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Recent Media Coverage of Red Hot Charters

"SMART MOVES" By FRANK SARGEANT  Published: Feb 2, 2007

It's rare these days to see a large school of redfish on the flats, but when you do, odds are that things will go your way, big time. Reds tend to be competitive feeders, and if what looks like a tasty meal lands in their midst, there is likely to be a serious rush to the table.

However, there are now some very educated redfish, magna cum redfish you could say, thanks to years of dodging boats and anglers' hooks. It's not necessarily that easy anymore to lure the fish into making a mistake.

A trip I had with Glen Pla, host of the popular "Average Angler" television show on Bright House Networks Catch 47, is a case in point. Fishing with captain Brian Epperson, one of the top guns on Old Tampa Bay, it didn't take us long to locate fish, and plenty of them. But getting them to bite was another matter.

"When the tide gets low enough, all the fish pull off the grass up here and come out to the edge of the flats," Epperson said. "This happens around the new and full moon each month. It's a consistent pattern, and quite a few good fishermen are aware of it."

And that is the hitch, as we were to learn. We found a school of at least 50 reds milling around in a little more than a foot of water. It looked like it would be an instant hookup.

But Epperson and Pla had been here before.

"It might be best if we try live bait," Glen diplomatically advised me, checking out the swimbait that's pretty much the constant adornment on the end of one of my spinning rigs these days. "They seem to spook from artificials."

I wasn't convinced, since I regularly fool the paranoid reds of the South Shore area on these lures, often in water that barely covers my ankles.

Taking His Advice

I aimed at one side of the school with the lure, while Pla hit the other side with a fat shrimp. Personally, I think the shrimp landed first. Didn't matter - it was instant chaos, with redfish zipping in all directions as if a 30-pound block of ice had just fallen out of an airplane and landed amongst them. (Hey, it could happen.)

"I guess they're a little nervous," I had to admit.

"You could say that," Pla said. "How about a shrimp?"

Pla is an outstanding angler who learned the secrets of Tampa Bay on his own long before hosting "Average Angler." He's an avid wade fisherman and kayaker, and he scores sometimes when even the guides are struggling. So, I switched to shrimp.

But I quickly found that winging the tiny crustacean far enough to get into the reds before they spooked from the presence of the boat was another big issue. We made at least a dozen approaches, all with no success, despite Epperson's expert poling. Each time, the school simply picked up as one and eased out of range, sometimes disappearing for five or 10 minutes in the wave-chopped water before we could relocate them and pole back into range.

"We'd better break out the secret weapon," Epperson said.

He offered me some gaudy jig tails in yellow, green and red. They were a variety of "scent bait," an artificial lure that has an odor on which fish are supposed to home in. There have been dozens of these over the years, all having one thing in common: Fish do not eat them.

"They're going to bite those?" I asked doubtfully.

"Watch," Epperson said.

Desperation Time

Instead of rigging the tail on a jig, he hooked it through the "nose" on a size 1 hook.

"Now, cast it in front of them and don't move it," he told me.

I would have had more faith tossing out a hot dog, but we were getting desperate for a fish.

I put the bait about 10 feet ahead of the fish. It landed with a light splash, and the fish didn't spook.

I watched the school cruise over to the spot where the bait landed. My line bumped, then tightened.

"See what I mean?" Epperson said.

A few minutes later, we hoisted a fat 2-footer aboard.

The bait tail is the Berkley Gulp, a tough, edible material that can be molded into a variety of shapes and colors. It stinks, bad, and is not something you would want to put in your pocket except in a sealed plastic bag. The product also is noted for drying into a leather-like hardness if left on the hook overnight, so it has to be removed promptly.

But fish like it.

"If you fish it on a jig head, the splash still spooks the fish when they have been pressured a lot, so that's why we go with the unweighted hook," Epperson said. "It's no better than live shrimp, but you can throw it a lot further so sometimes it does a better job."

Especially if you're after magna cum redfish.

Glen Pla's "Average Angler" airs Wednesdays at 7 p.m., with repeats Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 a.m., on Catch 47. Brian Epperson can be reached at (813) 610-7899 or

redhotcharters.com.

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