Fish for long enough and you’ll see some pretty strange things, but one thing that happens with regularity but never fails to surprise me is when I’m fishing in a brackish creek or marsh for a salty species like redfish, and catch a largemouth bass right alongside of them. It’s always a fun surprise when the unexpected turns up on the end of your line.
Both species are voracious predators and both will eat just about anything at one time or another, so any time both are present in the same waterway you’ve got a shot at hooking either one up. If you want to up your chances of catching both, however, play your cards accordingly.
- Consider fishing with regular old mud minnow. They tend to be prolific in the waterways where reds and bass intermingle, so they match the hatch for both types of fish. Rigging up with a simple split-shot a couple of feet above the hook, casting out, and letting it sit in a likely looking spot or crawling it across the bottom can be a killer tactic.
- When using blade baits, match the blade color to the water color. Again, both fish like those thumping, flashing blades. The biggest mistake most people make, however, is casting silver all the time. In many brackish areas holding both of these species the water will likely be stained, off-color, or a bit muddy. And silver is generally the best pick for clear, clean water. Instead look at the water’s color and pick a blade that’s a similar hue; root-beer or brown when the water has a muddy appearance, for example. As a rule that’ll generate the most strikes.
- Look for undercut banks. Often these will house a slight depression or hole, and they attract both types of fish. In this scenario, casting as close to the shore as possible with a paddletail on a jig head is a killer. That allows you to work one cast up top and then the next down low, probing all the areas those beasts might be hiding.