By spring, the water has warmed and brood fish have reached ten to twelve inches in length. Back in the creeks and marshes, these fish can be caught in the same places day after day on an outgoing tide. They have learned to move with the tide to the deeper creek waters to avoid being stranded in a shallow pool. This habit has them passing the same cut or point, and moving in the same channels tide after tide. When the tide changes and begins to rise, they will again move back into the creeks.
Schools of red drum will generally segregate by size. When you begin catching small fish, you can be assured that the entire school will look like they came out of the same mold. So if you are looking for larger fish, you will need to find a different school, perhaps in a different creek.
Try this. At dead low tide, locate a creek you can navigate, and identify the surrounding bottom structure that is out of the water. Make notes on channels, oyster bars and cuts. If you know where you can take your boat on a high tide without fear of being left high and dry on the low tide, you can successfully navigate the creeks and find the fish.
The creek you locate with this method needs to be “alive”. That is, it needs to show signs of baitfish and other activity. These signs are a sure bet that the junior red drum will be moving in that particular creek. Creeks with pure mud bottoms that end up on pure mud flats and that have no signs of shellfish or baitfish can be eliminated, because the drum simply will not be there. Look for the oyster bars and hard shell bottoms.
Fish the areas where small feeder creeks empty into larger creeks. Start at the head of a larger creek, and as the tide falls, move out with it, fishing each feeder creek along the way.
In this situation, use a quarter ounce jig head tipped with a tail hooked live shrimp, or a lip hooked mud minnow. Cast up into the feeder creek, and work the jig back with the tidal flow just off the bottom. An occasional flounder adds variety and great table topping to this method!
Try the waters of the St Marys, Altamaha, and Savannah River basins to find the deeper creeks. Don’t be afraid to ask at local bait shops which creeks are navigable at low tide.
The larger red drum are still out on the deep cuts to the ocean, preparing to make the move offshore for breeding. The same winter bottom fishing techniques will work here until the weather warms. At that point, the fish will begin moving offshore to breed.
