Most anglers agree that the low end of the tide is best for finding schools of winter reds; it’s hard for them to hide on a shallow flat, but once the little creeks start to fill with water and the grass starts to flood, finding reds becomes much more difficult.
The key is, once a school of reds is located, especially a big one, keep them in sight. By paying close attention to the movements of a school, experienced anglers regularly catch them throughout the entire tide cycle instead of just on the low end.
Guide Colt Harrison rarely fishes just the low tide.
“I’ll stick with them through the rise, because I swear if you can find them on the mid- to high, they will eat really good.”
Reds laid up in the grass on a big tide are not an uncommon sight for Harrison, who gets a big kick out of that particular situation and said unseasonably warm winter days can really turn the feed on.
“I remember last January after just a few days of warm weather, we actually found reds tailing on the flood-tide flats just southwest of Edisto,” he said. “That’s not typical, but it sure was exciting to experience.”
Sometimes keeping a school of reds in sight is easier said than done; they have a way of being there one minute and gone the next. But a school will generally stay in one area all winter, making the same daily moves into the same creeks and marshes.
Even if it takes several trips to learn their movements throughout the tide, it is definitely worth it, because once those movements are dialed in, many long days of almost non-stop catching in cold water is possible.
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