Charleston redfish action an easy deal right now

Fishing for redfish in the Charleston area of late has been pretty much an open book – you pick where you’d like to fish, and a good story is sure to follow. “Just about anywhere you go, you can catch fish right now,” says guide Darrell Crabtree. “It’s making my job easy.”

Plenty of fish of different size classes can be caught, with smaller fish in the 15- to 20-inch range typically stacked up around docks and oyster bars, somewhat larger fish up on the mudflats and in the grass, and the biggest fish around the jetties and in the surf.

Crabtree has been focusing his attention in recent days around the docks, oyster beds and mudflats along the Stono and Kiawah River areas, where a good day has been producing a dozen to two dozen redfish.

“There are a lot of live shirmp in the creeks and rivers right now, so that’s the bait of choice,” said Crabtree, a touring redfish pro who operates D&S Charters (www.dnscharters.com, 843-814-2906).

He’ll use his trolling motor or pole his boat into the flats, then use live shrimp under a rattling cork with a 15-inch leader. He targets grasslines around dock pilings and oyster beds.

Much of the time, however, Crabtree has been having plenty of success casting a variety of artificial lures, with which he typically opts for lines in the 20-pound-test range with a 2-foot long flourocarbon leader, also of 20-pound test.

Topwater baits are proving deadly early in the morning and late in the afternoons, he said.

Other hot lures in recent days for Crabtree have been the Berkley Gulp! Bass Assassin and 3-inch Berkley Gulp! Shrimp, with the latter best in white.

“This is my favorite time,” Crabtree said. “The temperature is cooling off and the fish are biting.”

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