Doubling up on marsh hens and redfish
Summer 2025
By Polly Dean
Cast ‘n Blast is popular along the marshes of Georgia’s Atlantic coast. Such a day combines targeting redfish for a few hours in the marsh as the tide rises, with a couple of hours of hunting marsh hens when the tide reaches full flood. Obviously, the fall and winter months during hunting seasons are the ideal times for such a venture. Additionally, you need a moon phase that provides extreme high tide levels to get a boat back in the marsh grass.
It was those conditions that drew me to the boat of Capt. David Edens at St. Simons Island in October. Capt. Edens specializes in sight fishing for reds using fly fishing gear on mud or grass flats, adding in the option for targeting marsh hens when conditions are right.
Capt. David Edens (right) helping show off a St. Simons Island redfish taken by jimmy Jacobs. Photo by Polly Dean.
Since waters are rarely clear on Georgia’s coast, we were often looking for the surface signs of a moving redfish. rather than catching sight of the fish itself. Signs of a fish may be a subtle wake caused by a cruising redfish. Sometimes the tail may be visible as the fish noses around in the mud looking for food, such as fiddler crabs. At times, the wake may be a single fish, or a much larger wake caused by a school of redfish. Another hint is seeing grass moving, caused by a red moving through the marsh. We were armed with 8- and 9-weight fly rods, with a leader of at least 9 feet of 15-pound monofilament. We were using relatively small tan Clouser Minnows with lightly weighted barbell eyes. We didn’t want the landing of the fly on the water’s surface to spook the fish. The captain recommends making the fly look alive by stripping two short strips, followed by a longer strip during the retrieve.
Spooky fish may call for downsizing to a 6-weight rod, a lightly weighted fly and 10 to 12 feet of leader, matched with a good disc-drive reel. If encountering calm, slick water conditions, Edens recommends breaking out that lighter rig.
Edens also emphasizes the need for a strip strike! This is done by keeping the rod pointed toward the redfish, grasping the line at the reel with your free hand, and giving it a hard and fast tug to embed the hook in the fish’s mouth. By keeping the rod in a straight line pointed toward the fish, you avoid losing pressure on the fish with the bend of the rod’s tip. You want the line and the leader to deliver the pressure of the hook set.
Once the tide got high enough to make finding the reds difficult, it was time to get out the shotguns. The term marsh hen is used for the birds we would be hunting, but that can be a bit confusing. Moorhens (gallinules), Virginia rails, clapper rails and king rails all are referred to as marsh hens. What we were hunting were the clapper and Virginia rails, both of which are found all along the coast. These two species are so similar, you need to be a bird watcher to tell them apart.
Easing through the grass in search of marsh hens. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
As we poled into a grass island, a couple of marsh hens flushed from where they were tucked into the spartina. We didn’t have our shotguns ready and even Capt. Edens was a bit surprised when they took to the air as quickly as they did.
The preferred scenario is for the bird or birds to take to the air as the boat eases too close to their comfort zone, which is typically only 10 to 20 yards or so. I did learn during this particular hunt from Capt. Edens, that marsh hens don’t like to fly and are more apt to dive under the surface of the water and swim to another location. We saw that this was indeed the case on numerous occasions. Most of the time we could see where they “popped” up again several yards away.
The time to hunt marsh hens is during a flood tide, when the birds are pushed higher with the water column and forced toward the top of the grass. That’s because the hens tend to stay tucked into the spartina cover. Regulations require that hunters in boats cannot use the engine or trolling motor to ease through the grass, while flushing the birds. Boats may only be poled or paddled through the marsh grass.
The author with a marsh hen. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
In preparation for the hunt, I asked Capt. Edens which firearm I should bring along. He suggested a 20- or 28-gauge shotgun with an open choke. The birds don’t fly very fast, so with a tight choke one needs to wait until the birds get farther away for the pattern of shot to adequately open up. David also suggested 7/8- or 1-ounce dove loads. Steel shot nor a federal duck stamp are required for this hunting. The captain also emphasized that this isn’t a hunt that you would want to have your expensive Beretta along in the salty conditions. Being on salt water, he suggests a coat of oil and cleaning the shotgun well after the hunt.
Clapper and Virginia rails feed on snails and small invertebrates in the marshes. They are about 14 to 15 inches in length, with a long slender bill. The meat is tender and flavorful, with a taste similar to the dark meat of a domestic chicken,
Capt. Dave Edens owns Orvis-endorsed Fly Cast Charters out of St. Simons Island. He specializes in stalking redfish in the famed Marshes of Glynn in the Peach State’s Golden Isles region. Check out his website for details.
Polly Dean is an award-winning writer, photographer, angler and hunter, who makes her home in Athens. She is a member and past president of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. Polly is the Associate Editor of On The Fly South. She can be contacted at pollydean22@gmail.com.