Tides always play a key role in coastal fishing, but Floridians are entering the time of year when ebb and flow create unique scenarios where the old cliché "catching fish in a barrel" isn't so clichéd — it's pretty close to accurate.

In simplest terms, incoming tides grant access to shallow areas and outgoing tides drain them.

 

Think of the tide like an usher guiding folks in and out of a theater. Now, what if that usher missed a handful of folks hiding out in the orchestra pit?

They might end up spending the night in the theater once the doors are locked.

After a few hours, those stranded folks will get hungry, and if someone tossed a pizza into their hiding spot, they'd make short work of the welcome meal.

 

That's how it works with the extreme low tides of late fall-winter. This season sees the year's lowest tides, but the strong outward flow around new and full moons will suck the water right off of a flat and leave the sea grass with a good suntan.

Random depressions between the shoreline and the outer sand bars will hold as much as four feet of water when surrounding areas sit bone dry. Any fish caught in this tidal trap will pounce on lures tossed into their midst.

Tampa Bay kayak guide Jason Stock and paddling buddy Kevin McKenna recently showed me the routine. Stock and other kayakers have been catching lots of redfish, trout and snook in the backwater holes of Miguel Bay, just south of Tampa Bay.

Typifying the area's mangrove-bordered shallow water habitat, Miguel offers a mix of lush sea grass, oyster bars, sandy ridges and potholes. This is all great habitat for gamefish, but when the tide falls, only a few isolated pockets of deeper water remain.

Here, and in all the small bays and coves along the Gulf coast, outboard powered boats can slide into wading range, but you'll often face long walks in soft bottom to and from the boat.

 

Kayaks greatly extend your mobility, as you can drag them over the skinny spots.

Notably, I found that we could actually make better progress paddling across shallow muddy spots than we could make by trudging through the oatmeal bottom that swallowed our feet.

Wading to the edges of the deep spots and casting soft plastics is the way to go. I always keep a gold Exude Dart handy for redfish, and my old faithful delivered a nice red that grabbed the bait not 10 feet from my toes.

Stock and McKenna stuck with D.O.A.'s C.A.L. jigs and kept busy — Stock even caught an inshore slam of snook, redfish and trout.

McKenna found a load of trout stacked along a sandy ridge and literally caught them on every cast before getting bored and moving on. Our best deal came at the very back of the bay where a hole the size of a football field held a big school of mullet. These vegetarians rarely touch lures, but their movement flushed out the crustaceans and baitfish that predators seek.

Wading tip: Pay attention

Sounds simple, but oh how painful my embarrassing admission. Tides do not announce their arrival and they don't wait for a dumb outdoor writer to make sure that his un-anchored kayak is still sitting where he left it.

I probably don't need to explain this one, but I will because confession is good for the soul. On our last stop, I banked my kayak on a muddy ridge where the grass was laying over on its side. Forgetting about the collapsible kayak anchor that Stock had rigged at my stern, I shoved the boat into the mud and walked away confident that it would stay put just like John Wayne's horse loosely tethered in front of some western saloon.

One hour later, I glanced westward and found my yak floating 30 yards from the grass bed that was now nearly submerged. Yep, the sound of my shattering pride is one I'll not soon forget. Thankfully, McKenna was already on his way back to his kayak and when he saw my befuddled look, he just gave me reassuring wave and said "I'll get it."

 

As I stood there on the edge of the grass flat, humbly watching a fellow angler tow my wayward kayak back to the shallows, I reflected on the importance of monitoring the water's movement. At the beginning of our trip, the tide was nearly dead low and when the water slacked, the bite stalled. Once the tide turned and started sneaking back in, this stimulated feeding that lasted several hours.

If you wade from a boat, make sure you have a return route when the tide rises. Pushing through waist deep water is no biggie on low tide, but that trough may be neck-deep or more when the incoming cycle peaks. That's why kayaks offer such a great backwater advantage  as long as you keep yours anchored between paddlings.

For kayak fishing in the Tampa Bay area, visit Jason Stock at www.JmSnookyKayakCharters.com.
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