Photo by Brian Carroll of Marine Marketing Group, INC.

Captain Mike Able, Jr., navigates his 18 footflat-bottom Hewes “Bonefisher” away from the Isle of Palms Marina and out toward a flat he knew held redfish.

Photo by Brian Carroll of Marine Marketing Group, INC.

Navigating between the oyster beds would have been impossible without an experienced guide who knew his way through the channel. Able has been fishing the lowcountry since he could barely stand and knows this area like the back of his hand.

Photo by Brian Carroll of Marine Marketing Group, INC.

Captain Able shows off a redfish. The fish have many names depending on who’s talking, but are easily identified by the distinctive spot on the end of their tail.

Photo by Brian Carroll of Marine Marketing Group, INC.

Captain Mike Able Jr and Jeremy Judd show off two  more nice redfish.

Photo by Brian Carroll of Marine Marketing Group, INC.

Captain Able revives a redfish before he releases it.

Photo by Brian Carroll of Marine Marketing Group, INC.

Jeremy Judd and Captain Mike Able, Jr., show off two redfish they reeled in at the same time. It was a morning filled with non-stop fishing action.

    Dense marsh grass can be found in groves out in the middle and along the shoreline of saltwater tidal creeks. Between that grass and the pluff mud found beneath it lie red fish. The fish rest and feed in the shallow water while the marsh grass provides protection.  These areas are known as the “flats”.

    Navigating the lowcountry’s flats can be hazardous to an inexperienced boater. The deeper channels that water runs through are less than obvious and getting outside the channel can mean burying a hull in pluff mud, insuring that your boat isn’t going anywhere for awhile.

Luckily, we had an experienced guide to steer us through the flats. Twenty three year-old Mike Able of Able-Minded Charters is a lowcountry native and won his first fishing tournament when he was three. He’s been out on the water since he could stand up.

    Able made it seem easy to navigate his 18 foot Hewes “Bonefisher” away from the Isle of Palms Marina and through the obstacle course of oyster beds and shallow flats.

It was quarter after seven on a Thursday morning and the sun was just breaking, creating a pink and purple hue across the barely-visible sky.

The air was chilly and a stiff breeze made the water choppy as we made our way to a flat Captain Able believed held redfish. We would be fishing an outgoing tide. Able said the lowering water pushed the redfish out from the center of the flats making them more accessible.

As we neared the marsh flat, Able slowed the boat down and killed the motor. Using a long pole he’d had lying on the side of the boat called a “push pole”, he navigated the “bonefisher” nearer to the grass. He shoved his push pole into the pluff mud and used it to anchor the boat.

    Then he showed me the setup we’d be using on our poles: a pop‘n’cork with several feet of leader attached to a circle hook with a split shot sinker tied just above the knot on the hook. He attached a live mud minnow for bait and instructed me to cast as near to the marsh grass as possible. Then I’d work the setup up and down the flat.

    Initially, casting such a light setup proved difficult and on a windy day it was tough to cast my bait out into the areas that looked most promising. But after awhile I got the hang of it; my technique mediocre, but less than embarrassing.

    For the first few minutes, all was quiet except for the beads on my pop ‘n’ cork snapping across the water.

    I started to wonder if fishing the flats was a myth – the water was only disturbed by wind that picked up and died down intermittently. Could there really be such large fish in water that was barely knee deep?

Captain Able had been demonstrating his technique and fishing alongside me. His float started moving across the water. He started to reel and his pole bent over. The water churned and a wide, spotted tail broke above the surface and thrashed about.

    His drag zipped out a few yards before he was able to turn the redfish. He fought it to the side of the boat and used a boga-grip to remove the hook from the 23-inch fish’s mouth.  The beast had seemingly come from nowhere. The water had been silent, and without a guide the fish below would never have been revealed.

Able released the fish and we cast back out to the flat. Not a minute passed before my float began moving.

Another one was on!

I fought the fish in and Able helped me release it. I was awestruck that such huge fish lie so well hidden in the shallow flats.

Able had me baited up in a heartbeat and I was snapping my cork across the water again. In only minutes, I’d hooked into another fish. He swam toward the boat and I could tell he was bigger than the last two by the “C” shape my pole had taken on. He cruised toward the push pole Able had used to anchor up – I fought him back to the side of the boat but he dipped beneath the prop and I was too slow to work him around it.

My line stayed tight as he disappeared below and I held out hope that he’d break toward open water. But the line went slack.

The fish was lost.

Captain Able rigged me back up and poled the boat along the flat instructing me to cast out ahead. Able’s boat was equipped with a pole stand above the motor which gave him more leverage to push the boat, and also provided a better view for him to peer into the water where it was possible to actually see redfish.

With this advantage he could tell me exactly where to cast to catch them. As we moved around oyster beds I started fishing these just as I’d fished the marsh grass, casting right next to the beds.

As the tide went out the redfish were getting thick. Even from where I stood I could see the muddy circles that marked where the fish had stirred up the water. Able had poled us into a place where the water was barely a foot deep and I was surprised that even his flat bottom boat wasn’t sinking into the pluff mud.

I kept hooking into fish as we went. The bite was getting fast and furious. Captain Able anchored up so he could fish with me and we were hooking into fish at the same time. In several hours we’d hooked into 15-20 redfish, most of them between 3 and 6 pounds. The only time we weren’t catching fish was when our lines weren’t in the water.    

We headed back to the marina at 11 am. The tide was coming back in and the fishing had slowed.

 I now knew firsthand that fishing the lowcountry’s flats is no myth – an experience guide, the correct setup and some fresh bait is a recipe for a morning filled with non-stop action.