Jeffrey Weeks
Captain Brandon Sauls with some nice inshore redfish caught this winter.
Captain Brandon Sauls with some nice inshore redfish caught this winter.

Winter redfish in the Carolinas gather in large schools and roam the inshore waters looking for food, protection, and warmer water. Anglers target them in very shallow areas that heat up more quickly as the sun rises during the day.

Redfish will often be surprisingly shallow and in just a few feet of water during the winter. Here they will eat fiddler crabs and other small prey such as mud minnows. They also seek the shallows for protection against preying dolphins that rank redfish among their number one food choices in the winter.

Boaters often use long push poles to move their boats instead of trolling motors for fear of spooking the fish. Dolphins are as clever (or more) than anglers at finding the redfish school by stealth, so red drum are hardwired to bolt at any noise in the winter shallows. Therefore though you can choose different baits you cannot choose between noisy and silent; you have to stay quiet.

One effective bait for these shallow puppy drum is live bait, but often during the winter the only live bait available are mud minnows. These dependable little killifish will take redfish in the shallows since the drum are there in part to hunt them anyway.

Most anglers use some version of a simple bottom or fishfinder rig with mud minnows. They thread on an egg sinker, tie on a swivel, and run about 14-inches of leader to the hook. This is a solid rig and allows you to feel what is going on with the mud minnow, which can be important because winter drum often do not nail the bait as hard as the redfish you may be used to in warmer water.

An even better technique than the fishfinder rig, however, is to place the mud minnow on a jig head and fish it in a similar way that you would an artificial lure. Just hook the minnow through the lips and throw it out like you would a plastic grub. You retrieve the jig very slowly (or not at all) and let the current work the mud minnow around the shallows.

Scented baits are terrific lures for redfish in the winter. Red drum really respond to the smell they disburse in the water. Many dedicated winter anglers love to catch redfish exclusively with scented soft baits that imitate shrimp, crabs, and minnows. Most of the time you fish these lures on jig heads of or 3/8 ounce in weight and work them very slowly through the shallows.

The market for inshore lures is filled with scented soft baits today, and the reason is that they work. Soft baits marketed by companies like Berkley Gulp, Fishbites, DOA, and Bass Assassin contain scented formulas that, unlike products in decades past, have been scientifically developed to bring in fish by scent and proven time and again by angler to work. You can fish them with confidence, which is an important consideration in cold water fishing.

Whichever technique you use on winter redfish make sure you fish very slowly. Also, red drum in both Carolinas have strict size and creel limits so make sure you know them if you want to keep one for dinner.

Jeffrey Weeks

About The Author: Jeffrey Weeks

Company: Surf and Salt

Area Reporting: Southeastern coast North Carolina

Bio: Jeffrey Weeks is an award-winning North Carolina angling guide and newspaper columnist who has been recognized in national publications like the LA Times and The Atlantic Wire. Jeffrey posts on saltwater and freshwater fishing, southern cooking, and fisheries politics and management. Jeffrey is the author of the book Surf and Saltwater Fishing in the Carolina - a complete guide to fishing at the Carolinas coast. Jeffrey has written the weekly Fishing Insider column for the Brunswick Beacon newspaper for eight years.

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