because it is so shallow. Most of the time when the water is warm, fish spread out and can be tough to find. But when air and water temperatures drop, fish tend to migrate to deeper spots seeking warmer water, even if it is only warmer by a couple of degrees. Once you can find one of these deep-water spots and hit it right after a cold front, you won’t believe the action.

We pulled into our spot and the water looked dingy. It was slightly protected from the wind and the water was low because it had been blown out by the north wind. As the Minn Kota trolling motor quietly moved the boat to the north end of the spot (I wanted the wind at our back) I grabbed my rod. “Get ready,” I told Glen.

My LSU colored power bait hit the bottom and on my first pump it was inhaled by a 26” red. I couldn’t feel the cold now, just pure joy as the battle wore on. Glen had a bit of trouble getting use to working the soft plastic lure and I had caught and released a half dozen before his first fish came aboard. Literally, the fish were biting on every cast. We even caught a couple of flounder and some nice speckled trout.

Six hours later my video producer said we had to quit. The non-stop action was killing him. We had caught over 80 redfish during that time. The interesting thing is Glen caught and released the largest one that weighed over 40 pounds and was 44” long.

Our drive home was long but time flew by reflecting back on this trip and what Glen had learned. All it takes is one experience like we had shown Glen and now he will be able to tell others that fishing in the cold can be pretty hot.

I got a call from Glen the day after the trip and he said, “Man you can tell you had a great fishing trip when you’re belly is covered up with bruises from your rod.”