# Getting Redfish To Commit



## ifsteve (Jul 1, 2010)

Hard to say without seeing the actual refusal. Several things could be a factor.
1. Got too close to the boat. 
2. Fly was too big (or small) or not imitating something they are looking for.
3. Retrieve isn't making them eat. I see this a lot. For example, guys are using a crab pattern but fish it like a baitfish. 

The good news: There is something you can do for all three of the above issues

4. They just aren't eating.

The bad news: Isn't much you can do about this one. Just keep changing things and keep throwing to fish. One or two things will happen. You'll finally find a fish willing to eat or you'll run out of time.


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## sjrobin (Jul 13, 2015)

Flatsaholic said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> Yesterday, I was fly fishing in Tampa Bay with a friend of mine. We had about 6-8 big reds follow the fly then at the last second dart off. We even had one dart off then come back to the fly. I have had this issue many times in the past when fly fishing in Tampa Bay and I would like to get it figured out.
> 
> Any one out there with some advice or experience with this?


Good fly selection to get follows like that. Not the best color/movement or flash/no flash or bite tippet/leader combination not small enough. With the right combination, you can get a following fish to eat.


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## Shadowcast (Feb 26, 2008)

First of all...you are behind the 8-ball the moment you step on a skiff...with a fly rod....and all the right flies....because Tampa Bay redfish are ASSHOLES! Secondly.....I'm going to need a precise location of where said encounters occurred so I can try to replicate the follows...LOL!! Finally, if a red is a player (meaning his body language is conducive to hunting and looking for food in a calm manner) I use a pop-tick method. I lead the hell out of him and hope his ADD doesn't kick in and he changes his track...once he gets somewhat close, I'll pop the fly to get his attention and then do small ticks to imitate a shrimp or crab trying to bury itself in the sand. This is also dependent on the red not being spooked by its 5-10 bodyguard Sheepies he swims with, that blow out the second you breathe which then causes the red to blow out too. I've had many a red fall for this method and have passed it on to others who have had success. I have also had many a red track the fly for what seems like forever with his method, only to have it turn off at the last second giving me the big F-You as it swims away.


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## Pierson (Mar 16, 2016)

Flatsaholic said:


> Yesterday, I was fly fishing in Tampa Bay


LOL first mistake right there!


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## Tx_Whipray (Sep 4, 2015)

I can't speak to Tampa Redfish, which I've heard are like a cross between a Permit and a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but what I've found in my home waters in Texas is that for winter Redfish you take the smallest redfish fly in your fly box and try to tie one half that size.


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## Tx_Whipray (Sep 4, 2015)

Shadowcast said:


> First of all...you are behind the 8-ball the moment you step on a skiff...with a fly rod....and all the right flies....because Tampa Bay redfish are ASSHOLES! Secondly.....I'm going to need a precise location of where said encounters occurred so I can try to replicate the follows...LOL!! Finally, if a red is a player (meaning his body language is conducive to hunting and looking for food in a calm manner) I use a pop-tick method. I lead the hell out of him and hope his ADD doesn't kick in and he changes his track...once he gets somewhat close, I'll pop the fly to get his attention and then do small ticks to imitate a shrimp or crab trying to bury itself in the sand. *This is also dependent on the red not being spooked by its 5-10 bodyguard Sheepies he swims with, that blow out the second you breathe which then causes the red to blow out too. * I've had many a red fall for this method and have passed it on to others who have had success. I have also had many a red track the fly for what seems like forever with his method, only to have it turn off at the last second giving me the big F-You as it swims away.


I always end up with a school of 5,000 10" mullet between me and the fish. The second you flick your rod tip, the mullet blow up and take the Redfish with them.


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## Megalops (Oct 23, 2011)

Man, it was blowing hard yesterday too. Good for you getting/even seeing the follows.


