Nature Coast, William Toney

Looking at a week that is between tides. Between tides to me is when we have a incoming tide early morning and late evening therefore leaving most of the day as a outgoing or low tide. It easy for some anglers because they will go out at the best part of a incoming tide but for some we have to fish when we get the chance. Over the years I’ve told clients on a low tide that redfishing is going to be tough because they will spread out on a nearby flat and scatter out. The incoming tide will concentrate them on rocky points with good tide flow and plenty of stuff to eat.

It’s not impossible to catch redfish on low water but it’s harder then a incoming tide.  One way to beat the low water blues is to fish in deeper water this time of year. The nearshore rocks of the Foul Area and deep flats around the Bird Rack are good for trout, seabass, flounder, spanish mackerel, blue fish, mangrove snapper and grunts. Jigging with soft plastics our using live shrimp is the best bait.  Two fish that will start to show up on the Big Bend in April is Cobia and triple tail. I always keep a heavy spinning outfit in the vessel for cobia because you never know when one will show up. On one of my trips we caught a nice one that was trying to eat the trout we had hooked. For tripletail start paying attention to floating grass mats, markers and crab trap buoys. For the cobia use a bucktail jig or any wiggly live bait and for the triple tail a live shrimp under a cork is best.