March, 1922 
FOREST AND STREAM 
111 
REDFISHING IN FLORIDA WATERS 
THE LIGHT TACKLE ENTHUSIAST WILL FIND EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY 
TO EXERCISE HIS CRAFT IN THE BAYS WHERE CHANNEL BASS RUN 
T O the angler fortunate enough to 
be on the Gulf coast of Florida at 
any time from October to April, 
the channel bass or, as he is lo- 
cally styled, redfish, will be found to fur- 
nish capital sport. In the bays, where 
these fish usually run from two to ten 
pounds in weight, the light tackle enthu- 
siast will find an excellent opportunity 
to exercise his craft; while in the passes 
and casting from the beaches the surf 
fisherman is fairly sure to take many 
specimens that will weigh from fifteen to 
thirty pounds. 
My first experience with these fish in 
Florida was surf-casting off the eastern 
point of Sanibel Island. I was using 
mullet strips for bait, but as a two hun- 
dred-foot cast only placed my rig in 
about two feet of water I did not feel 
that my chances were of the best; how- 
ever, during the two hours that I waited 
for the Ft. Myers steamer I successfully 
beached two fine redfish of fifteen and 
twenty-six pounds respectively. Natu- 
rally I was much gratified with my suc- 
cess and particularly to learn what fierce 
battles these fish could put up in really 
shoal water. 
Starting at the mouth of the Caloosa- 
hatchee River and extending northward 
nearly to Charlotte Harbor there is a 
vast network of channels and hayous 
winding in and out among the man- 
groves. These receive the tides through 
numerous small inlets, some of which are 
no more than five or six feet wide, and 
except on a very low run of tides simply 
teem with redfish. While the fish of this 
locality run quite small in size, they are 
the most brilliantly-colored redfish that 
I have ever taken, with the possible ex- 
ception of some caught in similar situa- 
tions in Sarasota Bay. They are a deep, 
burnished copper with snowy white bel- 
lies, and a most interesting feature is the 
large number of spots with which many 
of the specimens are adorned. On one 
six-pound fish I counted twenty-nine 
spots, exclusive of the tail spot which is 
so characteristic of the channel bass. 
Fish with from four to ten extra spots 
I found quite frequently. 
Captiva Pass was another ground that 
was a great favorite of mine for reds. 
Some days I would troll by the hour all 
over the pass trying out the different 
grounds, but often when doing this I 
would find the mackerel, trout, jacks and 
groupers so plentiful that the redfish did 
not really get a fair chance at ttiy spoon. 
But there came a day when I hooked and 
boated a beauty of thirty-nine and a half 
By W G. FREEDLEY, JR. 
pounds; this pleased me immensely as it 
is most unusual to get redfish of over 
thirty pounds in the pass or bay fishing. 
evening I stood on the south 
shore of the pass as the sun w’as set- 
ting. Off from the beach for more than 
a hundred yards the water was not over 
two feet deep, and through this shoal 
vtater a large school of redfish was play- 
ing. Casting out among them with an 
underwater plug I started to retreive my 
cast by short jerks. At the second jerk 
a fine fish got fast and after a hard tus- 
sle was beached ; this was a typical sand- 
Grouper and redfish 
bar fish and was very pale in color. But 
as I dragged him up on the beach with 
the tints of the dying sunset reflected 
from his burnished side I fully made up 
my mind that a sand-bar redfish was not 
a prize of which any light tackle angler 
need be ashamed. 
While Casey’s Pass, twenty miles 
south of Sarasota, is a much smaller body 
of water, being only about a hundred 
yards wide, the redfish at times congre- 
ate there in great numbers. The fish 
ere run smaller in size than at Captiva, 
a\-eraging about five pounds against 
tvN'clve at the latter place ; but as they are 
extremely active and can be fished for 
with light bait-casting tackle they fur- 
nish beautiful sport, and arc much su- 
perior to the larger fish for table use. 
The trolling for reds is good practi- 
cally the whole length of the hay from 
Sarasota to Casey’s Pass ; and in addition 
to this there are a few small bayous in 
which it is often possible to take these 
fish on very light tackle. In fact, it was 
in one of these bayous that I finally suc- 
ceeded in capturing some redfish on an 
artificial fly, despite the fact that I had 
frequently been w'dl laughed at for even 
suggesting such a possibility. 
I FIAVE spent many happy hours 
tramping up and down the beach of 
Casey’s Key gathering shells and other 
treasure trove left by the receding tides ; 
but nearly always I would be accompa- 
nied by my surf rod and a bait box welt 
supplied with strips of cut mullet; and 
always I would be keeping my weather 
eye open watching the bottom of the 
channel between the beach and the bar. 
For often in this channel I could make 
out dim gray shapes moving sluggishly to 
and fro, and very frequently these shapes 
proved to be redfish. A short cast, a 
few’ minutes w'ait, two or three gentle 
“pick-ups,” a savage strike with its en- 
suing tussle, and a coppery w’arrior, van- 
quished but still game would be dragged 
protestingly upon the beach. Such hours 
can never be forgotten ! 
Occasionally these shadows proved to 
be less desirable fish. On one of the days 
that I was indulging in this sport at the 
end of an hour my sole result had been 
five baby hammerhead sharks, and I was 
quitting in disgust, when a large redfish 
suddenly made his appearance no more 
than fifteen feet from the beach. As I 
hurriedly rebaited he turned and paddled 
slowly off shore, but within a minute of 
the time that I made my cast I felt the 
unmistakable “pick-up.” A moment later 
I was listening to the scream of my big 
reel, and watching for the gamy fish to 
come to the surface ; this he did almost at 
once, and from then on for more than 
ten minutes, when 1 beached him, I never 
lost sight of his beautiful coppery form 
as he dashed madly through the limpid 
waters of the Gulf. The five sluggish 
little hammerheads were forgotten, and 
as I stooped and stroked the twenty- 
ound beauty laying on the snow-white 
each, I thanked the lucky fate that had 
once more put a prize in my possession. 
