Winter Fishing Tips from Capt. Caserta

On a Saturday, I decided to take my 3 clients to the backside of San Jose Island, since the tide was falling fast and there are cuts back there where the lakes drain into Aransas Bay. As expected, the areas outside the cuts were holding redfish.

While I drifted in front of the cuts, the clients fished from the boat using some different lures before settling on the ones that worked the best, Devil Eyes in Gold Rush and Pink Hologram with a 1/16 oz jig.

The fish just were not nailing the lures as they were in a holding pattern on the shell-mixed mud, even though the water was still a little warm. The key was to find the bait food because that was where the action was going to be.

Once we found that, we started to see some good action and the clients caught 3 limits along with quite a few undersized redfish. Until spring, mud bottoms mixed with shell are where the bait food is going to be and those are the areas where you need to go.

You really need to take about 10 or 15 minutes to check if you see any bait activity before you pass any area up. You can end up getting into a good mess of fish that way. Most people will not see bait right away and pass up an area that is holding bait and redfish which are not constantly active.

You may not see as many fish on cold days but when you do, they aren’t going to move like the fall and summer redfish because they are sluggish from the cold. It may just be a movement here and there. That’s still enough to make your fishing day a success, once you find them.