Negative Tide, Negative Fish, Positive Vibes

If you’re reading this it means you survived 2024. The sight-fishing game along the upper half of the Texas coast was one of the most challenging I can remember―please excuse me as I exhale a sigh of relief. Here we live and die by water level. Note I didn’t say tide level. That’s because our water level is heavily influenced by wind and sometimes freshwater runoff. For many weeks at a time this past year the water level was what my friends and I refer to as a bastard tide. In other words, the water was at such a high level that we could not fish even our flood tide spots. While at the same time, neither could we fish spots conducive to tide at predicted levels, either. The fishing became very grindy at times to say the least and I’m glad it’s in the rearview mirror.

Pushing into the New Year, I am optimistic that some seasonally negative tides will hit the reset button on all things shallow. The fish can be particularly negative this time of the year as well. This is primarily because the game of sight-fishing requires sun, and more often than not in January, full sun means post-front high-pressure types of days. This translates to fish not feeding aggressively, and often times they’re sucked down to the bottom or negative, as we like to describe their mood . People that are only blind-casting can struggle in these types of conditions; whereas if you instead make it a visual game and use the right tackle, you can have some truly great days of catching.

For those throwing conventional tackle, I like to utilize a spinning rod for this specific scenario. Mainly because of the ability to present lighter baits at greater distances. It’ll likely be 7’ to 7’2” and on the lighter side of medium-light action. I like to use 10-pound braid with a 20-pound fluorocarbon leader. Lure selection for this situation can vary depending on their level of moodiness, but for the sake of staying on topic, we’ll say these are very negative fish. So, that being said, I’ll typically skip the paddletails and use straight-tailed baits when using plastics. Baits such as, but not limited to Norton’s Sand Eel Jr and KWiggler’s Ball Tail Jr. Both of these baits are the right shape and size for the task at hand. Colors of choice are typically something very natural and close to the color of bottom I’m fishing.

Hair jigs like bucktails and Buggs Jigs also work very well for this application and are often my go-to. They’re extremely lifelike under water and breath with the slightest bump of the rod. It’s the closest thing to fly fishing while still utilizing the simplicity of spinning tackle. While you can readily buy these from various sources, I prefer to tie my own as I have all the supplies to do so already, and quite honestly, they are very fast and easy to tie compared to some of the fly patterns I commonly use.

Jig selection is pretty straight forward. I prefer a classic white bucktail when fishing over light-colored sandy bottom, and when fishing over muddy bottom as we often are around the marsh, I opt for the Buggs style jig, which is essentially a rabbit strip tail with a bit of flash and a rabbit strip collar. For these I use dark colors because we’re fishing over mud as mentioned, so black and purple, or olive and dark brown are standard.

With fly tackle under these conditions, I really like to stick with a 7-weight rod for a more delicate presentation. I know some people that scale down to even a 6-weight, but to each their own. My choice of fly line stays the same as I don’t swap over to “cold weather” line with a braided nylon core. While I’m not going to argue, it’s probably the better option for fishing in near-freezing temperatures as our fly fishing is typically best as the day starts to warm a bit anyway. So, I stick to my guns with tropic coated mono core fly lines all year.

Leader stays the same for me as well. Typically it’s a 9 foot 40/30/20 handtied leader, with the 20-pound fluorocarbon as the bite-tippet. I am a converted believer in the fluorocarbon leader thing. I had an instance a few years back when the water in the marsh I was fishing got clearer the further back I went and fish began short-stopping my clients fly. I snipped off the thick and opaque Hard Mason 12-pound (sorry Capt. Chris), and tied on a piece of fluorocarbon. The next several fish inhaled the fly without hesitation. From that day forward Ande 20-pound fluorocarbon became the gold standard on my boat. In extreme gin-clear conditions, don’t be bashful to add a foot or two of 12-pound fluorocarbon to the end of your leader system.

As for fly selection, I’ve lately narrowed it down to a couple of choices for days like this. One is the Convict Killer and the other is the Strong Arm Merkin. Both are tied on a short shank hook and have small or extra-small lead eyes, but due to the materials of which the flies are tied, the extra-small has much more movement. Both flies found a place in my fly box originally for sheepshead but have since become my go-to for negative redfish year-round.

I could probably write another entire article on looking for good spots to fish on these types of days, but in short, I would say to start looking for fish signs much sooner than you normally would when approaching your fishing grounds. If you push a fish while running a route you’d normally drive right past…just stop! Fish it out for a hundred yards or so. You may have been about to run over a whole pile of fish.

With lower-than-normal water levels and temperatures, the fish might be scattered into channels and bigger lakes where you’d normally see large bay boats anchored or drifting. And because of the lower water level, those bigger boats won’t be around, as the typically 3-foot deep lakes are now 1-foot at best and riddled with large mats of oyster reef. As for me and my Sabine Skiff, that’s just where we will be hunting.

Until next time let’s make it a good year. Cheers!