A mullet patterned sinking fly landed this redfish.
July 04, 2025
By Terry Lacoss
Austin Sarvis made a perfect cast, resulting in his orange-and-brown fly landing perfectly over the flooded jetty rocks. Lowering the tip of his 9-foot, 8-weight fly rod, he allowed his fly to sink deep into the falling tide. He then began making short strips of his floating fly line.
The weighted Yank’s Assassin fly soon located a predator in a wide-shouldered St. Marys Inlet redfish that crashed Austin’s fly right on top of the rocks. Austin had all he could do in holding the big redfish from taking his 9-foot, 20-pound tippet leader into the rocks where it would certainly be parted. Keeping constant pressure, Austin steered his redfish safely into the channel. Soon we had it to the boat: 28 inches, photographed and released.
When most fly fishermen think of redfish, spotted tails waving over marsh grass come to mind. But there’s another side to the fishery. Reds forage heavily along rocks and concrete breakwaters throughout the state of Florida. In winter, the sun warms up those hard surfaces, radiating into the nearby waters, attracting a wide variety of forage. In summer, the tidal waters of an inlet may offer cooler conditions attractive then to prey and predator alike.
Rocky jetties, some made of granite boulders, others by broken concrete, make up several northeast Florida jetties. Tides can be critical. Here’s one good scenario. Look for a flood tide arriving during late morning to early afternoon, a few days prior to a full moon. During the early morning low incoming tide, the sun begins to warm up rocks and concrete. As the tidewaters begin to rise over the rocks and concrete, baitfish and gamefish like red drum will begin to move into the warming structure. Typically, the cleaner water will also help gamefish spot your fly, or lures as well.
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Captain Jeremiah Joost-Miller employs his Garmin Live Scope when locating redfish and other species of gamefish holding close to the large granite rocks of the Fernandina Beach jetty. He favors lower tides because that tends to concentrate the fish in a small space.
“My LiveScope is a great tool when putting my customers on jetty redfish,” Joost-Miller said. “I prefer moving tides and use an intermediate sinking tip fly line to get flies down deeper in the water column. My leader includes a 6-foot section of 40-pound fluorocarbon followed by a 3-foot length of 30-pound fluorocarbon.”
Joost-Miller prefers mullet pattern flies using a 3/0 hook, with olive and white color patterns. However, his standby color is solid black. Joost-Miller also recommends putting side pressure on hooked redfish on the rocks, which tends to guide larger reds away from a certain escape.
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Northeast Florida has numerous concrete, broken concrete/rock bulkheads and jetties located both along the Intracoastal Waterway and adjacent to the region’s major inlets. The St. Marys Inlet is in the very northeast corner of Florida, followed by Nassau Sound, St. Johns, St. Augustine and Ponce inlet.
All these fishy inlets harbor rock jetties except for the Nassau Inlet, where a small rock breakwater is located just south of the inlet and close to the beach. This popular rock jetty is accessible by wade fishermen and boaters as well. However, just inside the Nassau Inlet there are many housing developments where large concrete bulkheads offer excellent fly fishing for redfish during a flooding tide. Some of the better concrete bulkheads are located close to large spartina marshes, or where oysterbars are present. Having a nearby creek mouth is a huge bonus!
Fly fishing for redfish at jetty rocks and concrete breakwaters is often overlooked by fly fishermen. However, in my experience it’s clear that reds on the rocks offer some of the best fly fishing for large redfish—some of which could measure over 36 inches. Give it a try!
This article was featured in the June 2025 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe
