06/21/2025
Fishing guide report on how the reds were acting today.
What a morning! Got on some trout early before the dolphins turned the bite off, then went structure fishing for some STUD Redfish action! Also saw 2 Tripletail that were undersized. All Reds were 26"-28.5" and FAT...we were catching the Reds next to hard structure, and fishing it up close (within 10-20 feet of it), again when I say "hard structure" I mean things like wood, metal, rocks, etc...basically all the stuff you don't want to hit with your boat. We were throwing live shrimp under a popping cork (2 feet of 50lb flourocarbon tied to a size 7 OWNER brand Kahle hook) and let me tell you, without having that 50lb leader we would have FOR SURE broken off at least 4-5 of these fish, they're smart and they know where that structure is, so as soon as they hit you better be ready to horse them out of it by brute force, because they will run directly for it, if we were using 20-30lb flourocarbon like most people new to saltwater fishing think is best we never would have been able to pull them out and put enough drag on them to stop them without breaking the leader...and no, upping your line size to 50lb does not get any less bites, I have gone all the way up to 80lb flourocarbon in the bay before and never had a problem catching fish with it...on a side note I also wanted to talk about the different "types" of Redfish bites, because so many people that hop on my boat think there's only one option when a Redfish hits, and that's for them to absolutely smoke it and double the rod over with no hesitation BUT that's not even close to the truth, today these Reds were ever so slightly nibbling on shrimp, I call it "sniffing" it for 5-10 secs, then giving a little pull barely dropping the cork under, then it pops back up for a second, and then they pull it back down and kinda sideways very slowly, and then once they felt the line getting tighter they would take off slowly and I'd tell the customer to set the hook and they hooked them every single time...only ONE fish, the very first one we caught at that spot hit the shrimp with zero hesitation, he hooked himself lol, but the moral of the story is just because you "think" it's a hardhead or something small because of the initial bite, that's a horrible way to judge what kind of fish it is, because you never REALLY know what it is until you get it in the boat and lay eyes on it 🤷 I mean I'm sorry but that's the truth...and if I were to give a summary/breakdown of how Reds have bit their different ways my whole fishing career up to this point I'd say:
25% of the time, they absolutely smoke it, no hesitation
50% of time, just like I was describing, "sniff" then slow pull
25% of time (especially on cut mullet) they grab the bait and swim directly towards you causing slack in line, where you then have to pick the rod up, reel all the slack out, and then set the hook when it goes tight
If you enjoyed this little write-up, please let me know in the comments, and if you have anything else you want to know or ask about saltwater fishing, ask it in the comments and I'll answer it 100% honestly and to the best of my knowledge, literally ask me anything about fishing and I'll tell y'all my 2 cents...
Also, the main bite for us today was from 8am-9:15am and all fish except the Gafftop were caught on live shrimp under a cork in 3-4 feet of water, the Gafftop was caught on a bare hook, lol I'll post up how to do that soon 😂
Tight lines y'all! 😎🎣
Capt. Dillon Hering
(210)-269-9036
