Warning: Long post, but the marsh is my homie and I could write a novel on this stuff.texican08 said:
So I'm needing a little help guys. I've been trying to figure out Green's Lake and for the life of me I can't find clean water. On Saturday I found my way up a path into the marsh near the back part of Greens and it was a little cleaner, but it's normal for me to get back there and not actually spot fish through all that chocolate. The wife put a nice cast on a slot red but she put the death grip on her line when the fish ran and it shook the fly. And that was the only red seen that morning (saw a lot of spotted gar)...
I started exploring the wetlands restoration area and the backdoor entrance from Harborwalk. Has anyone done any good around that area? It looked promising but the wind picked up so i decided to head in.
Was the water tanin stained like almost a blackish tea color or just muddy brown? Tanin stained will be from freshwater run off and tanins being released from dead and rotting vegetation but muddy brown is the norm for Greens in most areas. Greens is primarily silty muddy bottom so anytime the wind picks up it's going to get dirty in a hurry. There's a few areas that have some patchy grass and others with a more firm sandy bottom that will stay less dirty, but that's not the norm. In general seagrasses are what help filter and keep the turbidity down in the marsh so if you want clean water, look on google maps for areas with seagrasses (hint hint a certain backlake/marsh just south of Greens). Another tactic that sometimes works if you're wanting to find cleaner water (and this is relative) is to work leeward shorelines in the coves. As long as the wind hasn't been pumping for a long time or recently switched directions you should be able to find cleanish water that you may be able to see fish in. Clean water is a gift and curse though. Any advantage you have to see the fish, the fish also has that advantage to see you and in general clear water fish are a lot more spooky.
Greens is a target rich environment so don't be scared of dirty water bc it's a huge advantage if you know what you're doing. This leaves you with basically two options. First, as SoW and Rick mentioned, go from sight casting to "sign casting". Learn to look for the subtle signs of redfish and don't be afraid to cast at what you think might be a fish. The subtle signs could be a shrimp flick out of the water, a piece of grass moving unnaturally, a wide wake getting pushed, a swirl or a tail or fin briefly break the surface. A more obvious sign would be gulls working over the top of a fish or pod of fish. Listen for things like crashes and pops and learn to differentiate between a mullet jumping and splatting vs a redfish popping a shrimp or crashing bait on a shoreline. Slow down and be methodical and you'll notice a lot more of the signs. Por ejemplo I was fishing a couple weeks ago in a marsh where the water was high and dirty and it was foggy as a mofo. I couldn't see more than about 20ft in front of me but I could hear a red crashing in the distance. I followed the sound to a little slough and could hear the fish moving back in some flooded grass where I couldn't cast to him. I waited and watched and finally saw the grass move a bit and a shrimp flick right on the edge of the grass so I fired off a cast. Boomtown. Never saw the fish until his head came out of the water to eat the fly.
Your other option is go really shallow. Find the areas that are either less than a foot of water or the areas of flooded grass. The shallower water is where they'll be backing or tailing and in general make it harder for them to move without being detected. Never underestimate how shallow a redfish will go to find food. The pic below was in Greens. I was fishing a shallow area of flooded grass that normally has a couple of inches on it and you can see the water is cleaner here, but the fish were also tailing and backing. The wind was blowing hard this day too.
The last tip I'll add is learn how redfish like to feed. In my experience there's basically two ways they'll feed; actively and passively. Active feeding they'll be cruising or tailing along shorelines in singles or pods or herding shrimp in pods in the middle of a backlake or slough or on a flat. These fish are generally easier to notice bc the subtle signs are more obvious and in some cases blatantly obvious. Look at the pictures I posted above of the schools of reds. I don't care how dirty the water is, you're not going to miss them. The real challenge is the passive feeding fish. These fish will lay pretty still on the bottom and wait for the bait to come to them. They easily go undetected in dirty water but if you understand how they're feeding, it gets easier. These guys are using the current to their advantage so in somewhere like Greens you'll often see reds sit on the edges of the leeward side of the spartina islands laid up waiting to ambush a shrimp that is getting pushed past by a wind driven current or tide. You can either blind cast those spots or slow way down and really search those areas for the fish or signs of that fish, like him popping a shrimp or even just the water heaving from him purging his gills as he eats the bait.
I've fished the wetland restoration area a couple of times and never seen any fish back in there. Just tons of kong mullet and some cool birds. There's a good amount of shrimp in those grass stands though so I'm sure reds go in there at some point.