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## fishnpreacher (Jul 28, 2018)

Never fished reds in Florida, but have trout fished north Ga mountains for 20 years and seen the same thing with refusals. I had one trout look at my fly, swim off, and come back with a sign that read "BEEN THERE DONE THAT"
Yep, some fish want to mess with you.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

Fishing here sucks...don't know why people keep doing it...

That said, don't be afraid to go all the way down to 10-12# tippet.


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## LowHydrogen (Dec 31, 2015)

If they are getting too close to the boat before they commit there's not much you can do about that. 

It sounds like the movement/retrieval or they're getting too good of a look at your fly/knots. Describe your tippet/knot setup. If I have a fish homing in on my fly I try to take it away from him at the last minute, I don't mean snatching it away from him, but as he gets closer I slightly pick up the pace of whatever I am doing, but a lot of times I leave a fly alone until the fish is close enough to see it before I start any movement (it's prey, it should act like prey, ie going about it's normal business until something comes along that might eat it). In my experience it triggers their instinct of that this thing is fixing to get away if I don't smash it. Some fish are foragers and some are predatory, Redfish feed in both ways. If the fly is in any bad position that will cause it to be pulled toward the fish in any way your best bet is to just not touch it. 

Leave a rag on the floor..cat won't touch it, slowly drag it along at the same pace they might mess with it, try to take it away at the last second every time, the claws come out. 

If I still have blatant refusals on the same fly I will change size/color. As others have said sometimes they are just curious and have no intention of eating, but I think trying to elicit that involuntary predator response ups your odds.

Good Luck!


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## ifsteve (Jul 1, 2010)

[QUOTE="Matts, post: 544810, member: 9507"*]I don't have much to add other than be sure you are not stopping the fly. It must flee! T*ry varying the retrieve and using the most natural fly you can find. Once back in 1999, I fished FL (Mosquito Lagoon) for a week, then Abaco and then Galveston......I was truly a beginner but those FL redfish were snobs, the Bahamas rocked and Galveston surf gave up limits of trout in June under a light N wind I like reading these reports to remind myself why I rarely travel to FL any more.[/QUOTE]

This is flat not true. I fish a crab pattern often and once the fish sees the fly i will give it very short ticks on the bottom and sometimes let the fly just sit on the bottom and the fish tail on it and suck it in.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

Matts said:


> I don't have much to add other than be sure you are not stopping the fly. It must flee!


Depends on the fly and where you are fishing in the water column...IMHO...


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## K3anderson (Jan 23, 2013)

If you get an answer, please call me. ASAP.


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## el9surf (Dec 23, 2008)

If you learn the body language of redfish you will know before your fly lands which fish you have a decent shot at. Don't get me wrong I cast to all of them, but some fish are players and others are never going to eat. Low hydrogen had a lot of good info. If you are trying to move the fly towards the fish in any way your success rate will be poor. Even knowing all of this it can be difficult to present the fly correctly due to many factors including wind, light, natural obstacles, shadow, pressure waves, direction the fish is facing. As if that's not enough retrieval pace, fly color and size all contribute to the equation.

I tie many of my redfish flies with minimal to no flash. I feel like the more flash the fly has the more likely it will be rejected.


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## MariettaMike (Jun 14, 2012)

Flatsaholic said:


> We had about 6-8 big reds follow the fly then at the last second dart off. We even had one dart off then come back to the fly.


I think you're adrenalin spike makes you strip your fly too fast and the fish recognize the speed and/or jerkiness of your retrieve as unnatural then bail.

I'm also thinking that you stopped stripping after that one fish darted off, so it came back and then you started stripping too fast again.

Try slowing down and even stopping next time for following fish to give them less time to eye your fly.


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## HelthInsXpert (Jan 24, 2018)

Probably common sense but if they are intrigued by the fly.....DON'T stop or slow down. If anything a real prey would flee or swim faster if chased. 

I think sometimes I feel like I need to slow down and let the fish catch up and that certainly doesn't work.


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## LowHydrogen (Dec 31, 2015)

Kinda disappointed in you guys, I was fully expecting someone to chime in with..

