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Wise lure selection can mean never being unprepared

A Reprinted article from CoastalReview.org by 01/05/2023 by Capt. Gordon Churchill   

One of the things we get told by old-timers (of which, I must confess, I appear to be now) is, “Find the bait, you’re doin’ great.”

Yes, if you find massive schools of baitfish and there are fish crashing into them in every direction, it’s seems to be a good adage to follow. But what about days when there are signs of feeding fish, but it is not so obvious what they’re feeding on, and then you’re not sure if you have the right lure type to match.

You can meet any inshore fishing situation with a small assortment of lures. I will go out on a limb and say you can catch any fish that swims inshore in any circumstance with three lures — and one extra sub-type that I just really enjoy. If you grab these lures, you will never be caught unprepared.

First, and most obvious I think, is a jig. I’d say that a plain white jighead with white bucktail has probably accounted for more fish caught in the history of angling than anything ever invented or yet to be. I’d go a little further and add a soft plastic wiggle tail instead of the bucktail, just to take advantage of some modern technology. 

Any of the brands you see will work. Let’s stick with white for now but choose any color that will show up in the water you are fishing: Light colors are for clear water, dark colors for stained water, bright colors for muddy.

If you suspect that minnows are being chased and fed upon, retrieve so it stays in the upper part of the water column. Add a little twitch so it appears to be having difficulty swimming. This is the key now. Predators go after prey items that are having a bad day. It might be due to an injury, sickness, or it just might be its time. Whatever. If a minnow is having a tough time, be sure that a predatory fish is going to target it. I’ve always figured that nothing ever dies of old age in the ocean.

A jig can be hopped along the bottom to simulate shrimp or other crustaceans that move sporadically along the bottom. Shrimp also swim pretty quickly, with a couple quick spurts of energy and then a drop. This movement can easily be simulated with a jig. Finally, if crabs are on the menu, a jig can literally be crawled along the bottom. Add a little hop now and then to attract attention. I caught my first bonefish in this manner many years ago.

Hard plastic swimming plugs account for a big percentage of the fish I catch every year.

Q: “There are literally thousands of them on the market, Capt. Gordon. How do you choose which one to use?”

A: That’s an excellent question. If I had to pick just one to fish every day, on the Southeast Atlantic coast, it would be the Mirrolure MR 27 with the pink and chartreuse. It has great action on the twitch, twitch, pause, retrieve. Anything will eat it. I’ve caught striped bass, speckled trout, red drum, croakers, lizardfish, ladyfish, jacks, pinfish, and probably at least one or two others that I can’t think of right now. When a fish sees it doing that weird duck-and-dive motion on the twitch, it is seeing an easy target: a baitfish of some kind, that is having a tough time getting anywhere. It represents calories to gain that will not amount to a large expenditure.

This is what fish do. They can’t actually do algebra or calculus, but they are always figuring how much a certain prey item will add to their caloric total for the day without subtracting too much. Combine this with how exposed they will be to predators. If they can get an easy meal without being too exposed, they will focus on that. The MR 27 presents an easy target and a meaty profile that fulfills all those requirements. 

The bonus option is a topwater plug. I prefer the ‘walk-the-dog” style. My favorite being the Rapala Skitterwalk version. Great for water under 5 feet deep with a grassy bottom or one that has a lot of snags like oyster shells and things. The side-to-side walking motion presents an illusion of an easy target, and the large profile looks like a big meal. Big fish eat these. Sometimes, it’s the only thing that works. It just gets their attention.

If you know for a fact that fish are targeting shrimp, and sometimes even if they are not, you cannot beat a plastic shrimp imitation. The most well-known and the original being the DOA shrimp. There are other brands. They’re all knockoffs of the original. I resisted using these for years. They look like what a kid’s toy shrimp would look like, if there was such a thing. These work. Inshore fish of all species and sizes will gulp them down. I really like the sand-colored ones with the green tails and the all pink. For sight fishing in clear water with a light spinning rod, there is simply nothing that works better. Cast into sloughs and channels and let the current sweep it along.

Most popularly, use under a popping cork in creeks, and on flats. The noise gets their attention, the shrimp get whapped. I’ve even seen guys use them on a Carolina Rig while surf fishing. Trout, redfish, striped bass, bluefish — basically, if there are shrimp in the water and there are gamefish around, the plastic shrimp imitation should be the No. 1 go-to. These things are even my best fish catchers when targeting fish in shallow creeks during cold water periods when a shrimp hasn’t been seen in months. They just like shrimp so much, they can’t resist.

With a selection of these three lure types — plus the bonus — I feel pretty confident in saying there isn’t an angling question that can’t be answered. Yes, there are about a million others. I didn’t mention spoons, spinnerbaits, metal jigs, and a bunch of others. But the ones I mentioned will match any hatch you see to get started. Add to your selection as time — and your wallet — permits.

ARTICLE FROM CAROLINA SPORTSMAN:   BY BRIAN COPE

INSHORE FISH ARE GETTING LETHARGIC; MATCH YOUR PRESENTATION

December and January are great months for inshore fishing, but it does require some adjustments from anglers. Redfish and speckled trout both slow down considerably this month, but they’ll still bite properly presented lures. As cold water slows the activity levels of these fish, their appetites become smaller, so it’s a good idea to scale down on lure sizes. Instead of casting 3 and 4-inch long swimbaits, smaller lures like a 3-inch Matrix Shad or the 2 1/2-inch Z-Man Slim SwimZ on jigheads are good choices. These smaller lures can draw strikes when bigger lures presented in the same areas go untouched, This goes against the natural inclination to cast bigger lures that would seemingly fill a fish up with one bite, and also to cast a bigger lure that is more noticeable to lethargic fish.

