From Ron Brooks,
Your Guide to Saltwater Fishing.
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At this point we need to understand the habits of these red drum. They like current, but they hate to fight current. They will often gather or school in a location that provides them protection from the current, and yet allows them to use the current to ambush food. They will find undercuts and eddies where the current runs over them or around them. They will position, much like a brook trout in a steam, right behind a big rock as the water moves around the rock and past them. You need to keep that picture in mind as you fish.

We continued to throw the Bandit baits, but could not raise a strike. Because of the current, and because we wanted to get a little deeper, we switched to a Norman’s Deep Little N bait. I had the Smokey Joe color; Jim had a Tennessee Shad. These baits run down to twelve feet, and gave us a better shot at provoking a strike from a red hidden behind a bottom rock.

It only took about three casts as we came back around with the trolling motor and worked those north “invisible” rocks again. The deeper running bait did the trick. I hooked up with really big red. As he came to the surface and boiled an area about five feet in diameter, he quickly showed me the two mistakes I had made. I fought him for about a minute before bringing an empty crankbait back to the boat.

The mistakes? First of all, I had too much drag. We were fishing with Shimano Curado 100’s on Fenwick Venture rods. These are my standard crankbait rods when I bass fish. They are spooled with twelve pound Stren. This first fish would easily approach twenty pounds, and he literally had his way with me.

The second mistake was with the baits. As I lifted the bait out of the water, I saw it, and could have kicked myself. Both front and back trebles were straightened. These hooks weren’t designed for fish like this!

As I adjusted my drag and bent my hooks back, Jim grunted. He looked at me, grinned and said, “This one is full growed,” as a big red ran line off his reel like he didn’t know he was hooked. As I turned the boat to head after him, I got bit, and we had a double. The problem was, one fish was headed east and one was headed west!

Mine ended up being smaller and I was able to get him to the boat. Jim picked up the net with one hand as he held his doubled over rod in the other and tried to net my fish. (Reminder to me – get a bigger net!) The fish was too big for the net, so I got out my Boga Grip and lipped him into the boat. At that point Jim had little line left on his reel.

We had to go after and follow this one around for about fifteen minutes before we got him to the boat. He bottomed out the fifteen pound scale on the Boga Grip. We estimated that he was something over twenty pounds. After reviving both fish for a few minutes, they both swam away unharmed by the experience. (These fish fight to absolute exhaustion – so make sure you revive them before releasing them)

We headed back to the same location, about two hundred yards off the end of the rocks, and began casting again. Bang, bang, another double hookup. This time we managed both fish and gripped each one for pictures and a release.

Fighting yet another big red, Jim likened our tackle to “shooting bears with BB guns”. His arms were getting tired – as were mine. But we could almost catch a fish at will on the rocks – all the way up to the change of tides. When the tide changed and began running in, the catching stopped. Notice I didn’t say the fish quit biting. The current changed, and those fish moved to another location where they could get the same protection. But at this point, my trolling motor batteries were almost gone, so we had to give them up.

I should mention that we did have one angler close to us fishing with live shrimp under a float. Small sea bass and bait stealers were all he managed in the hours that we were catching our big red drum, many of them almost from under his boat!

We headed to the jetty edge on the way in, pitched a couple of fiddler crabs on jig heads up against the rocks and in short order caught some sheepshead to take home for dinner – but that is also another story for another day.

Things to keep in mind as you head for the jetties:

1. Watch the weather. Seas can kick up quickly and heavy swells will push you into the rocks if you loose power.
2. Keep that mental picture of the bottom. We fished the last half of the outgoing tide and had steady action for almost three hours because we cranked the baits past holding fish.
3. Take a variety of crankbaits that will run a variety of depths. Colors don’t seem to matter as much as depth and glitter. The Norman baits had that glitter finish.
4. Crank slow – stop and go. We got more hits on a stopped bait than a moving bait.
5. Watch the water depth. The area we fished ran from about twelve feet deep on top of the “invisible” rocks down to about 20 feet along the edge. We positioned the boat in the deep water and cranked down that slope.
6. If you hang on a rock, move the boat over and behind the bait, and it will easily come free. Hanging a rock is not a bad thing – it means your bait is getting down to the fish.
7. Be ready to change baits according to the water depth. You want that bait a few feet off the bottom. In this situation, red drum are not surface feeding!
8. Change the hooks on your crankbaits! Get some good heavy gauge trebles and replace the wire hooks.
9. Stay safe. If you plan to anchor, use a jetty anchor – one made with a pipe and rebar. The rebar bends as you pull a hung anchor free. Standard anchors will usually be lost when hung in the rocks.
10. Last – watch and look for submerged rocks. Close to the jetty, some rocks are just under the surface. You can sink a boat in a heartbeat when wave action pounds the boat down on one.

In April, most days are perfect for fishing the jetties at St Marys. The March winds have died and the hot summer days have yet to arrive. The fish are there. The red drum are more than cooperative. And, crankbaiting the rip rap for them on light tackle is more fun than any one person should have!