Winter Fishing Tips from Capt. Caserta

When I went out on saturday with 3 clients, the tide was falling pretty good so we took off for the backside of San Jose island to hit the cuts where the back lakes drain into Aransas Bay. Sure enough some redfish where sitting outside the cuts.

My clients fished from the boat so I drifted the front of the cuts. After some changing out I found the go-to lures were Devil Eyes in Gold Rush and Pink Hologram with a 1/16 oz jig.

The fish weren't just nailing the lures, and 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 where the bait food was, 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 undersize redfish. Until spring, mud bottoms mixed with shell are where the bait food is and those are the areas where you need to go.

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

The fish are cold this time of year and they don't move around the same as they do in the fall or summer, so you might only see a little movement every once in awhile, which still means enough fish could be holding there to catch a limit.