Wading Wisdom: Awesome Florida Fishing in the Winter

It’s the front-row seat where you’re part of the show. It’s the ultimate up-close-and-personal angling experience.

No question, wade fishing is truly an immersive experience, and not simply in the sense of walking in water. Rather, proximity to the fish and their habitat heightens awareness for the subtleties of feeling the bottom composition, hearing the slightest of feeding sounds and sensing the changing tide’s tug against your knees.

Some will hike for miles, while others seem satisfied with wading maybe a football field from shore. In some cases, reaching the juice requires a boat ride or kayak paddling before anchoring the vessel and setting out for a walk.

What to Wear for Winter Wading

I’ve seen Florida anglers wading early winter waters in shorts/swim trunks and t-shirts. Loose and free, walking around as you would during the summer months facilitates speed and mobility. However, once the serious cold fronts start marching south and water temperature drops to tingling levels, chest waders are an absolute must for fishing on foot.

Lightweight, breathable nylon/polyester materials do the job for warmer seasons, but for winter fishing, neoprene waders offer the right package of comfort and affordability. Tuck a small tackle tray inside the front of your waders and if you like carrying a spare rod, tuck it into the back of your waders. (Gear belts with rod holders and tool slots are handy.)

When deciding between lighter 3mm waders and heavier/warmer 5 or 7mm, consider this point: On a toasty day, you can always roll down the front of your heavier waders, but when spine-shivering winter water grips your submerged legs, you will never make thin waders thicker.

Waders with boot foot designs are great for fly fishing trout streams, but in the soft, mucky bottom common to most Florida estuaries, that’s a potential hazard. Your foot will often sink a few inches into the oatmeal and when the mud grips your boot as you try to step forward, tumbling becomes a serious concern.

Not a big deal in shin-deep areas, but if you fall in waist-deep water, chilly brine fills your waders. Hypothermia’s the immediate risk, but struggling to regain your footing when suddenly hindered by the water weight could take a tragic turn.

Avoid this by choosing stocking foot waders and a pair of wading boots. Go about one size larger than your normal shoe size to accommodate the extra bulk. Even with the proper wader choice, be smart and fish with at least one other person within ear shot. The best wade fishing areas, especially the winter spots, are pretty far from regular boat traffic, so practice safety.

To that point, carry a bottle or two of water inside your waders or in a backpack. Also, consider that the return trip to shore, or your boat is the same distance as your outset, so factor fatigue into your planning.

Last piece of safety pointer and we’ll get on to the fishing: Keep a filet knife at close reach. Should you find yourself struggling with water-logged waders — whether you’ve fallen, or maybe you underestimated that pothole’s depth — a filet knife will quickly slice open the sides. You gotta get yourself to high ground asap, but at least you’ll be far less hindered.

Where to Wade

Same as boat fishing, waders should select their target area based on fish-friendly factors. Nice views of mangroves and roseate spoonbills are just that, if you’re not wading areas where gamefish have a reason to visit.

Think about food sources like seagrass sparkling with pinfish reflections, or those oyster bars where a buffet of crustaceans and invertebrates hide. Creeks and runouts represent high-probability areas, especially when falling tides flush out the groceries.

You’ll also want to consider water movement. Does the area receive the strong tidal flushing that renews oxygen and forage supplies, or is it a mostly self-contained stagnant backwater will lots of catfish and stingrays?

What to Look For

Wading and blind casting offers a good leg workout and the ambiance is not to be understated. However, while a certain amount of water covering effort may be needed at first, you’ll want to maximize your time by dialing in your focus. That means looking for the fish-gathering areas.

