Former Austin guide using largemouth bass bag of tricks on fish in coastal waters

KEMAH — Jody Jackson, when he was a young buck bass guide and tournament angler in Central Texas, was known as an innovator, traveling well outside the borders of the so-called box to find and catch fish.

For the past few years, Jackson has been living along the Texas coast in Kemah, and it’s only natural that he should pull a trick or two out of his bag and apply them to fishing in coastal waters.

That’s when he began sending me photos and electronic images from his fish locators showing big redfish he was finding and catching with the same techniques he’s used for largemouth bass.

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"It’s just like fishing for bass there in Central Texas,” he said. “I’m finding those fish stacked up on rock piles and stuff, and they’re going to bite if you put a lure in front of them. I’m even skipping jigs up under piers and docks and catching reds and flounder.”

Jackson started out making his own lures fashioned from pieces of bass lures he had in his tackle boxes but has since figured out that the same lures and methods that catch bass in Lake Austin will work just as well on big red drum.

“I fish with a lot of guys who fish those redfish tournaments down here, and they can’t believe how I’m catching these fish,” he said.

Jackson launches into the area known as Clear Lake and has found and marked a number of big rock piles by using the electronic gear on his bass boat.

“I couldn’t believe how easy it was to find them like that,” he said. “It’s just bass fishing in a different place.”

Red drum are large predator fish, just as trophy largemouths are, and they orient to the same kinds of underwater structures. Jackson uses his knowledge of bass to help him find and catch those big reds. Once he finds the fish, he uses the same lures he would for bass, namely jigging spoons, spinner baits and crank baits, and he’s begun throwing a few plastic worms onto those same rock piles.

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Everything catches fish. “You lose some fish on the rocks and docks because they’re big and strong and you can’t turn them when they run in there,” he said. “And you have to change out your hooks, too.”

One nice thing about the reds down there: The time of year doesn’t matter. Spring, summer and fall, Jackson pretty much stays within a 3-square-mile area close to where he launches. When the reds move farther offshore in the winter, he still catches them, usually on spoons and bladed jigs, but the action switches from shallow water to depths up to 25 feet.

“I used to think that you couldn’t catch saltwater fish the way you did bass,” Jackson said. “But I was wrong. It’s exactly the same. You just find the fish and you’re going catch them.”