Redfish Fishing: A Quick & Easy Beginners Guide

iSportsman Staff

If you’re heading out to fish for redfish, you probably want to spend more time on the water and less time reading — iSportsman has the solution with a quick and easy beginners guide to get you started!

Redfishing Good to Know:

• They can be found along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coast year-round but are most popular near the southern U.S. states—especially Florida! 
• While redfish have a varying diet of mullet, shrimp, and other bait fish they tend to favor shrimp in the summer. 
• When fishing for redear in late spring go out on warm spring days and transition to mild summer days as the warmer months roll by. 

Essential Redfish Gear:

The standard redfish beginners set up consists of a 7’ medium-to-heavy rod, paired with a 3000 to 4000 sized reel. If you’re in the market for a new rod, the just released Piscifun Saltflow is great for redfishing with formulated strength-to-weight ratio bring durability.  

To go along with the Saltflow rod, the best-selling Piscifun Chaos XS 4000 saltwater casting reel is currently on sale and offers a smooth consistent premium carbon drag system with 22lbs of stopping power.  

You’ll want to spool your setup with 10-15lb braided line, such as KastKing’s Superpower braided line, and a 20lb leader. While lots of redfish enthusiasts have had great luck with GULP mullet bait, from May to August ocean-bound redfish may also prefer a weedless shrimp bait—or even better, live shrimp! 

Redfish Casting Locations:

If you’re already along the U.S. southern shores, or the coast of Florida you can cast your line for redfish in inlets, off beaches, in mangroves, mud flats, and off docks and bridges. While seasoned anglers have slightly different bait and gear recommendations per location, our beginner set up will give you a fair advantage no matter where you set up! 

Make sure you understand how to use weather fronts for successful fishing on iSportsmanUSA!