Triple-Play Reds

A Morehead City fishing guide uses three techniques to fish for shallow-water summer drum.

The only man-made sounds were occasional sloshes as waves washed against the boat hull, created by the turbulence a trolling motor propeller. Capt. Dave Dietzler of Morehead City and Chuck Laughridge of Roanoke Rapids stood quietly and scanned the water from the boat’s bow.

A dedicated fly angler, Laughridge held his fly with one hand and rod grip in the other hand. Loops of line coiled at his feet.

A discussion, no more than a halting murmur, punctuated by Dieztler’s hand pointing at a water disturbance made by a red drum, was followed by the swish of a fly line and the splashdown of a fly, the only human sounds to break the solitude of the marsh. It seemed a breech of etiquette for the pair to speak above a whisper so quiet was the mood of the day.

Distant sea gulls laughed, and jumping mullets showed here and there, revealing the potential location of a feeding redfish. While some fishermen pursue red drum as a hobby, Dietzler has made chasing the state’s designated saltwater fish an art form.

“I prefer to use the trolling motor instead of a push pole,” Dietzler said. “If you know the water, you can cover more ground more quietly with the trolling motor. You may have to jump out and push or pole the boat occasion, but there’s not many places you can’t get to with a trolling motor.”

Dietzler fishes where he sees shrimp and small mullet. In summertime that means Middle Marsh and the North River, including tributaries such as Ward Creek, North Leopard and South Leopard creeks, Goose Bay and Davis Bay.

“There are lots of little creeks without names,” Dietzler said. “They have bait swimming at their mouths and anywhere there’s bait, there are red drum.”

For catching red drum with fly tackle, Dietzler fishes during the top and bottom of the tides. During high tide, the fish move to the grass flats. During low tide, the fish concentrate at holes.

“In certain areas you can see fish at the flats where the grass is broken,” he said. “It’s more like hunting than fishing when you see a fish, and you have to stalk close enough to catch him. That’s when you may have to pick up the trolling motor and use a pole or get out and wade. Water slapping the hull scares them when they’re in the grass feeding on snails, crabs and shrimp.”

Many fly patterns will catch red drum, but for efficiency, Dietzler likes to “match the hatch,” similar to mountain trout fly-rod anglers.

“When the fish are in the grass, I use crab patterns,” he said. “They might be eating blue, fiddler or calico crabs. They may also be eating shrimp. If you see shrimp popping the surface, a grass shrimp pattern is effective. I use a No. 2 or No. 4. and it’s about 1 ½-inches long.”

As the tide falls, the water recedes from the grass and the drum leave with the water. But they stay as close as possible to the same high-tide feeding areas so when the tide returns, they filter back to the same spots.

“During several fishing trips, I watched my friend and fellow fishing guide, Graham Willis, chasing a drum that he fitted with an accidental tracking buoy,” Dietzler said. “He had hooked a red drum using a mullet fished with a float rig. The ‘float’ was a silver Top Dog with the hooks removed. The fish had broken the line and could be tracked along the same 100-yard stretch of bank every day by finding the lure.

“The other fish in the school stayed with that one, so we always knew where the school was located. It proved red drum use the same places every day.”

Once the tide goes out, Dietzler finds fish at sloughs. The water at these deeper areas is darker, so he uses fly patterns with darker colors.

“Typically in summer the water is off color (not clear), so we use browns, oranges, gold, blacks and dark greens,” he said. “Bent-back flies, Clousers, spoon flies, poppers and crease flies are good. A purple spoonfly is a good all-around fly for fishing grass or deep holes.

“It’s still a sight-fishing game. You want to see the fish before you cast.”

Dietzler uses 7-weight to 9-weight fly rods, depending upon the conditions. If he’s fighting strong winds or using a heavy fly or a popper with lots of air friction, he uses fly rods on the heavy side. But his fly lines selections are always on the lighter side.

“A floating line or a slow-sink intermediate line is best,” he said. “It depends upon water depth and style of fly, but either line will work. You’re not fishing deeper than a couple of feet so you don’t need a heavy fly line.”

Selection of a leader is more important than choosing a fly line. A short leader works easier when casting a heavy fly or when there’s some wind and also works fine for fishing holes. But for fishing shallow flats where visibility is good, a 12-foot leader may be required.

“Eighty percent of a drum’s diet lives on the bottom,” Dietzler said. “ But a popper can get their attention from the commotion it makes. A spoonfly gets their attention if you swim it near the bottom. All the sinking red drum flies are fairly weedless because the hook points upward, so you usually don’t need a weed guard on the hook. With poppers the hook points down, but since it floats, the hook won’t snag.”

If a fish is moving, Dietzler casts the fly in front of it and lets it rest on the bottom. Once the fish gets close, he twitches the fly and, hopefully, the fish strikes it. It’s the safest way to fish without spooking a red drum, but this technique isn’t always possible.