• Potholes: Deeper, sandy depressions scattered amid sea grass offer predators strategic spots from which to pick off passing meals. A mottled mix of sand and grass, known as “broken bottom,” presents classic redfish grazing grounds.
• High spots: The upper level of a flat — some call it the “crown” — can offer prime feeding opportunities when rising water allows predators access to the forage that may have eluded them during lower stages.
• Oyster Bars: Consider these shell mounds the inshore food courts, as the jagged fortresses hold a bounty of crabs, shrimp and worms, while pinfish, mullet and other finned forage frequent the neighborhood. The broader area surrounding an oyster bar will hold eager dinners during low tide, but there’s always a deep drop-off where predators can nose right up to the bar.
• Cuts and Troughs: Any depth variance, even if it’s half a foot offers a travel lane and a feeding position, so pay attention to darker strips cutting through a flat. Same goes for the tidal furrows often running next to a mangrove shoreline.

When It’s Best

Sunlight helps you spot the details better. The lighter bottom of potholes will pop from the surrounding sea grass, oyster bar drop-offs stand out more pronounced and “dust-offs” — muddy clouds caused by a spooked redfish — are impossible to miss.

On the other hand, fish also benefit from greater visibility, so wariness increases. The best time to fish is when you have time to fish, so play the hand you’re dealt and mind the immutable truth of visibility’s impact on fish behavior. (Nothing a long cast with braided main line can’t overcome.)

Without question, the most favorable scenario a wading angler can encounter is known as the “negative low tide.” Mostly occurring during the late-fall through winter period, the greater pull of a full or new moon cycle drops the water below the mean low tide level.

When this timing coincides with a cold front, the strong north wind drives the water even farther out and often holds back the incoming water. Leaving vast ranges of shallow flats high and dry, a negative low piles the fish into the nearest trough or hole where they’ll remain until conditions moderate enough for the water to return to normal levels.

During these negative lows, flats often drain so quickly, you’ll spot seagulls and wading birds picking off shrimp left stranded by departing water. With impassible barriers isolating them from a bay or pocket’s deeper open areas, the fish have lots of time on their hands and food supplies quickly dwindle. Needless to say, anything that even appears edible meets with crushing aggression.

The bite can be nearly non-stop during these negative lows, but don’t miss the opportunity to do a little recon. Take note of the drains and drop-offs that fish will use to access the flat during high tide and you’ll have a good idea of where to cast when the water returns.

During a negative low, redfish and others that haven’t gotten trapped in the isolated refuges, often stage in the deeper perimeter waters like Black Friday shoppers waiting for the store’s opening. Pepper the areas adjacent to a drained flat and you might find an aggressive taker.

In the Mullet Mix

I actually saw a guy catch a chunky black mullet on a jig and paddletail. (The fish was hooked in the mouth, no snagging.) Pretty cool, but let’s be honest, that’s an extreme rarity. What’s not rare is the coexistence of mullet and top-tier flats species like snook, redfish and speckled trout.

When mullet schools move through the shallow backwaters where waders do their best work, the ambling vegetarians stir up loads of crustaceans and baitfish from seagrass pastures. Opportunistic predators know that this means free chow, so they tag along with the mullet schools to pick off the easy meals flushed by mullet movement.

Watch a mullet school to determine their course and then work a paddletail jig, a soft jerkbait or a spoon around the edges. You don’t want to bomb a bait right into a mullet school, as these fish spook easily and if they dash, so do your target species.

That being said, with predators accustomed to the commotion and frequent leaps common to a noisy mullet school, wading anglers can get away with full sized topwaters that might otherwise send solitary fish packing. Call it sonic camouflage, but mullet can mask a lot of lure intrusion, as long as you don’t smack one on the noggin.

You’ll do best by targeting schools of “happy” mullet – those that are leisurely milling around in a concentrated area. Predators can easily mix with their hosts in such moods, whereas fast-moving schools, spooked by porpoises or careless anglers, are tough to follow on foot.

Nature offers additional clues, as flats with large numbers of wading birds such as herons, egrets, wood storks and roseate spoonbills feeding along the shallow perimeters clearly hold abundant supplies of crustaceans and baitfish. Adjacent deep water is very likely to hold snook, trout and redfish. Pair this with nearby mullet and you’ve found the motherlode of wade fishing opportunity.

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