Fall fishing in the Lowcountry is something else. There is always something to be caught no matter the month or season. When the northern winds drop the air and water temperature, the redfish start to school up offering some of the finest shallow water fishing for the light tackle angler.

The morning greeted me with a kiss of cold air as I let the dogs out and readied myself for the day of fishing that lay ahead. The plan was to head north and catch the low incoming tide for some sight casting at redfish. Tucker and I had good feelings about the day as the wind was dead calm and we had the entire flat to ourselves. We still had some time before the water was completley out of the grass so we kept our distance and started looking for the fish to show themselves. It didn’t take long before a lone shrimp came pole vaulting out of the water just at the grass line with a hungry redfish full throttle behind him. Being in casting distance I threw a topwater plug at the grass line and on the second or third twitch the familiar toiletbowl flush of a redfish’s clumsy topwater strike sank the skitterwalk and the line came tight. We soon had the fish boatside, snapped a few pictures, and promply sent him on his way. The next school of fish came close enough for me to try and fool one with the flyrod. I sent one of Mad Mikes flies ten feet in front of an oncoming school and started making the short strips just as the school closed in on the fly. The line again came tight and the 7 weight TFO came alive. Another beautiful redfish boatside!
Such was how it went the rest of the morning. Tucker and I took turns poling each other at schools of anywhere from 6 to 30 or more fish making long range casts with gulp jerk shad rigged on flutter hooks and gulp 3″ shrimp rigged on jig heads. We kept our distance and were able to consistently catch several fish out of each school before moving on and finding another.

The day wore on and we switched our sights to trout. We worked one small area and found a large oyster bar holding fish. Like redfish, the trout school up this time of year making fishing for them extremley action packed and intense. We caught fish on almost every cast with most of them being in the 15 to 18″ range. Again we were throwing gulp jerk shad on flutter hooks but I don’t think it would have mattered what one threw as the fish were really feeding aggressivley.

Totals for the day were: 20-25 redfish from 22″ to 30″, 1 small black drum, and 30-40 trout.

We had a great day, took some great pictures, the weather cooperated, and the fish followed suit!

Until next time!

John