Redfishing remains as hot as the weather in Charleston area

South Carolina heat wave doesn’t kill red drum fishing, but causes anglers to change.

With much of South Carolina suffering through 100-degree heat the past several days, has the fishing crawled to a halt as fish and fishermen look for shade?

In a word, no.

With folks in the Charleston area watching the mercury climb into triple figures, guides like Fred Bricketto of Carolina Backwaters Guide Service have had to count on the fishing being as hot as the weather.

And sometimes, it is.

On Friday afternoon, Bricketto (843.714.9811) left Isle of Palms Marina, punched the throttle on his 19-foot Egret flats boat and made a 20-minute ride to Bulls Bay, stopping to get a livewell full of menhaden along the way.

When the tide started to fall out of the marsh grass behind Bulls Island, the redfish started to bite, and before the half-day trip was over, his party had landed eight reds on menhaden, mud minnows and pieces of crab.

“It’s the dog days of summer right now,” Bricketto said. “The morning bite has been better; the afternoon bite has been tough, but we’re catching them now because of the falling tide. They’re coming out of the grass. We’re getting lucky.”

So does tide trump temperature? As far as catching reds, perhaps.

“I’ve been running some trips from 6 to 10 a.m. just to get out early and for the right tide,” Bricketto said. “I’m thrilled just to be able to catch redfish this time of year in the heat of the afternoon.”

On the water just before high tide on Friday, Bricketto and his party bided their time until about mid-tide, with the water fairly flushing out of the marsh. That’s when reds started to bump his baits and catch the 1/0 Gamakatsu circle hooks in the corners of their mouths. It was concentrated action, as it will be this fall when reds gang up in bigger schools, but it was consistent for an hour.

“We’re maybe catching fish in ones and twos,” he said. “They’ll start ganging up in November when the water temperature really starts to drop. The big schools are January and February.”

Bricketto said he’s been catching roughly an equal number of reds on split-shot rigs and under MidCoast floats.