Don't pressure them about marriage, let them watch the game without pestering them, let them hangout with their Redfish buddies, have fiddler crabs on the table when they come home etc.


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## Tx_Whipray (Sep 4, 2015)

LowHydrogen said:


> Kinda disappointed in you guys, I was fully expecting someone to chime in with..
> 
> Don't pressure them about marriage, let them watch the game without pestering them, let them hangout with their Redfish buddies, have fiddler crabs on the table when they come home etc.


tell it you're pregnant


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## BM_Barrelcooker (May 4, 2011)

Try an emerger , sometimes you have to break up patern.


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## Ken T (Dec 10, 2015)

I fish these cruel bastards ever day during the winter and into spring. Most often I am on the platform watching and I am convinced that resident Tampa Bay Reds during winter and early spring need scent to seal the deal. The follows, the circling and return drive bys are attempts to confirm scent. 

For now I see far better results stopping the flies progress and resorting to tiny twitches to seal the deal. A good deal of the strikes come when the fly is motionless. For me it does not matter much whether the fly imitates fish, crab or shrimp, the pauses are the key. Later as the water warms and other fish move in fast strips and erratic movement will become more effective.

It is important to design and fish flies that are constructed with materials that move or breathe in almost still water. Marabou, Fox Fur, Ostrich, Saddle Hackle etc. Since scent is not an option for us, imparting movement into the fly design is our best area for creating a better illusion of life and vulnerability. 

With Reds specifically I disagree with the make your fly flee approach. If you have an eager fish he will turn and take quickly after sighting your fly but in Tampa Bay this is not the norm at this time of year.

These fish are not super predators like pelagic species and the Snook that share the same waters. Reds have more in common with Carp than high metabolism predators and like to go about their business in a pretty lazy manner when they are in the skinny water. They are both foragers and opportunistic feeders. If you continue a fast retrieve you wind up at the skiff and its game over. If you park it on the bottom while they are still interested you may get a take even if it is just out of curiosity.

Lastly when I do find a feeding fish (winter and now) I normally get the best result dead drifting the fly to the fish. This is always my first approach. The natural forage come to the fish at the same speed as the current so presenting as close to the same speed and direction goes a long way towards keeping a fish calm. Some of my best fish recently have come on dead drifts with weightless flies.

just some observations


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## Scott Kor (Feb 3, 2019)

Lots of great advice here even if some of it is contradictory. That's fishing! Try it all until you have confidence in what to do. All I can add is "don't forget to hold your mouth right".


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## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

Just change your fly to something that they have not seen. Plus all that stripping advise


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## cjshinn1 (May 29, 2012)

It took me a couple years of fishing Tampa hard to figure them out on fly. Best advise is to pick an area in Tampa that you know holds red fish and fish it as much as possible, year round and on as many different tides as possible. You wil start to learn windows when the red fish will feed the best. I moved to South FL a couple years ago and still think Tampa had some of the best red fishing in the state.

This pic was from a couple winters ago and I think I got 8 - 10 reds in a few hours. There was barely any water in the bay that day...

View attachment 62798


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## Flatsaholic (Apr 28, 2016)

Thank you for the advise.

For those asking we were using 12 lb leader. We tried numerous flies and stripping patterns.

CJ any advice on fly patterns to try and colors that tend to work better than others?


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## cjshinn1 (May 29, 2012)

in winter time, an olive and white clouser with bead chain eyes size 1/0. In spring / summer for sight fishing anything with bead chain eyes and gold.

Again, being in the right place at the right time makes a huge difference in if these fish will bite or not.


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## FlyrodC (Apr 29, 2018)

Ken T said:


> I fish these cruel bastards ever day during the winter and into spring. Most often I am on the platform watching and I am convinced that resident Tampa Bay Reds during winter and early spring need scent to seal the deal. The follows, the circling and return drive bys are attempts to confirm scent.
> 
> For now I see far better results stopping the flies progress and resorting to tiny twitches to seal the deal. A good deal of the strikes come when the fly is motionless. For me it does not matter much whether the fly imitates fish, crab or shrimp, the pauses are the key. Later as the water warms and other fish move in fast strips and erratic movement will become more effective.
> 
> ...


