Curse of the Redfish

Since I took up fly fishing four years ago, I have caught 42 species of fish on fly. Conspicuously missing from this assortment is the humble redfish, aka Red Drum, even though redfish frequent the flats and lagoons I fish in Everglades National Park.

It’s not like I can’t catch redfish at all. I have caught dozens of redfish using spinning gear and soft plastic lures, and several more on natural bait.

Most times, redfish are easily sight-fished by offering them an imitation baitfish or shrimp. If you make the lure appear from elsewhere, then make it try to hide like a scared shrimp or escape like a panicked or injured baitfish, a redfish can’t resist pouncing on it. Sometimes, when sharks are feeding nearby, I’ve tempted redfish with a lure that has no hook, just for the fun of watching them dive on it like a beagle on a slice of pepperoni.

If the light is bad for spotting redfish beneath the water’s surface, one can cast a lure towards “nervous water”, whereupon the redfish roiling the water’s surface from below is likely to grab it. Throw a lure up a dark, mangrove-lined creek and the unseen redfish hunting crabs in that creek will probably chase it down. Pitch a lure under the mangrove trees where a redfish is hiding in the cool shade, and the redfish will snatch that lure before it touches the bottom. Once a redfish has hold of your lure, it will tug like a bulldog. I have mistaken a big redfish for a small shark.

My total failure to catch redfish on a fly is not for lack of trying. I’ve worked at it with obsessive dedication. Day after day I venture forth on the flats before dawn, saying “This will be the day I catch a redfish on fly.” The sun rises, redfish reveal themselves on the flat, but for one odd reason or another, it just doesn’t happen. Here’s a sampling of the redfish I have NOT caught on fly:

• I was surrounded by 50 redfish, noses in the mud and tails in the air. They completely ignored every single fly I dropped next to them or pulled past their noses in the muddy water. I guess stirred up mud makes it hard to see.
• Again I was surrounded by redfish feeding on all sides, but each one stayed just out of fly casting range. Was it a redfish conspiracy or do I need to change my deodorant?
• I arrived early, waited patiently by a particular oyster bar until the moment in the incoming tide when redfish came to feed on the bar. I placed my fly directly in front of that feeding redfish only to have a puffer swim in, grab the fly, chew off the fur, get hooked, and then flap about, scaring off the redfish. The redfish was not seen again at that bar. Ever.
• I have stalked schools of redfish feeding in the shallows near a bank in a saltwater lagoon, approaching ever so slowly for 20 minutes, then watched them zoom away, spooked by a Little Blue Heron or a tern passing overhead. Redfish can’t be too careful.
• A redfish swam right past my stationary fly. Didn’t see it. I recast the same fly in front of the same redfish, moved it a tiny bit to get the redfish’s attention, and the redfish spooked like it had seen a ghost. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
• I designed and tied a special sparkly redfish attractor fly, cast it into high-tide redfish haunts under mangrove branches, and caught some nice snook instead. I’d hate to complain about catching snook.
• I watched a redfish follow my fly for 10 feet then turn away. I think it liked the fly, but then remembered it wasn’t hungry.
• A redfish bit my fly but did not get hooked. Am I getting warmer?
• I drove 3 hours each way and stayed overnight with my friend Herman, who took me fishing at all his secret redfish spots around Pine Island. I just saw one redfish, a baby “rat red”, and Herman saw none. We blamed the almost-full moon and the slow daytime tides, but we both knew in our hearts it was the Curse of the Redfish.

I’m sure that as soon as I catch one redfish on fly, the next one will come quickly, and then they’ll become easy enough that I’ll wonder why they eluded me for so long. When I was a teenager, that’s how it was with birds. I’d knock myself out to spot a new species in the wild, then, after I’d found my first one, they’d pop up like mushrooms everywhere I went.

Gray and I will spend most of September in France, where red wine will make up for lack of redfish. I will resume my quest upon our return to Florida. I have tied a new crab fly that catches every redfish I see in my dreams.