Best plan to catch Reds out of St. Marks?

[Ted in Tallahassee]

Me & the boy are planning to head out from St. Marks tomorrow. Neither of us have ever caught a redfish, and we want to. What's the best plan for getting some? Skitterwalks or Zara Spooks at creek mouths? Up into creeks a ways? Or would we be better off trying around oyster bars, and if so, ones nearer towards upriver or ones farther out towards the gulf? Best tide/time of day? Top water plugs or jigs on poppers? Or shrimp on poppers or with no float?

Basically looking for general advice on getting some reds. Thanks in advance.

[Bullet]

The most valuable advice I can offer, go with live bait if possible. When the reds are hungry, they will eat a variety of things but, from my experience, pinfish is the bait of choice for quality reds.
The smaller reds will readily eat a live shrimp.

I know there are people who have success with artificial (spoons, etc.)....I'm just not one of them.

Live pinfish, 3" to 4" in length.

Based on the lack of postings on our forum here, It's been a tough year for catching quality reds, so far.

I hope y'all can change that. Good luck.

[Ted in Tallahassee]

Thanks! Should we try creek mouths, oyster bars? Morning better than mid day? Does tide matter?

[Salty Gator]

Thanks! Should we try creek mouths, oyster bars? Morning better than mid day? Does tide matter?

It absolutely matters. Go early before the water temp is 95 degrees. I'll fish tomorrow or Sunday and we will probably be off the water by 10. If that happens to coincide with good moving water, even better. We haven't been doing much in the creekmouths lately. Good luck

[Bullet]

I concur with Salty Gator. Moving water is a good thing.

Your tides aren't going to be particularly stellar this weekend. There's only about a foot and a half of water coming with the incoming tide....that's not much for a 8.5 hour period (Low to High).
On Saturday, the water will be dead by 9:00 a.m. Sunday by 10:00 a.m.

Go early....good luck.

[Can'tCatchAnything]

I saw several tailing reds at the oyster bars at Bald Point during the New Moon, bigguns too. This was around 3 or 4 pm, heat of the day.

I went out on my kayak this morning at 6am and harassed a school of pup around maybe 9ish 10ish. I caught 6 ranging from 16" to 17.25", it was lots of fun, but I wanted dinner too... Poppin' cork with dead shrimp (my aerator went missing after the Great Capsization a few weeks ago...). I like to cast up-current and work around cover. I caught all 6 lil reds anchored in the same spot. There was grass, oyster bars, a deeper channel of moving water (outgoing tide), near the mouth of a creek. I was also throwing a gold AD spoon in the larger size, tipped with Sand Flea Fishbites. That got plenty of hits/nibbles throwing into the same area too, but no fish got its mouth around it enough; I may go for the smaller size next outing.

I threw a Super Spook Jr in bone from about 630am to around 9am when I switched to spoon. The top water was fun in the creeks, but in oyster bars and flats it just wasn't getting the attention. My first red was caught with a bone SSJr, so maybe I'm just stubborn. That fish was caught late evening/ last light.

I've talked to another kayaker that told me he caught 10 Reds in the creek east of the Bottoms Rd ramp, using "anything white and chartreuse." I've sighted huge reds there too. I've also caught reds just deadsticking a live shrimp rigged Carolina-esque style, but I consider that more luck than anything.

Good luck to you sir for landing the elusive Redfish.

[Salty Gator]

Those may have been black drum you saw tailing. Sheepshead will tail also and they can get thick there. Not saying you are wrong, just saying there are a lot there.

[Hoxnan]

Those may have been black drum you saw tailing. Sheepshead will tail also and they can get thick there. Not saying you are wrong, just saying there are a lot there.

I'd say they were Black Drum as well, went out there last week at dawn in the canoe with a buddy and caught two in the 10-15lb range. Came up on a school later on that had some fish in it that were easily in the 50-60 lb range. At first I thought they were reds tailing, but when they paid no attention to my skitter walk I knew something was up.

This is one of the Drum, caught on a live shrimp on a jig head in the deep channel adjacent to the middle oyster bars out there after watching a school tail for around an hour and trying to adjust the tackle to get bit. Not the target species, but very fun on light tackle. Both fish swam off fine.

I usually catch more redfish on the beachside of Bald Point on a strong incoming tide for what its worth.

[countrycorners]

Standing in a canoe: a young mans game!!
Nice fish!

[Bullet]

BTW! It's 6 hrs 25 minutes ( low to high ) not the 8.5 I stated.
Please let us jonesing fishermen know how you did, where you fished, etc.
It's always good to get a report.

[GaryDroze]

In an attempt to coax sheepshead from creeks east of the lighthouse, I've been employing fiddler crabs (easy to find on the shoreline) on very lightly weighted rigs and small hooks. Not much sheepie action, but all the 20" reds I could handle last Thursday midafternoon around low tide. There are plenty of reds in those creeks; they seem to be moving from one creek to the next on a daily basis, so if you blank in one creek, try the next one eat or west.