This is a seriously good post. I've been flyfishing freshwater for 30+ years, and am fairly new to inshore flyfishing. This is one of the most insightful comments about retrieval that I've read anywhere. Many of the SeaTrout and a few of the Reds that I've caught so far have been right after the cast lands and sinks for 5-10 seconds. Strip and the fish is on. When I get back down there, deaddrifting/light twitching in likely areas is on the menu for me.

Also, you mention scent, I tie my Clousers with synthetic materials and spread ProCure on the flies on occasion. Doesn't seem to hurt my catch rate. Your thoughts on ProCure would be interesting to hear? 

Lastly, -6F with an18 MPH wind out of the north right now in Twin Bridges, Mt. Daydreaming and reading about saltwater fishing is a good thing.


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## Megalops (Oct 23, 2011)

Procure on a fly? That’s like baking ribs in an oven. Effed up.


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## Ken T (Dec 10, 2015)

FlyrodC said:


> This is a seriously good post. I've been flyfishing freshwater for 30+ years, and am fairly new to inshore flyfishing. This is one of the most insightful comments about retrieval that I've read anywhere. Many of the SeaTrout and a few of the Reds that I've caught so far have been right after the cast lands and sinks for 5-10 seconds. Strip and the fish is on. When I get back down there, deaddrifting/light twitching in likely areas is on the menu for me.
> 
> Also, you mention scent, I tie my Clousers with synthetic materials and spread ProCure on the flies on occasion. Doesn't seem to hurt my catch rate. Your thoughts on ProCure would be interesting to hear?
> 
> Lastly, -6F with an18 MPH wind out of the north right now in Twin Bridges, Mt. Daydreaming and reading about saltwater fishing is a good thing.



I personally would not use scent on a fly. To me that's bait fishing. We fly anglers voluntarily handicap ourselves to try and take game fish on our terms. For me it's fly rod and the only time I don't have a fly rod is the rare occasions where I join friends for some bottom fishing. 

My reference to scent is simply regarding how high a priority that Reds place on scent. There are many factors to induce a strike from a fish. These include flash, sound, pushing water, vibration, scent, etc.

For Reds I believe the factor that they trust most is scent. This opinion stems from a huge amount of time watching them in crystal clear water.

A quick case in point happened last week. I fish one day a week with my uncle who has bad knees. He normally sits most of the day and uses light tackle with artificials.

I poled and walked the skiff a considerable distance to a deep cut at low tide. From the platform I could clearly see quite a few Reds of all sizes laid up on the bottom. I worked them over with several proven patterns for about a half hour and managed to get a couple of half hearted looks but no takes.

I gave up and in came the stinky gulp bait. One cast and one of the best Reds in the group was on. He then added 3 or 4 more before they quit biting. In this instance my presentations were far better, more natural. My flies were a good impersonation of local forage but the stink ruled this spot.

Here is a photo of the Red taken on my Uncles first cast.








My uncle and I fish one day per week from October through mid April and we put in crazy days. Usually dawn until dark. The light tackle with gulp grossly out fishes the fly every single day. many days he has several dozen fish to my one or two.

In Tampa Bay however we are lucky that not all species rely so heavily on scent. On these same trips the Fly heavily out fishes him on Trout, Snook and all of the Pelagics we encounter.

Lastly I understand your situation in Twin Bridges. I guide drift boat trips for Trout 6 months of the year in the Upper Delaware River System. Brutal winters with below zero temps most nights.


