Spottails can be taken from the bank anywhere you have access to a salt marsh or the surf. But most fish are landed from a boat by anglers working the grass edges of salt marshes.

One Grand Strand guide, however, combines the two approaches to land coldwater spottails.

“The marshes of the north coast don’t feature a lot of flats,” said Capt. Mark Dickson of Shallow Minded Charters (www.fishmyrtlebeach.com or call 843-280-7099) in Cherry Grove. “We have a lot of tidal creeks, and it’s fun to sneak up on reds in these creeks.”

Dickson uses his boat to reach shallow creeks that might run only 18 inches deep but feature a bend that might have as much as 6 feet of water in it. He ditches the boat and sneaks along the creeks in hip boots.

“The reds will run in the shallows or the straightaway, then go back to the bends if they feel threatened or get spooked,” Dickson said. “Once they believe the threat is gone, they move back into the shallows.

“Because the fish are on high alert of dolphins, the fish are very spooky. Fishing from a boat is just too noisy.”

Dickson said winter reds could be really lethargic, so you want to fish a slow-moving bait that time of year. He recommended a scented soft-plastic 1-inch peeler crab bait on a circle hook with a Carolina rig. He said to only move the bait inches at a time.

SPOTTED SEATROUT The most popular time for spotted seatrout fishing is during the cooler months of fall and winter. During the dead of winter, hard-core anglers target the sluggish fish in deeper holes and try to capitalize on the first wave of roe trout that arrive inshore in the spring. Once the weather gets oppressive, a consistent trout bite is normally limited to low-light conditions at dusk and dawn or during the night.

Capt. Judy Helmey of Miss Judy Charters (www.missjudycharters.com or call 912-897-4921) in Savannah ventures over the state line often and said many fishermen don’t realize about a productive form of trout fishing.