BigBendFishing.Net

Good morning,
I am new to post to the message board, I have been reading for a year or two now. I know a big no no are locations and I am not looking for spots at all. I just have some basic questions about the area and time of year, strategy, etc.

We have access to a home in Shell Point so that location is very convenient and my limited experiences are in that general area. My main interest in fly fishing and that is what I try to do most of the time but I also have no problem with conventional tackle when it's too windy etc.

Winter fishing:
I have read here on the message boards that trout and reds move up the river in the winter. One question is do the fish also move into the little no name tidal creeks in the winter or just the rivers? We have had some success this fall in a small tidal creek in skinny water and I am wondering if the same will be true in Dec, Jan and Feb?

Take for example a a typical winter pattern with a cold front moving through on Wed and then a warm up in the high 60's maybe 70's for Thursday Friday into the weekend, the next cold front due to arrive the following week. WIll the fish move out of the creeks and rivers and into the adjacent creek mouths, bay areas for the weekend due to the warm up or will they stay put up in the creeks and rivers?

We fished Thanksgiving in South FL, Pine Island, Bocca area and I talked to the fly shop and the guy said to use more crustacean patterns (shrimp and crabs) verse bait fish patterns because the bait fish were diminishing for the winter. Is that true, do the bait fish die off or mature into larger fish this time of year? Do the reds and trout in the big bend area cue in on crustaceans verse bait fish in the winter?

Any other winter tactics and maybe lure selection would be helpful.

What typically happens in the spring?

Thanks for your advice.

closesc:

You sure ask a lot of the right questions. Sure hope you get a lot of the right answers!

I do know the trout and redfish go up into rivers in the winter but........would all of them fit? Seems to me they would dam up the rivers if all of them went?

I suspect they would congregate around edges of springs in the gulf or other places the water may be warm.

We have some members on this forum who knows. Hope they chime in.

Thanks for the questions. Waiting for the answers!

Spring Creek is loaded with springs. The fish frequent Spring Creek and all adjacent creeks year round. All those creeks do have names. For privacy sake,you may want to name the creeks yourself. Yes shrimp are better baits in the winter. So far as locations go,any bar,creek or rock pile is a good place to try.
Just remember, all fish are not in all locations all the time. Other times they may be there and just not feeding.
P.S. Stay off my holes.

I wadefish many of the smaller area tidal creeks (bewtween the St Marks and Aucilla Rivers) all year. In my experience, once the surf temp goes below upper 50s, a lot of those otherwise productive small creeks go barren. My best guess is that those fish scoot to the much deeper St Marks & Aucilla holes, venturing back only when we get enough consecutive warm/sunny days to toast up the skinny water.

So, when it has been consistently frigid, if you don't mind lots of company, you can join the St Matks & Aucilla River flotillas. If you prefer solitude, backpack a mullet net and poke along the mud-bottom tidal creeks. Iv'e encountered huge schools of mullet in them when everything else - and everybody else - has skedaddled.

I remember a certain cold winter day that a lone fisherman by the name of Mike Flowers bested some pretty good teams to win a tournament in a river.

A lot of baitfish move offshore into deeper water in the winter, but the hardier ones like mud minnows that stick around are prime food for reds. In fact, reds and trout will eat just about anything they can find to survive, including worms and fiddler crabs.

That said, crab and shrimp fly patterns will definitely work, but flies that look like mud minnows (think Clousers) are always a good bet, along with spoon flies like the Wakulla Wobblers or Dupree.

finger mullet hatch in dec and jan and are a good pattern for feb and march

Thanks for all the advice. As soon as the Holidays calm down I plan to get out as much as possible, but I plan to split my time between North Carolina mountain trout and the big bend area. If anyone wants to trade a trip up north or advice we might can work something out this spring. Thanks again.

What part of N. Carolina ?