By Liam Callaghan
Historically, March is one of those months that can be extremely cold or unseasonably warm. First determine the weather pattern leading up to the days you fish and react accordingly. With cooler temperatures, continue to look for the mid-morning high tide to catch all of the opportunistic feeders making their way onto warmer flats heated by the sun. Like November through February, I feel tide is more of a determining factor to catching fish than any other variable the winter months have to offer. Redfish, trout, sheephead, drum and even flounder can be caught in huge numbers in the early spring months following this mid-morning pattern. Target shallow flats that have exposed grass or oyster outcrops and focus on working your bait as close to the structure as possible. When the water starts to crest the tops of the bars, work yourself off the structure methodically. If the temperature starts to become warmer, fall back to the fall pattern. Another great upper to middle column bait is the spoon. Aqua Dream Living by Captain Mike Hakala makes a great spoon that mimics most bait. Pick your favorite color and work it over mixed bottom and oyster bars. Another fantastic artificial bait for March is the 6” DOA glow jerk bait or the Slayer Inc. soft plastic line. Rig these soft plastics with a 1/16oz. weedless hook or a Slayer Inc. jig head.
Lanark, St. Theresa and around to Alligator Harbor has produced a number of decent reports of redfish being caught on both ends of the tide. Jason Callaghan of Crawfordville reports very good numbers of redfish being caught in the Alligator Harbor area out of kayaks. Jason is catching most of these redfish in the grass or along the numerous oyster bars. I had a chance to fish recently with Jeff Suber of FCKA.net and we caught a dozen redfish to 28 inches. Jeff and I fished with Aqua Dream Living spoons and 6” Soft jerk baits in the colors bone and gold. This time of the year the redfish will tend to be in small to medium size schools of 5 or more fish. We poled a few flats to find the fish and stayed on them for a few hours.
The Big Bend has one of the best fisheries in the entire state, so get out, support your local tackle shop and bend a rod!