Get salty with your bass skills

 

Your largemouth tactics can come in handy during a week at the beach. You can adapt them to fishing in a saltwater marsh and you could be pulling trout, flounder, and redfish from the water instead of sulking at your 10th round of miniature golf.

GEAR UP Spool a medium-weight spinning reel with 8- to 10-pound monofilament line. Stay away from braided lines; the mouths of marsh fish such as trout and flounder are surprisingly soft, and you'll need some stretch to keep from tearing hooks out. For a basic tackle kit, carry a dozen leadhead jigs in white and red, and a handful of curly-tailed jig bodies in colors that imitate shrimp and in chartreuse (1).

POUND THE STRUCTURE Every dock piling, patch of oysters, bulkhead, rock pile, and abandoned crab pot is a potential reef full of fish. Target these areas just as you would fish around the tree stumps in the farm pond back home (2).

AMBUSH HOLDING FISH Analyze each stretch of tidal current as if it were a river and then fish accordingly. Marshy points, undercut banks, and deep water beside oyster beds and sandbars are great places to cast for fish holding in the lee of the tides (3).

BE THE BAIT In most cases, your lure will mimic shrimp or small baitfish. Lift and twitch your rod tip to allow the lure to rise and fall (4).

CHECK THE TIDES Tides affect fish movements and feeding times to a huge degree because moving tides sweep a buffet of prey—shrimp, small crabs, and baitfish into the feeding lanes of holding fish. In most coastal regions, two high tides and two low tides come in and out of the marsh each day. Fish the hour or so before and after each change of tide.