Reds:

“South Carolina’s top 9 redfish destinations and exactly how to fish them year-round”

The average Palmetto State redfish begins lifet in late summer as an egg spawned on a deep area of hardbottom near the mouth of a big inlet or bay…

The actual biology of the spawn is not unlike that of many other species of finfish. Big females attract males and pair off. The male fish bumps the female in the belly, loosening the egg mass, which is released into the water around dusk and promptly fertilized by the male. She may release a million eggs in a single season. Fertlized eggs float; the rest sink.

Tiny eggs are about 1/25th of an inch in diameter, and it takes them between one and three days to hatch — shorter in water warmer than 72 degrees, longer in cooler water. Larvae feet on yolk in their egg sacks for several days until their internal organs develop, then they turn their attention to plankton.

Shortly after they are hatched, tiny red drum ride flood tides into the nursery habitat of the coastal estuaries, where they grow to a quarter-inch in two weeks. The trip can be as long as 20 miles before they enter shallow creeks where they start to grow. Juvenile redfish live in the estuary for around four months and grow to around two inches before cold weather drives them into deep water in the main channel of rivers and creeks.

— Excerpted from “Reds: South Carolina’s top 9 redfish destinations and exactly how to fish them year-round” by Dan Kibler, managing editor of South Carolina Sportsman, available at http://www.shop.lasmag.com/Reds-lap-br.htm