THe fish were jumping everywhere, and you could see some reds blast mullet off the surface. Everywhere we moved, hundreds of redfish darted out from under our kayak. We were using everything, from topwaters to crankbaits to soft plastics to live bait, and despite the obvious abundance of fish we only caught one fish the entire time we were there. What is the best thing to do in these situations?

keep tryin lol annoy the heck out of them

how deep was the water you were fishing? how exactly were the fish acting?

you really have to try EVERYTHING in those situations... your tops, your golden spoons (don't be scared of silver, might set 'em off), your gulp, your regular soft plastics... if those aren't workin' throw a rattle trap... I swear that bait works on ANYTHING not called a catfish (and maybe on them as well, can't say I've ever caught a cat on a trap)... also, if you're just doing a regular retrieve with your soft plastic, you might want to slow it down and bounce it off of the bottom... when I feel that may be the ticket I go freshwater on the fish and start carolina-riggin' my longest, floppiest plastic...

i walked up on some reds in this big sand pocket about 12-16" deep. they wouldn't bite for anything, i threw live shrimp, top waters, soft plastics, spoons, poppin corks, free line, and finally i reached in and grabbed this dead mullet that had been floating there in my bait bucket for about 5 hours, cut in three pieces, and with no weight or nothing, casted three times, and caught 3 identical 24 inch reds. its funny how that works..

Try dynamite

There is a new Mullet colored Wildeye bait, great swimming shape, supposed to be available in 4" and 5" sizes. I have caught Inland reds on that 5" size, and got a whole lot of other hits came as well, including Gar. It is real hard to fool a gar in my experiences, so I think this is a great bait.

I have yet to be able to find anybody selling the 4" size.

get the automatic gun out and start shooting at them your bound to get a few that way

We were up in really shallow. It was kayak heaven, because it was too shallow for any motorboats to get in so it was relatively untouched. Where we were fishing it was at most 1 1/2 feet deep, less than two inches in some areas. I noticed that in the really shallow areas as soon as my bait hit the water the fish would attack each other and chase each other away, then I would real it in and immediately afterwards they would return and attack each other again. I had a ratl' trap on me, but I thought that it was for deep water. I threw a Baby 1-minus, a couple of Tsunami Cork Lures, and a Broken back as well.

The more shallow the water, the more cautious the fish. Its just instinctive for them because experience has shown them they are vulnerable in shallow water. Also, if you can see the fish, they likely saw you first.....and are very unlikely to hit.

About the only thing I know to do is make yourself as inconspicuous {sp?} as possible and reduce your profile to as close to the water as you can.

I can't help but wonder if a fly rod might have been the best choice in that situation. You can lay out a fly with a minimum of splash or commotion in the water and if you stay low profile have a good chance at not being detected.

Even with the frustration, it must have been fun to see all those reds and see the water teaming with life. Sounds like great fun!!!

man I want to get into fly-fishing, that very well may have been the ticket that day...

I ran across some reds in a back lake once that were over halfway out of about 3 inches of water, looked like they were crawling... there were tons of 'em, their backs were shining in the sun... very pretty, wish I would have had my camera...

anyhoo, it looked to me like they were looking for crabs up on top and chasing them back into the channels of the lake... anyone else see this before? dunno what else they could have been doing... only caught one...

also, daveim, how does that baby 1-minus work with the reds? I just snagged one the other day, haven't tried it out yet... I bought a kinda croaker-colored one to try on trout...

Meadowlark brings up a good point about the fly fishing. I've seen the same thing happen in skinny water. Reds tailing and not really being skittish, but not eating what I have to throw at them.

In these times, I've seen a fly rod do magical things to the fish. A shrimp imitation, fly spoon, or clouser would be the way to go.

As far as topwaters, I've been hammering the Reds in 1ft of water around Rockport the last couple weeks on Rapala Skitterwalker in pearl color. Bone Diamond Super Spook Jr's have also worked well.

Another lure that has been working when they don't hit the topwaters is a Strike King Redfish Magic spinnerbait. I've been throwing pearl or chart/pearl.

We thought of that but it was too windy for us to go fly fishing, especially for the fact that we are total novices at that kind of fishing. I knew that the fish would get spooked, so I casted into the mangrove and brought it out directly into the water so it wouldn't splash. But then I found out that i probably would have caught more fish if I just left it lie in the mangrove, because while I was wading the mud was too deep so I walked along the grass and almost stepped on some fish that were in less than an inch of water literally in very dense mangrove. I think that I might have caught more fish if I remembered to bring the cast net and got the bait that the fish were visibly attacking in that area, instead of using shrimp caught who-knows-where.