Redfish schooling around Georgetown

Sight-fishing, flyfishing great tactics to catch up to 50 fish a day.

The shallow waters around Georgetown are clear and cool, and sight fishing for schooling winter redfish on light tackle is how fishing guide Capt. Steve Roff likes to fish for them this time of year.

Roff says the reds are bunching in schools, and “it is like deer hunting, stalking and paying attention to an outline or a tail movement.”

Roff (www.barrierislandguide.com, 843.446.7337) likes to start fishing a couple of hours before a falling tide, and he will usually stay a couple more hours until after the tide changes. With the water temperatures in the 50s and falling, the reds are coming out of the grass and into the mouths of the creeks.

Because dolphin want to eat them, reds bunch up and school together in groups that can sometimes number from 50 to 75 fish.

The first matter in taking advantage of this schooling mentality is to determine where to hunt and locate the schools of reds.

Roff likes to fish the North Inlet, and he will cruise around looking for ripples in the water, tailing fish or anything that looks like an outline of a fish. This is where an elevated platform comes into play.

After a school is spotted, he can’t just run up to them. Instead, Roff says you have to be very quite to slip up on these fish, or you will scare them.

Roff uses a push pole or drifts up and, once he is close enough, casts by “working on the outside of these schooling fish so that I do not disturb the entire school.”

He said he likes to work his bait slowly because the baitfish – mullet and shrimp – are moving slowly this time of year. Also, the reds are not eating like the do in the summer.

Roff uses light spinning tackle and throws live mullet or shrimp, along with artificial lures like Berkley’s Gulp in a white shrimp or a fluke.

A ¼-ounce Bass Assassin also is a good bait.

“This is also a great time to fly fish, and I like to work small shrimp or crab imitations,” Roff added.

Depending on the day, Roff says 50 fish can be caught in a four- to six-hour period. While these fish are no monsters, they will go from 7 to 8 pounds with a few falling within the slot limit.

Mainly, Roff likes to keep the reds in the water and return them back in the water as quickly as possible.

Roff says that this type of fishing will go on until mid-February depending on the weather.

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