A single clump of spartina grass twitched. Then it shook more violently. Redfish often feed on snails that attach themselves to the grass, but a big mullet rooting around in the grass more than likely caused this movement.

Right time, right place, right day--when high tide floods these flats, fish move into the spartina grass. To hook one, you've got to follow them into their lair.

Casting a soft jerkbait next to the waving clump of grass should solve the mystery. A full-grown mullet will not eat a finger-sized mullet, but a redfish and other predators certainly will. The ensuing strike and head-shaking run satisfied our curiosity—redfish.

We were fishing in Northeast Florida about half an hour south of St. Augustine. Here, incoming tides through Matanzas Inlet pour clean ocean water onto lush spartina grass on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway. Oyster bars stand sentinel in front of this salt marsh and also line the lower portion of many creeks that flow through the grass. This marsh is home to small crustaceans including snails, fiddler crabs and shrimp. It also serves as a nursery to assorted juvenile fishes and provides a smorgasbord of feeding opportunities to predators that move into the marsh with the rising water. In addition to mullet of every size, the list of predators includes redfish, spotted seatrout, flounder, bluefish, ladyfish, small jacks, sheepshead and even snook. Today, we would add our name to that already long list but our search would be different than theirs...we would be trying to catch other predators.

We launched from Bings Landing Park just after the low tide and moved across the ICW and headed west. Water was already flooding onto the flats, racing around the oyster bars and soon it would be flowing over them. The tidal range in this area is not as great as it is in Jacksonville, but there is still a difference of about two to three feet between high and low tides. Low tide is a good time to get a feel for the lay of the land, so to speak. There are so many oyster bars in the marsh, it pays to know what’s lurking just below the surface.

A topwater plug that spits and sputters, or better still, zigzags across the surface, will attract the attention of “gator-size” seatrout in warmer months. However, during winter, most trout move back into deeper holes in the creeks behind the flats—though some trout are still found near the edges of the marsh, even in cooler times. Here, they feed best on a jig-and-shrimp combination or a jig with a soft-plastic body tipped with shrimp.

Redfish move with the rising and falling water and on the lower tides; they feed around the oyster bars between the marsh and the ICW. Flounder seize jigs with soft-plastic bodies if you let them sink and fish them near the bottom. If you work them faster and higher in the water column, bluefish, jacks and ladyfish are quick to grab them. A live shrimp or a finger mullet hooked below a 1⁄4-ounce sinker might catch about anything on the predator list as it gets funneled through the deeper cuts between oyster bars.

When the incoming tide pushes water over the oyster bars instead of around them, you will want to ride the rising water back toward the marsh. Redfish and flounder hang around the newly covered oyster bars and trout patrol the edges of the grass. I stick with the same lures as before—topwater plugs and soft-plastic jigs. Be sure to retrieve whatever you are using in the same direction the water is flowing, toward the marsh. You want your bait to look as natural as possible.