Cutting through 30 degree wind-chills kept us hunkered deep within our coats, when rounding a corner of the marsh we came upon a scene that put the brakes on the throttle. About 100 sea birds, pelicans, seagulls and terns, were dipping, diving, and flaring over a huge school of surface feeding fish. This amazing sight was on a very chilly morning in December after a strong arctic cold front buffeted east bay with near gale force winds.

On launching the next day from the Yacht Basin boat ramp, we found that lower than normal tides kept us from motoring into the bay forcing us to run to Stingray Marina instead. Making the turn at Stingray we throttled out into the bay steering towards a distant grass-line and into the amazing scene we were about to experience.

After spotting the bird and feeding activity we throttled down… dropped in the troll-motor and slowly moved towards the action being careful not to spook the fish. Not knowing what species were feeding, thoughts of trout entered my mind at first, but our first cast produced a redfish, with the second, third, and fourth casts giving up redfish as well.

Pleasantly surprised to find such a huge pod of redfish chasing and feeding on a massive school of baitfish, we moved into the frenzy with spoon rigged rods. The birds were frantic, we were frantic, and the reds were definitely frantic. We had rigged for speckled trout earlier and REALLY didn’t have the time to make the switch to redfish gold. But were literally hooking up with the silver spoons almost on every cast. This by chance occurrence would prove to become our fishing day of days.

After inviting Rick and his “Birthday Gal” wife Nancy Bauchman (of Miss Nancy’s Bait Camp) along for a mornings worth of angling, we launched into the chill of winter that would soon have us warming up from some of the HOTTEST fishing action anyone could ever hope to encounter on a cold wintry day.

What happened was the strong cold front winds caused a lower than normal tide in the bay, draining the shallow marshy areas, which in turn forced the redfish out into deeper bay waters along with the baitfish they were feeding on. This in turn attracted flocks of sea birds that began diving and feeding on the bait trying to escape the hungry maws of the rampaging reds. Then, we stumbled upon this amazing scene to start catching redfish who were greedily slurping our spoons. Natures cycle of “predator to prey” for sure but a very exciting cycle for us to encounter. Lady luck was truly on our side this day!

All we had to do was cruise up and down the yardage of feeding gulls with our troll-motor set on slow, casting spoons, catching reds, and dodging birds. The size of the reds varied from 30-plus inches to the rat reds below the keeper slot of 20-to-28 inches, with many redfish within the slot. After 2 hours of this action without another boat in sight, we managed to box 3 limits (9 reds) measuring from 22 to 28 inches, from which our birthday gal, Nancy Bauchman, landed the 28incher, our largest keeper of the day.

Silver spoons were our clincher baits for this action and not the normal redfish gold. We found by reeling them subsurface on a steady medium speed, then popping (rod jerks) every 3ft to allow our spoons to flutter down, the reds would pick up on the falling, flashing spoon resembling an injured shad and slam it.

These fish were very active and aggressive all along the 2ft to 6ft marsh drop offs, especially within the deeper guts at the entrances to the marsh. There must’ve been hundreds of reds massed within that 100 yard stretch of water feeding and waiting for the high tide to restore the water to more normal levels in the marsh.

We boated 27 reds, but lost just as many, losing several huge reds to straightened hooks and busted lines. About 15 of those 27 reds marked the 20 to 28inch keeper limit, from which we boxed our 3 person/9 redfish limit weighing over 60 lbs. This was very exciting action with a memory enjoyed and an experience shared.

Finally, after two hours of this heavy redfish action another boat of anglers arrived to get in on the action, so we decided to leave. Besides we were tired and very hungry. Heading back in for the boat-ramp, laughing and high five-ing as we went, we were excited and in awe of catching so many fish, that is, until suddenly realizing that we would have to clean all those reds!