Page 177 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2023

FAR LEFT: Bailee and Ronnie Daniels with a redfish Bailee caught while fishing near Cat Island.
LEFT: This redfish already escaped from one hook and still hit a topwater bait. BELOW: Angie Felsher shows off a redfish she caught in the Mississippi Sound.
Females typically mature fully by the time they turn six years old, but many reds mature earlier. Once they reach sexual maturity, redfish start moving out of the marshes, bays and estuaries into the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico where they spend the rest of their lives. Redfish could live more than 40 years.
However, each year, they come in closer to shore, making them easier
for anglers to catch. In late summer and early fall, giant redfish gather in enormous spawning schools called “drumming aggregates” and terrorize anything they encounter. Male redfish pick out prime spawning areas and start drumming to call females to them. Off the Mississippi coast, this usually begins in August. The spawning peaks during September or October.
“On the Mississippi coast, we’ll see the ‘running of the bulls’ from about mid- July through the first cool snap in late October,” advised Mark Wright with Legends of the Lower Marsh Charters in Pass Christian. “When those big bulls
come inshore, they are feeding up for the spawn and will eat anything they can swallow.”
While most people call all large redfish “bull” reds, many are females. When spawning, females add more body mass because of the number of eggs they produce and carry. During the spawning period, one female redfish could release as many as 1.5 million eggs at a time. She might spawn several times during the season.
Redfish don’t build nests like many other fish species. Batch spawners, females drop their eggs into the water and the males fertilize them. Males might stay in the same general area for weeks, but females come and go as they become ready to spawn or finish.
The eggs hatch in about 24 hours. Young redfish make their way to the marshes, bays and estuaries where they will spend their first two to six years eating and growing.
One school of spawning redfish could cover acres of water emblazoned with a coppery color like a ravenous red
tide looking to devour whatever it can find. They particularly love munching menhaden, also called pogies, crabs and shrimp.
“Bull reds school up out in open water to spawn in late August or September, possibly into October,” explained Ronnie Daniels with Fisher-Man Guide Services in Pass Christian. “That’s
when the pogies move in closer to shore. That brings in the bull redfish closer
to shore. The majority of the bull reds school around the islands, but those big bull reds follow the schools of pogies because that’s easy, high-protein forage for them.”
Redfish also hold a particular fondness for succulent mullets. Mullets and
other baitfish commonly swim near
the surface in huge schools. Mullets habitually stick their noses out of the water. For the most fun, throw topwater baits just ahead of the schools. When a monster bull explodes on a topwater bait it resembles a bomb detonating. Hang on for a tremendous fight from one of the most powerful in Mississippi waters.
SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living | www.smliving.net
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