“If I cast to a fish, I try to put the fly between 2 and 4 feet in front of him,” he said. “If you ‘line’ the fish (put the fly line on top of the fish) you’ll spook him. If you can see him, he can see you, so you don’t want to make a lot of false casts.

“You need to be able to cast accurately from 35 to 50 feet; you can’t make noise; you need to be ready; and you need to be efficient.”

It’s hard during the excitement of seeing a fish, but the angler must fish the fly — just not too slowly.

“You want to fish a spoon fly slowly, or it’ll spin your line,” he said. “A red drum won’t chase anything long or far. Keep the fly moving — strip and stop, strip and stop, then maybe let it fall, and he’ll strike it.

“You fish other flies the same way. But a Clouser sinks faster, so you have to keep it moving above the bottom or it will hang up where a spoonfly won’t. The last thing you want is a hang-up while a red drum is swimming by. If you’re a beginner and have a problem with the fly hanging, use a fly with a weed guard.”

The best times to fish poppers are at dawn and dusk when drum are blasting schools of mullet and shrimp. But it takes nerves of steel to wait out a good hook-set.

“A red drum’s mouth is on the bottom of its head, so three-fourths of the fish is out of the water when he hits a popper,” Dietzler said. “Don’t lift the fly, but just keep popping and stripping until you feel the fish. Make a strip strike when he gets it in his mouth, then lift the rod to fight the fish.

“If you lift the rod to set the hook and miss, the fly is no longer in the strike zone. But if you miss a hookset with a strip strike, he keeps following it. If he gets to the boat and misses, and you have another angler ready, you can cast a different fly to the same fish. He’ll hit it 90 percent of the time.”

Once the fish is hooked, it’s played with finger pressure on the fly line until the slack line runs out. Then the fish is fought with the reel.

“You just don’t want to get so excited you let go of the fly line, and it gets slack,” he said. “You can land the fish by stripping line it in unless he’s 30-inches long. Then you feed him line until he gets it down to the reel. Keep plenty of arc in the rod, and he won’t break the line. If you’re fishing above oysters, keep the rod high so the angle’s greater, and it won’t cut off.”

Fly-fishing success requires the correct conditions. For Dietzler, wind or uncooperative fish force a switch to spinning gear.

“When the wind blows more than 15 knots, you can’t fly fish,” he said. “Usually the wind is calm until mid morning.

“Then I put on a fluke or paddle-tail shad with 1/8-ounce jig head or a spinnerbait and bomb the grass. I like a gold willowleaf for the big blade on a spinnerbait. I also like a gold spoon with a trailer.

“Whatever’s perfect for bass fishing is perfect for drum fishing. It’s awesome to see a drum come out of the grass to crash a lure.

“I tell bass fishermen to bring their bass lures and advise them about the colors to bring. Gold blades are better than silver blades. I like gold-sparkle and blue-with-black-back paddle tails. If the water’s clear, I like white-glitter, sometimes with a chartreuse tail.”

Good topwater lures include Zara Spooks and Top Dogs. A suspending bait Dietzler also likes is a Catch 2000 because it looks like a mullet and is perfect for fishing in 18 inches to 2 feet of water.

“You’re sight-fishing, but also make blind casts to find fish wherever you know they’ve been holding,” he said. “Sometimes they’re spooky, so I use an 8 1/2-foot steelhead rod with a Penn 4500 and 20-pound braided line to cast farther down the bank. It keeps me from getting right on top of them and spooking them. Once I locate the fish, I can get within range of the shorter rods.”

But in hot weather, even red drum lures with solid reputations like gold spoons can lose their luster. Sometimes, no matter the skill of the angler, only live baits will work.

“As a last resort or if I have a client that can’t get the hang of casting a fly rod or working a lure, I catch some mullet in a cast net and put them in the live well,” Dietzler said. “I fish them with a float rig and a rattle cork or a rattling Top Dog with the hook removed, an 18-inch leader and a small circle hook or a 1/0 Kahle hook stuck through the top of the mullet’s head.

“I cast it on top of the oyster rocks or at the edges of grass and give it a pop every now and then.”

Dietzler anchors in places where he knows fish will move by or at areas where he’s spotted fish early in the day that refused flies or lures.

“I might fish a mullet on a jig head if I’m casting to visible fish or where I’ve seen fish earlier,” he said. “But in places where I’m waiting on fish to come by, I let the line out as the float drifts along the bank or back into a creek. That way, you cover lots of area without reeling in and casting out again.

“The more you keep your bait in the water, the more likely you’ll catch fish. Live baiting is the tactic of last resort, but it always works. A red drum will hit a live mullet when he won’t hit anything else.”