I can remember as a kid my little league baseball team chose black shirts for our uniforms. If there was even a hint of sun, it would find those shirts and you were hot and miserable in no time. I can’t remember how many games we won or lost, but I could tell you how many sunny days we had. While dark colored clothes are not the best choice for summer days in the Lowcounty, they are great for warming up in the winter months.
Much like people, fish seek temperatures that are comfortable to them, and much like clothes, the color of the bottom in shallow water can influence where fish will congregate for comfort. One of my favorite winter time flats is a high, light colored, sandy bar on one end. On the other end it is a very dark muddy bar. During the fall and early winter you will find most of the fish over the sandy end of the flat. By mid winter, the fish are congregated over the darker bottom, where the sun has more of a warming effect.
It is also important to point out that this was a flat normally fished after low tide on incoming and only held fish on a sunny day. Much of the flat was exposed at low tide and the sun was really able to heat it up. As the incoming tide covered the darker bottom, smaller baitfish would show up with the larger fish right behind them. The flat was also more productive with this scenario happening later in the morning or early afternoon.
Anyone that has spent any amount of time in the Lowcounty knows we have plenty of shallow dark muddy areas lining our creeks and rivers. Normally we curse them when we find them because we have misjudged a channel and ended up knee deep in mud trying to get our boat back into deeper water. The dark muddy flats, bordered by deeper water are great places to look for hungry fish during the winter months. So the next time you run up on one of those nasty pluff-mud flats, make a note of where its location. You never know you may find a totally different appreciation for it when it comes to cold water fishing.
Tight