By April the water is warming and the fish are moving from schooling behavior towards more independent small pods, singles and pairs of fish. When they do have a tendency to school, they’re more of a loosely associated grouping where you’ll have an area that’s two acres in size that has 80 fish in it, but they won’t be grouped up real tight.
It’s a lot like you see cattle in a field, where some times they’re just strewn all over, and other times they’re grouped up together. The redfish get like that, where they’re in the same general area, but not in a herd or school.
The majority of our fish will be slot-sized, and the Indian River and the Mosquito Lagoon historically offer the better fishing in April, although last year the Banana River really turned on and was surprisingly good. They’re really focused on small food that time of the year and are focused on small baitfish fry just hatching for spring.
They basically have a very varied diet in springtime because there are so many new baitfish hatching and a variety of crustaceans for them to feed on. April redfish want all the different nondescript mud minnows and glass minnow baitfish, but at the same time they’ll eat a shrimp or small crab in a heartbeat. Shrimp are still running in April, so they’re a major forage item for the redfish that month. Finger mullet are another good bait to throw at them, and keep in mind that a lot of the mullet are really small in April.
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