But as soon as the current started moving, Captain Mark pitched a live shrimp on one of his patent pending “Thunder Chicken” float rigs into the creek where the water was less than two feet deep. As the float drifted up the creek, it went down. Captain Mark set the hook and reeled in a nice twenty-four inch red. Lesson number three – current.
Captain Mark used both baitcasting rigs and spinning rigs. He spooled his Abu 4600C3 baitcasting reels with braided line. These reels, matched with a Berkley Lightning rod made the perfect rig to cast the Thunder Chicken and live shrimp. The BassPro Pro Qualifier spinning reels were matched with Offshore Angler's medium action Inshore Extreme rods and spooled with monofilament line. The leaders in both cases were fluorocarbon.
Lesson four came as we talked and literally caught one redfish after another. Water salinity plays a big role in Captain Mark’s plan for the day. Heavy rains had preceded our trip by a couple of days, and now a big outflow of freshwater was making its way out of the marsh. Captain Mark chose a creek that would get most of its tidal water from the ocean, thereby insuring a good salt content, something that will support the baitfish. So, lesson four – water salinity
Lesson five was probably the most revealing to me. We fished the incoming tide – not the outgoing tide. All my life I witnessed redfish tailing and feeding on mud and oyster flats. When the tide started moving out, the fish would drop off into the creeks and make their way out. That’s where we caught them.
Captain Mark explained his theory this way. The reds and other fish have to come into the creek on an incoming tide in order to make it onto the flats to feed. Which fish is more likely to be caught – one that has been feeding for several hours and comes out with the tide, or one that has not fed in several hours and is moving into the creek to feed. It became pretty obvious to me.
I put all this together and looked at the charts up and down the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. This set of lessons will work for any estuary angler pursuing any kind of fish that moves onto the marsh and mud flats at high tide. Take these lessons from a real pro and put them to work for you. It worked for us!
If you are in the St Simons area and would like one of the best charters available, give Captain Mark Noble a call at 912-634-1219 or 912-638-7673. Better yet, visit one of his websites at www.georgiafishing.net or www.goldenislesfishing.com. He is more than happy to share his fishing knowledge with his clients – and he can put you on fish any time of the year!