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## Tx_Whipray (Sep 4, 2015)

FlyrodC said:


> This is a seriously good post. I've been flyfishing freshwater for 30+ years, and am fairly new to inshore flyfishing. This is one of the most insightful comments about retrieval that I've read anywhere. Many of the SeaTrout and a few of the Reds that I've caught so far have been right after the cast lands and sinks for 5-10 seconds. Strip and the fish is on. When I get back down there, deaddrifting/light twitching in likely areas is on the menu for me.
> 
> Also, you mention scent, I tie my Clousers with synthetic materials and spread ProCure on the flies on occasion. Doesn't seem to hurt my catch rate. Your thoughts on ProCure would be interesting to hear?
> 
> Lastly, -6F with an18 MPH wind out of the north right now in Twin Bridges, Mt. Daydreaming and reading about saltwater fishing is a good thing.


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## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

I there such a thing as a gulp fly


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## FlyrodC (Apr 29, 2018)

Lol, I get it. Just trying to shorten up the catching curve.


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## Flatsaholic (Apr 28, 2016)

Update...

I went again this past Saturday and saw hundreds of reds and snook. Half way through the day we figure out you have to get a lot further away from these Tampa Bay fish then you have to in the Lagoon. Once we started to make 40-60ft cast at the fish they would not spook. We figured out how to grab the reds attention and get them to follow. We had more followers this week than last. Good Progress! However, still no takers.


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## K3anderson (Jan 23, 2013)

Flatsaholic said:


> Update...
> 
> I went again this past Saturday and saw hundreds of reds and snook.


 Are you sure these weren't mullet? P.S. If the "advice" is about redfish in a place other than TB, just ignore. If you don't fish here, you don't know what its like. They are different here than any other place I've been.


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## Flatsaholic (Apr 28, 2016)

K3anderson said:


> Are you sure these weren't mullet? P.S. If the "advice" is about redfish in a place other than TB, just ignore. If you don't fish here, you don't know what its like. They are different here than any other place I've been.


No 100% redfish and snook. You could forget the snook they spooked by you breathing.


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## Flatsaholic (Apr 28, 2016)

K3anderson said:


> Are you sure these weren't mullet? P.S. If the "advice" is about redfish in a place other than TB, just ignore. If you don't fish here, you don't know what its like. They are different here than any other place I've been.


No 100% redfish and snook. You could forget the snook they spooked by you breathing.


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## K3anderson (Jan 23, 2013)

I've been fishing Tampa Bay for many years. I haven't seen hundreds of redfish and snook in one day in a long time. It depends where in the bay you are I guess. Were these fish eating or just moving? I was out yesterday too and we saw maybe 20 fish. Maybe 5 tailing. We saw several snook, but, only one was actively eating.


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## Boykinballer (Nov 13, 2018)

K3, 

Most of the fish were just cruisers, I did not see any signs that predation was going on.


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## Ken T (Dec 10, 2015)

I have also not run into hundreds of Reds in a day and I fish about every day. In the area I fish most often there are 2 resident groups of Reds that hang around certain flats. At times the one group may have up to about 3 dozen fish together all 30" range fish. The other group has about half the fish, same size.

I fish both groups pretty regularly and every day I try a different approach. Flies, Rigging and how to enter the flat are some of the considerations. Over the last month we have hooked zero when I find them milling about in a large group. Sometimes they blow out and sometimes they just mill about in clear sight ignoring everything you put in front of them. They are resident fish that are used to being fished. They have seen everything including white bait raining down on them most days. Getting these fish to eat the fly is a quest.

I do occasionally score on these residents but only when the groups fragment and they are foraging about. 

One pattern that I have seen with Tampa Bay Reds is that they will actively forage at the times where human activity fades. Some of the times I have seen these conditioned fish drop their guard is during crappy rainy weather when few anglers will be out, late day after boat traffic fades, windy days when it is difficult to see on the flats, cold weather, etc.


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## Rookiemistake (Jan 30, 2013)

When i spook reds i change to a small fly. Like a #6 hook small lead and minimum ingredients. Less is more but sometimes they wont eat.especially in high traffic areas they seam to be just passing through. Im in north florida and boat traffic on a weekend just kills the bite. Best days are mon and tuesday for me. Never fished tampa but im sure we have all had days where we see a ton but nobody wants to eat.


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