But the fish don’t need help seeing the bait. They have no choice but to find food to survive, and they are very good at the task. However, they can be extra picky this month. One reason is because of their smaller appetites in cold weather. Another is because the water is generally very clear this time of year, which means the fish can see subtle imperfections in lures that can make them wary. The smaller the lures, the less chance of the fish spotting those unnatural looking details. That, along with their affinity for snack-sized portions during winter will, more often than not, lead to more strikes.

FORGET THE SHADE

Through most of the year, inshore anglers work their lures at a moderate to fast pace. The more water they cover, the more fish they put their lures in front of. But that’s the wrong approach in December. Fish need to reserve their energy as much as possible right now, so they won’t exert too much of it chasing baitfish or artificial lures. Use a slow retrieve this time of year. During spring, summer, and even late into fall, anglers are accustomed to looking in shady spots or deeper holes for inshore fish. That’s especially true in the Carolinas where the temperatures push fish to find the coolest water possible. But it’s the opposite this time of year. Especially early in the morning, inshore fish will seek the warmest areas they can find, and that usually means they’ll be hanging out where the sun is shining brightest. Shallow mud flats warm up quickly in winter when the sun is out. Redfish and specks will flock to those areas to warm up and to find baitfish, which are also seeking the warmth of the sun.

DON’T FORGET BAIT

Natural bait should also be an option for anglers this month. The scent of a tiny piece of shrimp placed on the hook with a swimbait can add just enough scent to entice a wary fish into biting. But it’s also a good time to throw chunks of cut bait on a Carolina rig. These chunks give off strong scent, and anglers can allow them to sit still until a fish picks the bait up.  Many anglers find live bait works better than anything for them during cold weather. Fewer baitfish are inshore right now, but that doesn’t mean redfish and trout won’t eat ones they see. These fish find it hard to pass up a fresh mud minnow or mullet under a cork, especially when the angler casts it near a sunny area, then allows it to move about completely on its own. This isn’t the time to pop and reel like anglers often do from the spring until late fall. An occasional pop might be good to draw attention, but a baitfish moving too much and too quickly is far more likely to be ignored by reds and trout this month.

BREAK THE RULES

These are good guidelines to follow for fishing in cold weather, but it’s always a good idea to spend a little bit of time breaking the rules. A walk-the-dog topwater lure retrieved quickly across the surface may not draw as many bites as during other months, but it can still trigger an explosive strike from an aggressive fish on some days. Expect the bites to be much fewer, but definitely worth taking the chance on. Far fewer anglers are on the water this month, giving diehards some of the most peaceful fishing of the year. The fish may seem less cooperative, but with these tips in mind, anglers can catch more than enough to make the day a success.

Brian Cope of Edisto Island S.C isa retired Air Force combat communications technician. He has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of South Carolina and has been writing about the outdoors since 2006. He has spent half his life hunting and fishing. The rest he said, has been wasted.

ARTICLE FROM CAROLINA SPORTSMAN:   

DECEMBER 31, 2022

Paint Little River black, as in drum

Jeff Burleson Featured, Fishing Hotspots, Inshore Fishing

Winter weather doesn’t bother black drum too much, especially in the ICW near Little River, S.C.

Stretch of ICW around NC/SC border abounds in hearty, winter fish

During the dead of winter, anglers can expect a strong inshore bite, specifically in the section of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway around Little River, just a few yards south of the North Carolina-South Carolina border.

While many species have vacated the premises, several hunker down for the winter, and black drum are one of those that can bring steady action when many anglers are off the water.

Black drum are not only a good-eating fish, they are strong fighters and will continue to offer opportunities during the middle of the winter. They are a species that guide Keith Logan of North Myrtle Beach Fishing Charters targets in February.

“Black drum are a good fish to target during the winter,” said Logan (843-516-0614). “We typically get on a good bite this time of year on fresh shrimp in the waterway.”

Black drum are very tolerant of cold water but will seek out depressions along the waterway where scattered bait is present. Logan looks for deep water associated with docks or some other type of structure between Little River and Sunset Beach, N.C.

“We like to find places with water as deep as 15 feet at the end of docks if we can find it. Those places where people load their boats onto their boat lifts can be really good places to find a handful of fish resting in the depressions,” he said.

The section of the ICW between the Little River swing bridge and the Sunset Beach bridge is loaded with docks and deep-water hangouts perfect for holding black drum over the winter. In addition, the concrete wall at Tillman Point has both deep water and structure — a deadly combination for big schools of wintering black drum.

Logan recommends anglers getting to spots like this when the water is moving in either direction.

“It doesn’t matter as much if the tide is high or low, but they like the tide moving,” he said.

Black drum eat a wide variety of foods, from small crabs to shrimp and fish. Shrimp is an easy bait choice that is not only easy to get at local seafood markets, but it’s deadly on the end of the hook for black drum.

Logan uses a typical Carolina rig with an egg or tear-drop sinker with 16 inches of leader down to a No. 2 hook. Black drum feed on the bottom, and a Carolina rig is a perfect choice to get the bait down where it needs to be, right in a black drum’s feeding zone.

While black drum can run anywhere from a pound up to 100 pounds, the typical size for wintering fish in the Little River area is between 3 and 7 pounds. On light tackle, a 5-pound black drum can be well worth the price of admission on the water and on the dinner table.

About Jeff Burleson: He is a native of Lumberton, N.C., who lives in Myrtle Beach, S.C. He graduated from N.C. State University with a degree in fisheries and wildlife sciences and is a certified biologist and professional forester for Southern Palmetto Environmental Consulting.

Hey STFC Members, Stay tuned for the unveiling of the new Logo at the next meeting on January 19th at the famous Pink Palace!

If you haven’t already done so, it will be a good time to renew your 2023 membership and sign up for next year’s fishing tournament. Several catches are already on the Board.